Claudia looked at him. He was imagining her concerns and trying to allay them. He barely knew her and yet he cared enough to consider not just what she might want to eat, but what she might be worried about. Claudia didn’t know many people like that. They walked side by side, not speaking. On the next block, they passed the green-and-pink neon sign for a bubble tea shop, and it ignited a pinprick of light in the darkness of her memory. She saw her hands on the sidewalk, felt an arm around her waist, and the cool night air under her too-short skirt.

“I fell,” she said.

“What?”

Whose arm was it? “Never mind.”

She kept walking. He probably thought she was insane.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Trevor asked. “I’ve just got reading. I can do it there.”

Why did she say yes? Because she trusted him? Because she wanted an audience? Her sister was off social media since getting pregnant and routinely accused Claudia of needing an audience for every moment of her life. I don’t need anything, Claudia protested. It’s just fun.

From outside the glass entrance doors she scanned the waiting room and didn’t see anyone she recognized. She told the receptionist she needed to see a nurse to get some medication and was handed a clipboard.

“Don’t forget to fill out both sides.”

Claudia kept her sunglasses on as she sat beside Trevor in a deep plastic chair. She began filling out the boxes: name, birth date, student ID number, medications. Are you pregnant? Have you ever been pregnant? Do you use alcohol? If so, how much? Do you use other intoxicating substances? She finished the paperwork, signed away her privacy, returned the clipboard to the receptionist, and sat back down. The magazines on the side table next to her were awful. Princess Meghan and Kylie Jenner and Cardi B. Blah Blah Blah. She pushed them aside and picked up yesterday’s copy of the New York Post. SUBWAY SLASHER STRIKES AGAIN screamed the headline, the ink red and the font appropriating a cheesy horror movie poster.

“Did you see this?” she asked Trevor.

He leaned over. “Yeah, I got an alert on my phone this morning.”

“An alert?”

“From the university. I guess it happened at the Astor Place station. My parents are kind of freaking out. I keep telling them I basically never go anywhere except class.”

Claudia put the paper down. It could have been worse, she thought. At least she didn’t get stabbed.

“Ms. Castro?”

A nurse with short blond hair and skinny arms held open a door for her.

“I’ll be here when you get back,” said Trevor.

In exam room 2, the nurse sat on a wheeled stool and pulled a wall-mounted computer monitor toward her.

“What can I help you with today?” she asked, typing.