The campus was bigger than it looked in the brochure.
That was Alice's first thought as Bryan pulled into the parking lot and the three of them got out. It stretched out wide in both directions, all open walkways and low buildings and students moving between them in loose groups. There was a particular kind of noise that only happened in places where too many people were nervous at the same time and trying very hard not to look it.
Lucy stood next to Alice and looked around with the expression of someone doing a very thorough survey.
"Okay," she said. "Okay. This is fine. This is good."
"You're doing the thing," Bryan said, locking the car.
"What thing."
"The thing where you become a narrator to your own feelings and saying it out loud because it makes them feel smaller."
Lucy pointed at him. "That's very observant of you and I don't appreciate it."
Alice had already started walking toward the main building.
The other two caught up.
The hallways inside were loud in the particular way of first days, everyone finding their footing, checking their schedules twice, having conversations at doorways while other people tried to get through. Alice moved through it without any real difficulty. He had found long ago that if you walked like you knew where you were going, people mostly got out of your way.
A girl with a large orientation map nearly walked into him at a corner. She looked up, startled, opened her mouth to apologize, and then just stared for a second, the way people sometimes did.
Alice looked back at her.
She snapped out of it. "Sorry! Sorry, I wasn't looking."
"It's fine," he said, and kept walking.
Lucy appeared at his shoulder a second later. "She stared," she said, in the low voice she used when she was quietly indignant on his behalf.
"Most of them do."
"It's rude though I don't blame them."
"It's fine."
"It's not fine. You should tell them off like---"
"No, it's not gonna change anyway." Alice cuts her off. "It's the same result."
Lucy made a frustrated noise but didn't push it because she knew better. Bryan, on Alice's other side, said nothing. He was already looking the hallway in the quiet way he did when he was keeping track of things he needed to remember.
"What are your first classes?" Lucy asked, pulling out her phone to check her own schedule.
"English lit. Then sociology."
"Oh, I have sociology too! Third period?" She held up her phone. Alice glanced at it.
"Second."
She deflated slightly. "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.
"That doesn't mean I want to do it at eight in the morning."
They found the main notice board and spent a few minutes sorting out where everything was. The campus layout was straightforward enough once you mapped it out. Lucy got briefly distracted by a flyer for a film club, then by another one for a baking interest group, then by a third one that was advertising auditions for something she couldn't quite read fast enough before Bryan pulled her away from the board.
"Focus," he said.
"I have many interests," she said.
"You have fifteen minutes before class."
"I can be interested in things quickly."
* * *
Alice found his classroom without any trouble and took a seat near the middle. He always preferred the middle because it seemed the right distance from the board and from the back.
He sat down, set his bag on the floor, and looked at the whiteboard at the front of the room. Someone had already written the professor's name and a quote from a book Alice hadn't read yet. He looked at the quote for a moment and decided he'd reserve judgment until he had context.
The classroom filled up slowly around him. People drifted in, found seats, had quiet conversations with whoever they'd arrived with. A few people glanced at Alice in the way people did, a second too long, 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 quite place him, couldn't file him away neatly, and so they looked a little longer than was polite while they figured it out. He never helped them figure it out. That wasn't his job.
A boy dropped into the seat next to him with more energy than the seat was prepared for. He was tall, a little lanky, with the kind of face that was perpetually in the middle of some expression or another. He shoved his bag under the chair, looked at Alice, and immediately said, "Is this English lit?"
"Yes."
"Thank god." He ran a hand through his hair. "I went to three different rooms. The pamphlet map they gave us is confusing."
"Which building?"
"C block."
"The map labels it D."
"So, it is wrong," The boy stared at him. "How do you know that?"
"My friend told me though if I were you, I'd ask."
He smiled at Alice. "That's smart. That's what I should have done." He leaned back in his chair, apparently fully recovered from the ordeal. "I'm Ethan, by the way."
Alice looked at him for a moment. "Alice."
Ethan blinked. Then, with the careful tone of someone navigating something they weren't sure about: "Cool name."
"Thanks."
He waited to see if Ethan would say something else about it, the pause, the look, the question. Some people jumped to it right away. Some people saved it for later. Some people never got there at all.
Ethan pulled a notebook out of his bag and uncapped a pen. "You know anyone here or are you also starting from scratch?"
"Two friends. Different classes."
"Nice. I came alone, so." He shrugged. "Well, not really alone but most of my friends are not in the same year as me."
"You're talking to me."
Ethan glanced over and seemed to register this for the first time. His expression did something that was almost a smile. "Fair."
The professor walked in before either of them could say anything else, dropping a thick folder on the desk at the front and clicking the projector on. The room settled. Alice took out his own notebook and uncapped his pen and looked at the front of the room.
First day.
It was fine. It was so-so. It was probably going to be a lot of things over the months ahead, some of them good, some of them complicated, some of them the kind of thing that snuck up on you before you knew to brace for it.
But right now it was just a classroom, and a quote on a whiteboard, and someone next to him who had gone to the wrong room three times and didn't seem particularly bothered about it.
Alice decided that was good enough for now.