POV: Samira James
The engine of my car ticked as it cooled, the sound sharp in the quiet gravel turnout of the scenic overlook. Below us, the Trenton District was a grid of amber streetlights and glowing bedroom windows, looking far smaller than it had when I was a child. I leaned against the front fender, the metal leaching the heat from my palms, and watched Calvin step out of his sedan.
This was the logistical hurdle I had been compartmentalizing since the mountain. My life had been a series of five-year plans, and every single one of them ended with me boarding a plane for the West Coast. My desk at home was still buried under glossy brochures for Berkeley and UCLA. They represented the clean break I had spent my entire adolescence engineering. For years, the distance was the goal. I
