I met Lucas Vega my freshman year of college. 6 foot 3 inches, 155 pounds of sun-burned, stubbled Argentinian male. He had wire rimmed glasses that had gone out of season a decade ago and long, shaggy dark hair, a lingering remnant of the Justin Bieber era.

It was a Halloween party a few months into the year. He was there alone and I'd been dragged along with my roommate, Heather. She was just the sort to use any excuse to expose her midriff, not that she needed one, so Halloween was her favorite holiday.

I was dressed like a cat, having had to find myself a costume last minute. Luckily, every girl owns a pair of black skinny jeans and a passably tight black long sleeve shirt. Even more luckily, the only convenience store on campus had one last pair of kitty ears. Though it cost half my meal plan to buy them.

Lucas was dressed as a robot, cheesy aluminum foil taped sparingly to the cardboard boxes on his forearms and the one he wore like a hat.

We bonded over our lame costumes and our lack of any desire to be there. He told me that he had a girlfriend, someone back home in Argentina where he'd grown up who had promised him that long distance would work. And it was long indeed seeing as he was attending UCLA. I told him about my sister who had just gotten into med school and my parent's lack of appreciation for my art. He thought it was cool that I wanted to be a screenwriter. I thought it was cool that he programmed. We were a friendship match made in nerd heaven.

For the next few months, we did everything together, even planning our class schedules around one another's for the following semester. I tutored him in English every afternoon and he taught me Spanish every evening. I drove him to the airport when he flew home for both major holidays and was always there to pick him up when he returned.

As the winter turned to spring, we were together through it all. He was there when I got my first internship at a local studio. I was there when his hometown girlfriend broke his heart. He was there when my father got remarried to a woman my age and I was there when his debate club won regionals. We were each other's profoundest supporters, biggest cheerleaders, and best confidantes.

Nothing changed for sophomore year. Friday nights were for staying in, watching a terrible old horror movie and laughing so hard we snorted, trying to throw candy into one another's mouths from across the room. Saturdays were spent out, exchanging amused glances anytime someone from our broader friend group got too wasted and did something foolish. Sundays were for catching up on homework we neglected the rest of the weekend, sprawled out on the floor of my dorm listening to music and asking each other questions about what part of the world we wanted to see the most or who we wanted to become.

Junior year brought me my first serious boyfriend and Lucas welcomed him with open arms. Until he broke my heart by cheating on me with Sarah Waller and Lucas broke his nose with a mean right hook in the parking lot of the seven eleven. He held me close while I sobbed against his chest in his 1997 Pontiac Sunfire.

I swore off men and made new friends Senior Year. Girls from my women's studies class. They were wild and fierce and Lucas had a major crush on one of them. Abby Rhodes. I spent the whole first semester trying to get them together and the whole second one gagging whenever I came across them making out in his room.

But their passion was as short lived as it was bright. Abby joined the peace corps and left UCLA before she even finished her classes. Lucas said there was no future for them and it was my turn to hold him in the dingy lobby of my shitty off campus apartment building.

I loved Lucas. I loved him more than anyone I'd ever known outside of my family. So when he came to me one day, a week before graduation, eyes ringed red from a sleepless night of crying and screaming into the void, claiming that he'd received a letter from ICE that he was going to be deported the day after graduation as that was when his student visa expired, I didn't hesitate.

I asked him to marry me.

There had never been anything even remotely romantic between Lucas and I. Not even a hint of flirtation. But I loved him in a way that meant just as much and I knew how badly he wanted to stay in this country, how much he needed to in order to make his dreams come true. And he would. There was no one on this earth with the determination and sheer willpower of Lucas Vega. So if I had to sign a little certificate to make it happen, hey, that's what friends do.

That very same week I heard back from NBC about the internship I'd applied for. I'd been accepted. Lucas lifted me into the air in the parking lot of that same seven eleven and we spent the whole afternoon drinking celebratory cherry-flavored slushees until we made ourselves sick.

On Thursday, we went to the courthouse, signed the papers, went through with some silly ceremony the presiding judge said was a requirement, and left making jokes about our sham marriage, calling each other husband and wife for the rest of the day. On Friday, we graduated. My parents caused a scene when my mother, unable to help herself, called my dad's new wife a whore under her breath and got a high heel to the back of her calf in return. Lucas helped separate them. We thought it best not to enlighten them about our arrangement. On Saturday, I got on a plane to New York City. Lucas took me to the airport, hugged me, wished me luck, and made me promise to keep in touch.

I did. For a while.

But after a year, it was clear that life was taking us in two different paths, both of which, it seemed, we're paved with long working hours in far apart time zones and a lack of attention to even basic nutrition, much less finding the time to make a phone call. Besides, nobody kept in touch with their college friends. Right?

In truth, I'd forgotten about Lucas, about how I'd never felt more myself than I did with him, about how college with him was the most free and happiest I'd ever been, about the friendship we'd had that was more than any I'd experienced before.

My life turned to late nights and long days. I made new friends, some of which I moved in with to afford New York City's astronomical rent. I left NBC after a two year internship with no job offer and landed at a low budget studio with one successful, albeit mediocre sitcom in their lineup. I started out as a staff writer and rose through the ranks to become chief among them. But still, it was a shitty sitcom with cringy actors that somehow kept making it through season after season. Needless to say, it wasn't the dream. But it was close enough, for now.

I called my parents but never visited, not wanting to see my dad and too busy to see my mom. I lost track of my sister when she married and moved to Washington. Her two kids and doctor's schedule kept her even busier than me.

I was twenty eight, I was mature. I was someone new and enjoying figuring out who that was. And I wasn't thinking of Lucas Vega even one bit when I stepped into my apartment that lovely spring day.

"Leah!" I shouted into the empty loft. "Are you here?"

"On the phone, one sec!" My nutritionist/yoga instructor roommate called from her room down the hall.

I tossed my things onto the table by the door and trudged into the kitchen, absentmindedly trying to count the hours It had been since I'd last slept. Sixteen. Or maybe eighteen?

"Ugh," I groaned, reaching into the back of the fridge and pulling out a mostly empty carton of orange juice. "Connor always forgets to pick up more juice."

"Connor's right here and fabulous and didn't forget," a familiar voice said suddenly, setting a container of orange juice onto the counter with a thud. I looked up at my third roommate, raising a brow at the velvet jacket and patterned shirt he was wearing.

"You're home early," I told him, taking the juice and putting it into the refrigerator. "And dressed very well."

"I took off a bit early. Vince is taking me to Swerve."

"The fancy new sushi place?"

"The very same. But he could only get reservations at four pm so... early bird special, I guess."

I smiled.

"Well, have fun," I told him, my phone ringing from my purse. "Hey, can you–"

"Got it," Leah said as she entered the room, pulling my phone easily from the pouch she knew I kept it in and tossing it to me while chugging her green tea kale smoothie.

"Hello?" I asked into the receiver as I answered it.

"Hello, may I speak to a Miss Piper Clark?" A very official sounding woman said from the other end of the line as Leah and Connor started a whispered argument about whose turn it was to do the dishes in the background.

"That's me."

"Excellent. Miss Clark, I had just a few questions for you regarding your husband. If I could ask for just a few minutes of your time..."

The breath went out of my lungs.

"My husband?" I repeated, voice cracking. The hushed argument silenced behind me.

"Yes, a Mr. Lucas Vega here in Palo Alto, California?" She said, seeming somewhat confused by my surprise.

"Oh! I-Uh yes. Lucas, yeah, I know who you're talking about. I just didn't- I'm sorry, who did you say you were?"

"I didn't. I'm Agent Janine Ashley with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The IRS is doing a standard audit of Mr. Vega's company, Denodado, and they flagged his personal filings over some confusion about his marital status so they referred it to me."

I was nodding despite the fact that I knew she couldn't see me. My palms were sweating, my heart was racing. I was chewing hard on my bottom lip the way I always did when I was especially nervous.

"I've been tasked with seeing this matter settled, Miss Clark. I just want to get to the bottom of this so please, bear with me. You and Mr. Vega have been married for six years now, yes?"

I sat down on the couch, face scrunching up as I tried to count back the years and remember.

"Six years next week," I told her, silently thankful we'd gotten married so close to graduation so that I could remember the date.

"Right, uh huh, but you live in separate cities?"

"I- uh, yes. We didn't want to, um, hold each other back from our individual dreams. But mine were here and his were... there so–"

"I see. Were you aware, on the day of your wedding, that Mr. Vega faced deportation post graduation as his student visa was expiring?"

I hesitated, hoping watching those actors all these years had paid off, about to give the performance of my life.

"He did?" I asked, feigning surprise. "I didn't realize he wasn't a citizen already."

"Uh huh," Agent Ashley drawled slowly. It wasn't clear whether or not she actually believed me. "So let me get this straight. You and Mr. Vega are happily married and have been living in a successful, loving long distance relationship for the past six years."

"Of course," I told her. "I mean, it's not perfect. Every marriage has it's ups and downs but I'd be insane to stay married to him this long for a green card, right?"

Dead silence on the other end of the phone made me burst out into nervous laughter.

"So you wouldn't mind testifying to that effect?" She asked and my heart dropped straight through my chest to my stomach.

"Testifying?"

"Yes, ma'am. In order for us to close our investigation, we'll need to question you both, in person, and we'll need a statement from you advocating for the authenticity of your marriage. I assume you will be able to fly out to California for a few weeks to see this matter resolved?"

I just sat in silence, blinking in stunned shock.

"Miss Clark?"

"Oh, um, I suppose I can–"

"Great. Call my office as soon as you're settled in and we can discuss next steps."

Without so much as waiting for a goodbye, Agent Janine Ashley hung up, leaving me listening to a dead line, eyes wide and lips parted in surprise.

"You're married?" Someone shouted and I jumped, remembering Leah and Connor for the first time. I winced at their wide eyed stares.

"Oh, um..."

I launched into the story and, when I'd finished, they were both grinning. But as soon as I began to ask why they were smiling, they burst into a fit of raucous laughter.

"It's not funny!" I shouted above the hilarity. "This is serious. I have to swear an oath. They could charge me with perjury or... something. They could deport Lucas. It's not funny."

"Did you forget you were married?" Leah asked, wiping the tears from her eyes.

"Because that's actually hilarious," Connor said and they both started laughing again.

I just rolled my eyes and stormed from the room to pack.

For the first time in six years, I was going home.