“It makes no sense,” she said, studying her reflection in the water. I admitted I didn’t understand it either. That maybe some frozen asteroid had once struck the planet. “And somehow, because of the atmosphere, the water …”

Before I could finish my sentence, she pushed me in.

My fear of crashing into the rocks was overtaken by the warm lull of the water. I held my breath for as long as possible before coming up for air, then sat on a large rock in the middle of the pond, my lower body still submerged. My clothes were completely drenched.

“I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t toxic,” she said, and smiled.

“Isn’t this when you’re supposed to dive in?” I asked her.

“You’ve seen too many movies, hon,” she said, dipping her toes in the water. We were silent again, but it was a different kind of silence. Like when we had first met, and we each withdrew into ourselves. I tried guessing how much I’d already missed of my first year of studies, wondering whether there was even a chance of catching the tail end of the first semester.

“That’s what I don’t get about you,” she said and paused as if contemplating her words. “You live your life as if you have no choice in the matter.”

“But you’re exactly the same,” I replied.

She glanced at me before turning back to the water, brushing a hesitant hand through her hair. Then she got up and slowly made her way up the rocks, slipping back into the kingdom of the sun. I stayed in the pond for a while before climbing out of the crater, lying in the shade, and gazing at the purple sky.

On my way back to the apartment I saw her sitting on her favorite dune, staring at the sun with unshielded eyes. I stood beside her. She kept staring.

“So you were actually sent here?”

She nodded, then admitted that for the longest time she had tried getting her act together, but nothing worked. Tried all kinds of treatments that didn’t help. “The only thing that helped a little was being in the sun.” She said that whenever she called her parents on the phone, she could hear in their trembling voices how they were still hoping she’d tell them everything had worked out. “That all this craziness, it was just a phase,” she said. “Like it is for you.”

And then it dawned on me. “Wait, what phone?”

10.