I watch the sky with a low brow and my “What you talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” glare, bracing myself for Darth Vader’s next storm. “Can you let this one pass quietly?” I ask the God of Light as the chaos maker laughs brazenly on the horizon. I guess not, I think to myself. I guess some falls are destined.

“You look like a Black Xena Warrior Princess standing up there like that,” Connor calls from the bottom of the stairs. “Wait, is that offensive? Sorry. Sorry if that’s offensive.”

I smile while bouncing down the stairs in Connor’s direction.

“How’ve you been? Was thinking about you the other day. You haven’t called so I guess everything’s OK?”

I want to tell him that everything is falling apart, that winter is coming, but I know he can’t really help me and he won’t understand.

“I’m in Rumi’s field now, out beyond all my problems. So yea, everything is fine.”

Connor grabs the straps of his backpack and stares at me in confusion. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or serious. Do you want to go grab a bite and properly catch up?”

“Nah, but thanks. I’m running off to meet some friends. Maybe another time.”

We decide that the best way to release the pressure of midterms is to go dancing at a frat party on Halloween weekend. With seven weeks until finals, the semester is nowhere near over but we need to let loose and are all feeling reckless. It’s the usual crew—Earnell, Keli, Gabby, and me—dressed respectively as a garden gnome, a gangster Cinderella (instead of a wand she carries a baton), and an ancestor. I’m wearing a bloody skeleton costume. It wasn’t my first choice, but it was all they had left for a girl with expanding thighs.

By the time we arrive, the music is blaring and the dance floor is jam-packed with ghosts and ghouls searching for the beat. In this mostly white frat, only a few manage to find it.

“So this is what it means to be young,” Earnell remarks, unimpressed.

We stand against the spiderweb-covered wall, watching in silent judgment. We are only eighteen and nineteen, but already ancient in many ways, having seen the best and worst of what life has to offer.

“I guess we should try to have fun,” Keli says eventually. “I wish the Alpha party wasn’t overcrowded. This looks like peak Caucasity.”