The day of the next class, Karina spent twenty minutes choosing her outfit and another twenty minutes blow-drying her unruly wave of hair. She still arrived at the classroom five minutes early and was pondering where to sit when a voice behind her made her jump. “Decided to come back, huh?”

She turned around to find herself eye to chin with John Lennon. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?” she asked, sounding more defensive than she intended.

He raised an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth curled into the beginning of a smile. “It’s a tough seminar. Some people drop after the first class. I’m glad you didn’t.” The smile spread across his perfectly shaped lips. “I’m James, by the way.”

She held her palm up and made a stupid little wave. “I’m Karina.” Then she walked around to the middle of the table and took a seat, and James sat down next to her.

His scent was pure, clean—soap mixed with fresh cut grass. From the corner of her eye, she saw that he wore hiking shoes, athletic socks, khaki shorts and a worn, soft-looking red T-shirt with a faded logo. Distracted, she barely noticed when the professor asked them to form groups. The girl on the other side of James turned to him and Karina’s heart started to fall, but she tapped James on the shoulder. “Hey, you guys mind if I join you?”

James’s face broke into a wide smile. “I was just about to ask you the same thing. I’m a poli sci major and Sophie’s econ.”

“Perfect. I’m enviro sci,” Karina said, though she was technically still undeclared.

They decided to meet at the library two evenings a week. Outside of those meetings, Karina daydreamed about James, imagining his fingers in her hair as he kissed her. She was sure he could see right through her attempts to sound intellectual. One evening, after Sophie left early for a sorority meeting, Karina and James stayed until the library closed at 10:00 p.m. James had his bicycle but she was on foot, so he offered to walk her home. Their discussion along the way drifted away from the seminar, to his summer plans to hike and repair the Pacific Crest Trail, and hers to work at an organic farming co-op in Ecuador. In the darkness across the street from her dorm, James held his bike steady with one hand, and leaned down and touched his lips to hers. Karina immediately felt goosebumps rise on her skin, and a sharp, tingling sensation on her tongue, zapping down to her stomach. She put out a hand to steady herself on his bike frame and wobbled it instead. The bike crashed toward them, digging a gash into Karina’s leg. She yelped in pain before trying to regain her composure.

“Oh, no. I’m so sorry.” James knelt to the ground to look at her wound. “That’s pretty deep. You have to clean and bandage it well. I’ll come in and help you.”