The campus was bigger than it looked in the brochure.
That was Alice's first thought as they got out of the car. It stretched wide in both directions, open walkways and low buildings and students moving between them in loose clusters. There was a specific kind of noise that only happened when too many people were nervous at the same time and all trying not to show it.
Lucy stood next to Alice and did a slow scan of the whole thing.
"Okay," she said. "This is fine. This is good."
"You're doing the thing," Bryan said, locking the car.
"What thing."
"Where you narrate your own feelings out loud so they feel smaller."
Lucy pointed at him. "That's very observant and I don't appreciate it."
Alice had already started walking.
The other two caught up.
The hallways were loud in the first-day way. Everyone finding their footing, checking their schedules twice, stopping in doorways while other people tried to get through. Alice moved through it without much trouble. He'd figured out a long time ago that if you walked like you knew where you were going, people mostly stepped aside.
A girl with an orientation map nearly walked into him at a corner. She looked up, startled, started to apologize, and then just stopped for a second.
Alice looked back at her.
She blinked out of it. "Sorry, I wasn't looking."
"It's fine," he said, and kept walking.
Lucy materialized at his shoulder a moment later. "She stared," she said, in the voice she used when she was quietly annoyed on his behalf.
"Most of them do."
"It's still rude."
"It's fine."
"It's not, you should say something, like---"
"It's not going to change anything." Alice cut her off. "Same result either way."
Lucy made a frustrated noise but didn't push it. She knew better. Bryan, on his other side, said nothing. He was already scanning the hallway in the quiet way he did when he was cataloguing things.
"What are your first classes?" Lucy asked, pulling out her phone.
"English lit. Then sociology."
"I have sociology too! Third period?" She held up her screen.
Alice glanced at it. "Second."
She deflated a little. "Okay. Not together. That's fine." She didn't sound like she thought it was fully fine. "Bryan?"
"Business stats and then economics," Bryan said. "I'll be miserable all day."
"You love economics," Alice said.
"Not at eight in the morning I don't."
They found the main notice board and spent a few minutes sorting out the layout. It was straightforward once you actually looked at it. Lucy got pulled off track by a flyer for a film club, then one for a baking group, then a third one she couldn't read fast enough before Bryan steered her away.
"Focus," he said.
"I have many interests."
"You have fifteen minutes."
"I can develop interests quickly."
Alice found his classroom without any trouble and took a seat near the middle. Always the middle. Far enough from the board, far enough from the back.
He set his bag down and looked at the whiteboard. The professor's name and a quote from a book he hadn't read yet. He looked at it for a moment and decided to reserve judgment until he had more context.
The room filled up around him. People came in, found seats, talked quietly with whoever they'd arrived with. A few looked at Alice a second too long, the way people did, and then glanced away when he looked back.
He was used to it. He'd been used to it since he was old enough to notice that people sometimes couldn't place him, couldn't sort him into a category neatly, and so they'd look a little longer while they tried to work it out. He never helped them. That wasn't his job.
A boy dropped into the seat next to him with more momentum than the chair was ready for. Tall, a little lanky, with the kind of face that was always mid-expression about something. He shoved his bag under the chair, looked at Alice, and said, "Is this English lit?"
"Yes."
"Thank god." He pushed a hand through his hair. "I went to three different rooms. The map they gave us is wrong."
"It labels C block as D."
He stared. "How do you know that?"
"A friend told me. I'd double-check if I were you."
He smiled. "That's what I should've done." He leaned back, apparently fully over it. "I'm Ethan."
Alice looked at him for a second. "Alice."
Ethan blinked. Then, carefully: "Cool name."
"Thanks."
Alice waited. Some people went straight for the question. Some people saved it. Some never got there.
Ethan pulled a notebook out of his bag and uncapped a pen. "You know anyone here or are you also starting from zero?"
"Two friends. Different classes."
"Nice. I came alone. Well, not really, but most of my friends are a year behind me."
"You're talking to me."
Ethan glanced over like he was registering that for the first time. Something shifted in his expression, not quite a smile. "Fair point."
The professor walked in before either of them said anything else, dropped a thick folder on the desk, and clicked the projector on. The room settled. Alice took out his notebook, uncapped his pen, and looked at the front of the room.
First day.
It's so-so. Probably going to be a lot of things over the next few months, some of them good, some complicated, some the kind that snuck up before you could brace for them.
But right now it was just a classroom. A quote on a board he hadn't made up his mind about yet. Someone next to him who'd gotten lost three times and didn't seem remotely bothered by it.
Good enough for now.