“He imagined her philosophy class desk rolling slowly back towards the wall and out the door, leaving him alone to face the chaos of the university.”

“If he was faking it I had to give him props. It didn’t matter, though; the postcard had guaranteed us our free DVD player if we stayed for the whole thing.”

“There was always talk of a new skyscraper, new developments that would change the view. ‘Providence is on the come-up,’ the mayor always said, or something like that.”

“‘Get home safe kid, hope nobody opens their car door into you today,’ he called back. I shook my head, slid my feet into my bike’s pedals and rode off the other way.”

“One of those days while sitting in his bedroom, speakers blaring, fans cutting through the heat, he asked me while scrolling through a subreddit: ‘What kind of lighter should I get?’”

“But the Myers-Briggs test was starting to percolate through conversation, evidenced by your blank nods and winces every time he raised his voice. The pancakes were also sweeter back home.”

“We worked the pancake shack in the alley. He hated it, and the sounds of Fugazi and Rush’s 2112 just barely got him through.”