You know the temperature’s dropped when the once-gooey mud puddle on the side of the pavement crunches under your feet.

“Meow!” comes from the other side of the road, and I stop and turn, staring. “You!” I call back. “You don’t even live in my room anymore. Don’t talk to me.”

My erstwhile roommate grins at me from across the street, racquet slung over her shoulder, on the way to practice. “I was just back at the room,” she says, “and I was sad. I was like, Meow’s always supposed to be there!”

“And you come the one hour I’m not…” I say, trailing off menacingly.

She gives a non-committal shrug. “I’ll see you later,” she says, and we part ways.

Oh, people.

I always feel a little bit like I have to justify myself– yeah, it’s bizarre, yeah, it’s sudden, yeah, we’re actually really different people but for some reason the mutual– it was there, not even physical at all (oh god no), I don’t know how or why, it just was; the lack of reason or explanation scares me, too. The scramble to justify is absurd– only do my closest friends know, anyway; there’s none of the judging, the scrutiny, the social circle disdain. But they still measure, they calculate, they know my standards and my utter confusion because it’s all a bit beyond me, and I myself don’t understand it. It still bothers me a bit that there’s an inability to move in the societally strict circles of my upper-tier world. I doubt that’s going to change, nor would I want to force that change. It’s not who he is. It’s really not. He’d stick out like a sore thumb. It is part of who I am, though, but I guess I’ll keep tackling it solo. And, as my roommate pointed out, I can’t foresee the future much anyway, so it’s a moot point until further notice.

Better things to worry about for now!

—

I shouldn’t have started out majoring in engineering, but it’s too late now.

—

As I shuffled blearily out of my room this morning, one of my friends strode by. Even without my glasses on and my consciousness at sixty percent, I could tell something was different, and let out a whistle. “Looking sharp,” I drawled at his passing back. “Interview?”

He stopped. “Uh, yeah,” he said sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. “Thanks.”

Ah, my wandering eye and I are quite fond of men in business attire. This typical Asian boy looked rather dashing; I was even more impressed because he dresses very casually (read: like a slob) at home, in the hall. I appreciate that contrast.

—

I own a crystal of guilt; it has since shattered into pieces. There is a fragment in the back of my mind, there is a sliver in the bottom of my heart, and there is a tangible reminder coiled in the bottom of my jewelry box.