nervously.

His black graduation robes swayed as we walked hand-in-hand along the pathway, weaving through dense clusters of people.

"Yes, you do," Jake immediately shot over his shoulder. "Like garbage."

Jake and Riley strolled ahead of us—after Krista departed to meet her family—chatting animatedly. Like them, I wore similar robes with the emerald green lapels of the Science Faculty. Riley had ruby red for the Arts.

"Stop teasing him, Jake." I stuck my tongue out at Jake before focusing on Jamie. "You smell fine."

Jake turned his head to grin cheekily at me, leading the way to the Quad—where the majority of seniors had gathered for scenic graduation photos in front of the fountain in its centre.

I knew going into the relationship that Jamie had major performance anxiety—if the precarious moments preceding his Entern presentation proved anything. But after asking about his scent and his outfit and whether he should have learnt Khmer, it was just time to bite the bullet.

"You will be fine," I consoled him quietly. "It's just my parents."

"I need to pee."

"No, you don't."

"You don't know that," Jamie shot back, clammy hand tightly squeezing my own. "This might be a warning to check my bladder health. I should pop to the bathroom—"

I whirled around and planted two hands on his shoulders, looking up into his forested eyes. Jake and Riley took the cue to keep walking, hunting for their families in the bright morning sunlight. The temperature in May wasn't helping either, pasting a sheen of sweat on Jamie's brow.

It was hard not to remember another summer day much like this, when we found each other again at the start of senior year. Jamie had come by the WISA stall to surprise me, and the Quad was flooded with students and parents exactly like today.

But that was orientation, this was graduation.

And both were beginnings.

"They will love you. Probably more than they love me," I said, dead serious.

Not because my parents didn't love me. They did. Lots. Enough to make a banner to hold up when I walked across the graduation stage later this evening—which Mom had proudly sent to the Sok group chat.

It was just that Jamie was so easy to love.

I'd fought tooth and nail not to fall for him; where was I now? Eating my words. He had the humour going for him, the intelligence, the good looks. And the height. And the motivation. And the—

I could go on and on.

Jamie had long since figured out that when I roasted him, he could safely assume I meant the opposite thing. Arrogant oaf. As if the things I had told Mom about juggling varsity football and IT Management already impressed her enough.

Wait until she found out that some investors who attended the Innovating Philanthropy conference were interested in launching Entern as a startup, contractually accelerating its growth for a minimum of three years, with a guaranteed buyout clause if Jamie ever sold his stakes. She would demand I marry him.

"You know how I was so overly selective and judgmental at the beginning of our friendship?" I reminded Jamie.

His eyes darted to mine. "Yeah."

"My parents are the opposite of that. I promise."

"Oh." Jamie paused. Then his face brightened. "Oh, thank fuck."

I scoffed amusedly, placing a quick kiss on the back of his hand, and watched all the anxiety roll away from his posture.

We passed Farrah with a group of her friends on the walk. She spotted us and sent an elated smile our way, forming her hands into a heart around her eye. I grinned and waved in response, practically imagining how—if she wasn't all the way across the Quad—she would chime, looking good, guys. I definitely needed to hang out with her more.

We also passed Krista and Quentin with their respective relatives, clustered under the shade of an oak tree. Naturally, I would have waved, but Krista had about four cameras trained on her by a various collection of family members—and her attention already seemed divided enough, gaze swerving between the different lenses.

As for Jamie and me, our families waited by the fountain. We'd picked such a noteworthy marker to lower the chances of people getting lost. The Tanner clan was much larger than mine. Mine comprised Mom, Dad and Aaron. I counted the Jays' parents, their brother Vallen and his husband, plus Sophie and Luke—Jamie's cousins—and his aunt. Neither family had spotted us walking up.

But they had spotted each other. I could see Mom staring at Kate, Jamie's mother, probably wondering if it was presumptuous to assume she was the woman who fit the bill of looks like Ellen Pompeo but brunette and with a larger nose—the way I had described her. I thought it was accurate.

Similarly, Jamie leaned closer and whispered, "I think Mom's debating if it's racist to assume your family is your family."

I couldn't stop smiling as I watched the Tanners and the Soks hilariously inspecting each other, trying to be discreet about their staring and smiling awkwardly when they caught each other. Jake reached them first—Riley broke off to meet her own support crew—and pointed back at us, sharing tight hugs with his family members.

I met Kate's stare. Her eyes first widened, and then narrowed into a frown in my direction.

Oh, shit.

For a few seconds of scalding panic, I wondered what I had done. I considered the possibility that Kate knew everything I had put her son through and hated me for it, and that I could never redeem myself—

But her features softened as I drew nearer and nearer.

"Sorry for squinting, dear," she chuckled warmly. "I forgot my sunglasses in the car, and I wasn't about to dash back and risk missing you guys. I'm Kate."

"I'm Vivian," I greeted, smiling at her and Jamie's father, who'd placed a hand on Kate's shoulder.

"Michael," Jamie's father introduced himself.

"Hi, Mom," Jamie greeted, folding his tall frame around her shorter, plump one. "Hi, Dad. How was the flight?"

While Jake and Jamie caught up with their relatives, I caught my own parents looking my way—Aaron's hand clutched in Mom's—vindicated in their earlier suspicions that, yes, this particular family was the one they were looking for. I dashed two steps around the side of the fountain and picked Aaron up, whirling him in the air.

"Hi, baby," I cooed, planting kisses all over his chubby cheeks. "I've missed you."

"Viv," he pouted, squirming against my lips. "It's ticklish!"

"Mwah," I smacked loudly, leaving one last kiss before leveraging my little brother's weight against my hip.

Mom and Dad wrapped their arms around me in a fond greeting. "Which one is he?" Mom wondered immediately. "I can't tell them apart. They're wearing the exact same thing! Why are they wearing the same thing?"

"They are both Science majors," I chuckled. "Jamie is the one holding his graduation cap. Oh, wait, he just put it back on."

"I saw him!"

"Oh, good. That's the one you're looking for."

Jamie must have felt the weight of our stares, because he glanced my way, and waved affectionately. With his regal graduation robes, winning smile and handsome face, he looked like the spokesperson for boyfriend material. He looked like my future, personified. Internally, I thanked whoever was pulling the strings of the universe for making us cross paths.

"Wow," Mom breathed, eyes taking in the full height and breadth of Jamie's stature.

"Jesus Christ, woman," Dad and I said in unison. He barked a laugh. "Great minds," he said, holding out his fist.

I bumped my knuckles against his. It was our ritual whenever we said the same thing, which was honestly a lot. I got the drinking gene and humour from him, and the confidence from my mama. As for the snark, that was just a random draw from the gene pool.

I jumped a few times on the balls of my feet, jostling Aaron until he giggled and wrapped his little arms around my neck. "Don't drop me!" he squealed.

"I won't. You want to meet one of my good friends?" I asked Aaron.

Aaron blinked. "No."

Mom and Dad laughed. "He's been doing that lately. Probably learning the sass from you," she said.

"Well, you're gonna, bub," I declared, carting an apathetic toddler away in my arms. I jerked my chin toward the Tanners, gesturing for my parents to follow. "Come on. Let's go meet them."

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

It was irrational how emotional this patch of drywall made me.

Move-out day came way too quickly.

It felt like only yesterday that I sat through an achingly long graduation ceremony, trying to keep myself from slouching in my chair as hundreds of seniors collected their diplomas. Two repetitive hours for two minutes of recognition. When I had marched across that stage, Krista, Riley, and Sushmita were some of the several voices I heard screaming for me. I'd shaken hands with the Chancellor and smiled sweetly at the hired photographer before sitting back down again.

Mom and Dad had waved their hand-crafted banner with gusto. It read VS with glittery hearts, but it just looked like bad advertising for Victoria's Secret. I treasured the effort they'd gone to, however. When Jamie and I moved to New York, I planned to pin that banner up on the living room wall, decor rules be damned.

Then came the goodbyes.

Our RA flitted between all the empty rooms that residents had already vacated, running through the checklist to make sure all the furniture was present and undamaged.

And here I was, getting blubbery at the spot on the corridor wall through which one of Jamie's teammates had crashed his head back in junior year.

The memory was one of hundreds that had survived the flood of alcohol in my system, one of the cherished scenes that I kept tucked away for long plane rides and bubble baths and Sunday afternoons.

"I'm heading off now," Krista told Riley and me.

They had helped me take down the photographs on my wall, slowly erasing any sign that some twenty-something girl had grown, failed, dusted herself off and triumphed within these four white walls.

"Oh, my God," I whined, suffocating and sweating in the tight three-way hug we had going on. "I'm going to miss you so much."

"I know, love. But, I'll see you in a month," Krista told me, referring to the annual girls' trip we took every summer. "And then I'll see you in New York."

"Well, I won't see you in New York," Riley chirped, her hand wrapped around my shoulders, "But whenever I visit, I'll message you guys. As for you," she addressed me, "Carsonville is not that far from Boston, so you must visit me heaps, okay?"

"Girl, you don't even have to say it!"

Eventually, Krista departed, and then Riley did the same. The sky was milky yellow in the late afternoon, when I finally finished packing down my room. Everything was empty and impersonal. The walls, the wooden desk, the closet, the stark white mattress protector.

It felt gratifying to have been the first person to live in this room. I christened this place with good vibes. I even left a note for whoever the next resident would be next year—taped on the underside of the desk to escape the cleaners—with the personal lessons I took away from Halston University.

Here lies a lot of precious memories. Make your own. Kiss that person. Tell the truth. Love your friends. Get those grades. Change the world. And good luck.

Then I wheeled my two suitcases out of the room—having already carted several boxes of my less necessary belongings home, during the week between graduation and now—and shut the door.

I stopped by the drywall again.

I remembered more than just the disastrous origins of the drywall, of course, some even in a completely different light.

I remembered the WISA events he supported me at. I remembered that he made me a hot water bottle for my endo. And the fairytale he told me as I fell asleep. I remembered that I celebrated Valentine's Day after all—ironing our laundry and making each other laugh—which I would be perfectly content to do each year after, if it meant staying with Jamie. I remembered that he chose to do yoga that hurt him, stuck in a motel room with me, instead of sight-seeing in Florida.

And I was so grateful for him.

"Baby," a deep voice sounded, a split second before strong arms wrapped around my waist from behind. "Are you zoning out at the wall?"

"Of course not," I grunted, clearing my throat. I rested my hands on Jamie's, letting our bodies sway quietly in the growing quiet of the eighth floor. It'd never been this silent in all my three semesters here.

I tilted my head sideways, reaching up to place a kiss on his cheek. "Do you need any help?"

"Nope. Everything is so easy with shopping carts and elevators. My last dorm was old, so it had no elevators. Moving in and out was hell compared to this. The car's already packed."

We took the elevator one last time. Jamie and I turned in our room keys at the reception counter and bid farewell to the receptionist. He'd parked his SUV a short walk from the dormitory, waiting for our drive to Boston. Behind me, the dormitory stood tall like a mountain peak, the source of all the rivulets and trails that its residents would carve into the world as their lives took them far away.

Jake was Germany-bound to see Avalon. Riley and Krista were on their way home. And I had arranged for Jamie to stay a few days with me—an arrangement that immensely pleased my parents, who, as predicted, loved him—before he departed for California.

Once Jamie hefted my suitcases into the precise vacancies he'd left for them, like playing Tetris in the trunk, we slid into the front seats.

"Ready?" Jamie asked, his thumb stroking circles on my hand.

I buckled up and grinned at him.

"So ready."