We strolled around the grounds some more, chatting about the summer, the classes, the friends we'd seen.

Cece told me that she was already planning on going abroad for a year after her third year.

“New Zealand,” she said solemnly.

I frowned.

New Zealand. New Zealand. Something was there. I couldn't quite grasp it, but it was there. Something like a tickle in my head.

A tickle that grew stronger and then uncomfortable and then to a throbbing and stabbing sensation.

I closed my eyes, tried to block out the brightness and the light and thus block out the stinging. A shock came over me and I held my head.

“Are you okay?” Cece interrupted herself and I heard her sitting close to me.

“Do you have a headache, do you need anything?” she sounded worried.

Even though my head felt like it was about to split open, I seemed to have a good handle on myself because Cece just put a hand on my back and gave a light, soothing pat.

I gritted my teeth. “Hospital room,” I simply said and she led me along the path back towards the university building.

We had walked further than we thought. It took forever and my headache continued the whole way through.

Why didn't I bring my sunglasses with me today of all days?

I continued to squint until we arrived in the cool building, where it was also darker. Cece accompanied me to the hospital room.

When we arrived, a young man was busy on his computer playing solitaire. He was placing an ace of hearts on a king of clubs and the card hissed back to its starting point. He clicked his tongue in annoyance.

I could just see that he was staring at his computer as we entered and then looked up.

I looked around for a bed to lie down on and took the first one that came to the right of the door. Cece briefly stroked my shoulder and then talked to him - I have no idea what his position was. Nurse? Guidance counselor? Somehow it all didn't quite fit. But it was a hospital room and I accepted it.

After a short while Cece came back to me and held something to my lips. I gulped down the water. It was a balm to my dry throat and I closed my eyes again and leaned back.

“You can go, you have a lecture,” I said to her.

She sighed. “I can’t leave you here alone.”

I made a half-hearted dismissive gesture.

“Oh, I'm not alone,” I pointed in the direction I thought the young man was.

She snorts. “You’ll be happy to be alone with him when you open your eyes later. He’s so hot.”

I sighed. “Bro, you're really superficial sometimes. Before the professor, now him. What will become of you?"

She giggled, gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and then set off. "See you later. Call me on my cell phone if anything happens.”

I nodded, put my arm over my eyes and enjoyed the peace that came over me.

From outside I could hear the shuffling of students walking past individually or in groups, the babble of voices, laughter and shouts. Everything was toned down by the fortunately well-damped door.

I was surprised at how violent the headaches had suddenly come over me. I've never had any problems with migraines or attacks of weakness - my first two best ideas. Even when thinking about what I did today, I could not explain it. I had drunk enough water and eaten enough.

Maybe the Reese thing? Or the whole day today? After all, it had been pure stress.

After a while, when it became quieter outside - since most of the students were in lectures - I heard another click, heard the guy taking a few steps and suddenly felt movement on my legs, then my hips and my stomach. A blanket was carefully placed over me.

As the blanket was pulled up a little further, I quickly grabbed the person's wrist and hissed, "Careful."

He immediately dropped the cover on me and retreated hastily.

“I’m sorry, I thought you were sleeping,” said the voice.

I snorted. “That doesn’t make it any better.”

He cleared his throat again. "It was not meant like that. I just didn't want you to be cold. “

His voice sounded strangely familiar to me, but I couldn't quite figure out why. His footsteps moved away again.

“You can't put the ace on the king, the ace comes first. It's basically the number one. And depending on what kind of game it is, you have to alternate red and black. If you don’t follow that, it won’t work.”

Short silence, then a quiet, melodic laugh. "You make me think you're weak and sick and have been spying on my computer."

I didn't answer but had to smile slightly.

I let my arm rest a little over my eyes and felt inside my body. The pain slowly faded, very slowly but surely. The throbbing was no longer as strong and after a while I opened my eyes.

The ceiling above me was white and slightly stained. Was that from dirty air? After all, it wasn't that easy to get stains on the ceiling.

I looked at it for a while until I got tired of it and sat up as a test.

My dizziness was now gone and I noticed that Cece had refilled the cup with water next to me and placed it there.

I could smooch her.

I downed it in one go and then looked around.

I hadn't been in the hospital room once in the last two years. It wasn't huge, but it could fit three beds, all with pillows and blankets. Mobile curtains were set up to provide privacy. Mine hadn't been closed, but there was no one else in the room either.

All I could see was the dark back of the head of the nurse sitting at the other end of the room, typing something on the keyboard.

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“Sorry,” I said quietly and looked over at him.

“Yes,” he said without turning around. He continued typing and made no move to get up.

I groaned, threw back the covers and stood up.

“Shouldn’t you do your job and, I dunno, somehow get me some water or ask some questions or something? What do you do as a nurse?”

He snorted and finally turned around. “I'm not a nurse, I'm a working student…” And when our eyes met, he fell silent.

We looked at each other for a moment.

Then his lips curled into a grin and I raised my eyebrows.

“We know each other,” he then said, breaking the silence. I nodded slowly, he was right.

His dark hair and those dark brown eyes looked familiar, but I couldn't quite determine where from.

“Are you going to university here?” I asked.

He shook his head and looked at me thoughtfully.

I frowned. “You said you were a working student here.” He didn’t respond and continued to look at me.

So I started to feel uncomfortable and crossed my arms. Then he snapped his fingers.

“That’s why I know you! The swimming pool!” he grinned broadly.

My eyes widened. "That was you! You pushed me into the water!”

He raised his hands defensively. “Hey, that wasn’t intentional. But you stood there the same way, arms crossed and with the same amount of skepticism in your eyes.”

Then he looked me up and down with an exaggeratedly suggestive smile. “But you were wearing significantly less. And you were a little wetter.”

He grinned even wider and I snorted. "Not so professional for a nurse."

He stood up and looked at me mockingly angry.

"As already mentioned, I'm not a nurse."

I made a dismissive gesture. Then I looked around for my bag that Cece had left for me, grabbed it and went to the door.

"I feel better. Thanks for the supervision and care.” I grinned at him, intentionally teasing him.

Before he could say anything else, I closed the door behind me. My cheeks were still flushed and I shook my head. Very strange. I was usually very good at remembering faces. Especially since it had only been two days since we had seen each other.

I said goodbye to Cece after the courses finished and met Ariana at the benches near the entrance area, surrounded by tall green bushes.

She was sitting there, talking on the phone. She waved to me when she saw me and I sat down next to her.

“I love you too,” she said into the phone and hung up.

“Ahhh, you guys are so cute!” I said jokingly and grinned at her.

She smiled, but then narrowed her eyes in concern. “Cece told me you would be coming later because you weren’t feeling well? I thought about picking you up, but Yuma called and now you were faster.”

I shrugged. "It's fine, I just had a headache."

She seemed to only half believe me. She knew me too well and knew that I had a pretty high tolerance for being sick and rarely gave up, even with a bad cold or even the flu.

To distract her, I said, “Guess who the nurse was.”

She shrugged her shoulders and said a few names of friends.

“Oh, that’s taking too long,” I interrupted her and grabbed both of her shoulders.

Then I looked directly at her and added: “The boy from the swimming pool.”

I let the words float in the air between us for a moment.

She thought about it, but couldn't think of it. "Swimming pool? What guys did we see there?”

“He pushed me into the water…”

She jerked her head up, laughing. "The Ariel guy?" I nodded.

"What is he doing here? The world really is a village.” She was still giggling.

“Was that awkward or something? Did he feed you pudding with a spoon?”

I pushed her slightly so that she almost fell off the bench. “Of course not."

We talked for a while, then went to the parking lot and drove home together.

I had to say, it wasn't bad at all for the first day.

__

I thought about the day as I stood in the kitchen at home, stirred the sauce with a wooden spoon in the pan and looked out of the window.

I was careful not to spill the red sauce on my white T-shirt, but unfortunately I had no luck.

I was then mindlessly scrolling through my phone and put it away when I heard the key in the door.

My mother came into the house with full bags in both arms.

“Well darling, how was your first day today?”

She placed everything on the kitchen table with a groan and then went back to take off her shoes.

I was already peeking into your bags and starting to empty them. “Uhhhh, you brought the nice spring rolls,” I commented with a smile.

She smiled and helped me put the things away.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you changing the subject.”

I pursed my lips. “My day was pretty good so far. I've seen a lot of people again, especially Cece. And Reese,” I added.

My mother looked at me in surprise.

“Well, I mean, it was clear that you guys would run into each other at some point. But on the first day? After all, the university isn’t exactly tiny.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Well, at some point it would have been the first time again.”

When the pasta and sauce - I wasn't exactly known for my outstanding cooking skills and had to resort to pasta - were ready, we sat together on the terrace, enjoyed the afternoon sun and talked about professors, courses, my mother's work, and also Ravi.

“You’re a really great daughter, you know that?” She sighed.

Embarrassed, I sucked a piece of spaghetti into my mouth. “Why are you getting melancholy?”

“Well, you’re moving out of here next week. As a mother you become melancholic.”

She looked at me sadly. “I feel like it was just yesterday that I changed your diaper.”

I nodded. “Okay mom, this is going to be a little uncomfortable for me.”

I got up, kissed her on the cheek and then carried both of our plates into the kitchen.

The next few days were relatively uneventful. Ariana took me to university like every day, always with a different genre on the radio. First hip hop, then pop, then rock and then techno. It was like a musical emotional rollercoaster. But Ariana celebrated every single song, whether she knew it or not.

I didn't see Valeria much these days because she had different course times, but we texted each other and I told her about the encounter with Reese and the guy at the swimming pool, whose name I still didn't know. She hung enthusiastically on my every word.

She also pictured the handsome professor grinning. “You’re so lucky,” she gushed.

I saw the hot professor twice more; I only had a few hours with him a week.

Cece and I spent a lot of time together, as had done the first two years of study, due to many identical lectures and courses. Other fellow students also joined us more often, so we often sat in a group on the lawn and complained about the university or the heat that was still lingering, or laughed about gossip. André, a fellow student in my statistics course always acted as if the subject matter was the end of the world. But he was funny, nice and always shared his snacks, freshly made by his French mother.

All in all, the days were very relaxed. I got back into university and the social life around it well.

Friday came as quickly as the blink of an eye. I had spent most evenings with my mother so I could have some quality time with her before I moved out. However, this evening she wanted to go out with Ravi. She had asked me if I wanted to come with her, but I politely declined. I didn't want to become the third wheel on the date.

Ariana and I drove home from Uni as usual and made plans to meet Valeria and Selma at the drive-in movie that weekend.

Even though Selma wasn't "officially" part of the group yet and she was more of Ariana's friend, I was happy to see her again.

We said goodbye with a kiss on the cheek and Ariana drove away in her bright blue car.

I spent the rest of the afternoon reading on the lounger on the terrace. I was immersed in Elisabeth Bennett's remarks as she tried to explain to Mr. Darcy why she was outraged by his words about their class difference when I was interrupted from my thoughts by a ringing sound.

I looked at my cell phone, which was next to me, but it remained dark. Then I realized it wasn't my phone at all, but the doorbell.

I got up and padded barefoot across the living room.

When my mother asked from upstairs who it was, I shouted back that I didn't know and would take care of it. Since our door didn't have a camera or a window, I couldn't really see who was standing there. Only the window in the living room revealed a pair of legs in short shorts.

I frowned. Had Ravi come earlier now? But then her mother would have known about it.

With the book still between my fingers, I opened the door with a swing and then looked surprised into Reese's very familiar eyes.

“Um, hi,” he said, slightly embarrassed, scratching the back of his neck.

“Hi,” I said, looking at him questioningly and not really knowing what to say.

Just like this morning at university, we stood in front of each other, embarrassed.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, leaning against the doorframe as if I wanted to make my relaxed state abundantly clear.

“I, um, just wanted to come over and say hello. How are you?"

I suppressed a snort and just looked at him. “It’s a little uncomfortable, don’t you think?”

He nodded. “Well, I didn’t want to leave it like that at Uni today. We’ll meet each other more often and stuff like that.”

I saw him narrowing his eyes slightly.

The sun was no longer there, but it was still warm.

“Would you like something to drink?” I asked him with a sigh and nodded my head behind me into the cool house.

He hesitated for a moment, whether honestly or out of decency, I didn't know, but then agreed. "Gladly."