Your phone buzzes. You ignore it. You already know who it is. Home. Your mother, probably, with another guilt-trip disguised as concern. Or your father, drunk, pretending he's not. You take another drag and let the smoke curl out between your lips, watching it dissolve into the gray sky.

The cigarette burns down to the filter. You stamp it out on the pavement and stand, your bones heavy. You should go to class. At least for the attendance. The professor—some grad student with glasses too big for his face—usually takes roll in the first ten minutes. You have time.

You cut through the narrow corridor between the science and art buildings, a shortcut you've taken a hundred times. It's always empty, always damp, the brick walls weeping with moss. You're already thinking about the lecture, about how you can tilt your head back, close your eyes, and let the drone of his voice wash over you until the hour ends. You don't see the person coming around the corner.

You don't see anything until you collide.

There's the impact—a solid, unmoving wall of a person—and then you're on the ground, your palms stinging where they scraped against the concrete, your bag spilled open beside you. Pens and loose papers scatter across the wet pavement.

You look up, blinking against the sting of the cold air, and the first thing you register is white. White hair, silver-bright in the dim light, falling across a pale forehead. Glasses, slipping down a straight nose. A face that's all sharp angles softened by panic, wide blue eyes staring down at you from behind the lenses.

He holds your things out to you, not quite meeting your eyes, the tips of his ears flushed pink.