Once the sun begins to fall behind the buildings across the Park, a timer automatically turns on the fairy lights drizzled onto the ivy-covered wrought iron banister that surrounds our terrace. I love knowing there are people my age, twenty-four floors below us, who look up from the sidewalk to see the lights and smoke from the custom brick fireplace and think: What a life it must be up there.

When Graham is sufficiently distracted by the football game, I finally pick up the phone and dial the number I’d been running through my head all afternoon. It’s been three hours since Sarah Keens left that chirpy message and, considering how desperately I’d been waiting for the call, even I’m shocked it’s taken me this long to return it.

But I like to tempt fate. You do it without realizing. Stand a little too close to the yellow edge of the subway platform, unaware of the mental state of the commuters around you. Shove a shoulder into a slow walker on the sidewalk without knowing whether there’s a weapon in his pocket and he’s been eager for an excuse to use it. Wait to call the Times back, knowing they could very well move onto the next, more interesting, more beautiful, wealthier couple anytime.

While this might seem like a low-stakes tempting, it’s not. This could be the most important piece of the wedding. What kind of elite event isn’t covered in an elite newspaper? And this, I can guarantee, will be an elite event. Between the location and the flowers, the dresses and the views, the attendees and the family I’m marrying into, my wedding will be talked about for years. And now it will be immortalized in the pages of the New York Times. An event for the entire world to read.

This is the last piece of my puzzle. The final lock in the chain between me and my life plan. The last thing I needed before I could take my first deep breath in five years, knowing very soon I’d be able to start the rest of my life. The post-five-year-plan life. Just one hundred and twenty-nine hours to go.

TWO

I arrived at college in a state I’d now describe as Poor European Backpacker: two tattered duffel bags in hand, greasy hair, Tevas with a taped-on sole, the doe-eyed wonder of someone truly believing she’s embarking on a transformative adventure. I had no concept of what college was supposed to look like before I got there, but somehow Covenant University was exactly what I imagined: large, bright green quads lined with orange and yellow tulips in front of redbrick buildings crawling with gnarled ivy and endless opportunity.

The students, in their button-downs and pearls; the teachers, in their sweater vests and chinos; the staff, in their white-and-beige uniforms. Everything I saw represented college. And college represented freedom.