His name was Noah.
Lena had not seen him in almost two years—not since his family moved across the state in the middle of junior year, leaving a half-finished group project and a string of messages that eventually thinned into silence. He had been one of the few people from that period of her life who knew how to sit with her without demanding performance. Not a boyfriend. Not quite only a friend. Something in between that had never needed a clean label at the time.
She did not expect him to be standing outside the administration building on Monday morning with a campus map and a lost expression.
“Lena?”
She stopped. For a second the campus noise fell away. Noah looked older in the ordinary ways people did after two years—taller, broader through the shoulders, hair shorter—but the reco
