Destiny Dispatcher

27. I Miss the Old Days

The white and grey walls of the University didn't look especially welcoming when we approached. I didn't know how Jade felt about the building we both had spent years in, but I considered myself a particularly estranged son of my alma mater. Even though I had visited for a couple years after college, it only was because Jade was still a student there, and the guards knew my face and thought we were in the same year; but I never dropped by since she left. Like for Jade, it was my first visit in ten years, and I thought for a moment that I would find the campus disturbingly different.

But as the main building was getting closer, and more and more students were going in circles around the square, the shapes of trees looked exactly the same, about to lose most of their leaves, and everything started to look all too familiar to me, so familiar that my chest got really tight. I remembered the stairs that went two separate ways but always connected on the next floor, and how we always took different flights, just to reunite at the next level; how I would get a cinnamon roll for Jade if she was late and ended up eating it myself and needing to buy another one before she comes in; and how we'd go to the park on the days her classes finished early, and then she'd fix some pasta in my kitchen using the illustrated book of authentic recipes I'd got from an Italian pen pal for my 20th birthday, and I would think our little domestic happiness was to last for a long time.

She stopped right before the large slab marking the beginning of the square.

"Shall we?"

I stalled.

"Have you heard of death from sudden suffocation? Induced by memories?"

I thought she would turn to me and smile at my words, but she didn't. Still looking at the main entrance, she said, "No, never."

I stepped toward her.

"But I'm ready to believe it's a scientific fact," she added. I wanted to ask if she was also remembering some of our time there, but I didn't.

"It's going to be even worse in the cafeteria!" I said instead. I didn't mean it as a warning, but it probably sounded like one.

"Come on, let's risk our lives," she finally looked at me. With a smile, this time. I thought that I would somehow survive our not-so-solemn return.

*

The insides of the building looked indeed different, mostly because of the newly built small room where the security guard was supposed to look at the screens. As I reached the window and looked at his burly shape, it became clear to me that some security measures had been implemented since my last appearance.

"Good afternoon, sir," I tried to sound casual but it probably was pathetic. In my display of confidence, I was wary not to look at Jade and make the guard think we were conspiring about something.

"How can I help you?"

The polite but stern tone of the guard's voice made me seriously doubt the choice of coming here. What was the right answer to that? My first instinct was to say we were going to the Dean's office or something as comical as that, but my old jacket and jeans didn't really send the right message.

"We'd like to go to the library," I said. Who can blame a person for wanting to get some knowledge? If I were the guard, I'd grant myself and Jade a lifetime pass.

"May I see your IDs, please?"

That was expectable. I looked at Jade who was trying to muster up her acting skills and fumbling in her purse at the same time.

"Excuse us, Sir, but we don't have our IDs right now," she said with the confidence of an underage girl trying to make her way past the bouncer at a night club.