There’s a funny little section of the library meant for kids, although I can’t imagine why it’s here, other than perhaps for the children of the professors. It’s only a nook so clearly it’s almost an afterthought. But a cute afterthought. An afterthought of color.

There are little furry seats here and little tables. A few stuffed animals and some multicolored kites harnessed above, five of them, flying above, forming a kind of rainbow skyscape.

There’s something charming and reassuring about this place. As if it’s a second chance at a beautiful childhood. The childhood we all want. The childhood so few of us get.

I take a seat in one of the little furry chairs, a bright blue one. It’s a bit small for me but not too bad. I’m little. Always have been, always will be. I don’t get to be one of those girls you see with long arms and legs, strolling down the runway like she’s about to kill everybody.

The outside light comes through the modernist steel-framed windows, painting this children’s nook in a pinkish orange. Coral. Bright and gleaming.

And there is hope in it. Hope in this place.

Kindness.

I’m practically giddy thinking of all the friends I will have here. All the friends I will make. Nervous, strange girls, just like me. Girls who live in their heads like the rest of the world seems to live in their wallets.

I imagine myself laughing, or trying to keep from giggling in class, at some of the boys from Haverford or Swarthmore who’ve decided to take a class at Bryn Mawr, thinking they could be “with a lot of chicks.” We would eviscerate them with a word. We will be in it together. We young women. We will make ourselves safe. Safety in numbers.

They won’t be able to touch us here.

And isn’t that why we came here?

To be safe?

I’m just about to make my way out of the library, back to my dorm, Radnor, and up to my tiny room on the fourth floor. Apparently, the rooms get better as each year passes, with rooms looking out on the green, with actual stone fireplaces, reserved for a few lucky seniors. These are the many happy facts I remember jotting down in my interview, what was that . . . a year ago. A happy year ago, before the—No, don’t think about that. How can you think about that at a time like this? We are here. You made it!

But before I exit the little nook, I see something. Out the corner of my eye I see something and I want to not see it but I see it. And I don’t believe I see it but I see it anyway.

Even though this is the children’s nook, there are a few beloved books here I can remember. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The Lord of the Rings, Percy Jackson, and, of course, Harry Potter. There are all the Dr. Seuss books from What Was I Scared Of? to The Sneetches to The Cat in the Hat. But there is one book here. One book. That stands out among all others.