People are awesome.

Okay, so they suck, but really, they’re awesome. Seeing the bright warm smile of a friend you haven’t seen in months amid the whitewashed winter landscape brightened my day. I was trudging through the mushy brown snow when she emerged from her dorm, scarved, and wandered over. Her carefully combed golden hair looked like a lightbulb emerging from the pure white scarf.

“I left my phone charger in south,” she said.

“I’ll walk there with you,” I smiled. So we walked, up the stairs and over the ice and across the road and down into the basement and through the door and grabbed her phone charger. And we walked back through the door and up out of the basement and across the road and over the ice and down the stairs and up the elevator and into her dorm. It was warm, with thick white painted concrete walls. One wall was covered in sticky notes with quotes from the suite mates.

“No, you’re saying it wrong. The sound is more at the back of the throat” – Jen, on the pronunciation of the word “cock”

“Blue was a girl,” – Jen “Magenta was a boy,” – Shwacka “and periwinkle the cat was an abomination” – Tom

Her room was tidy, with a fuzzy black carpet and a few of her pencil sketches taped to the wall. In one sketch, a portrait, the left half of a girl’s face was exposed a skeleton, while the right half smiled subtly. The Bachelor was on in the living room. Two of her suite mates were watching it. She collapsed on the couch, then got up, changed into some sort of shorts (which looked kinda like underwear) and came back out. Her hips were on full display, but I assumed this was normal. I followed the curve of her leg from hip to toe. It was elegant, like a cosine, but more human than a graph, more real. And then she burped loudly in a German accent.

“I’m going to bed,” she said. I nodded and put on my coat. As I wandered out the door and closed it behind me, I realized I should’ve hugged her goodbye.

Damn it.