Theo chose a café with terrible chairs and excellent coffee.
I decided that was a point in his favor.
The place sat across from the graduate library, all exposed brick, mismatched tables, and students hunched over laptops as if one unfinished paper separated them from death. Theo was already there when I arrived, a camera bag at his feet and two menus he clearly hadn’t needed.
“You came,” he said.
“You sound surprised.”
“Brynn described you as aggressively busy.”
“Brynn thinks a schedule is a personality disorder.”
“She may have used those exact words.”
I sat across from him. Nothing in my body changed because he was close. That should have been comforting. It was. Mostly.
Theo ordered coffee and a slice of something pretending to be banana bread. He asked about my placement witho
