I almost didn’t come. I stood outside long enough to invent three convincing reasons to leave, each one more sensible than the last. I was certain I would walk into a room where everyone already belonged.
Instead, someone met me at the door as though I had been expected. There was no performance to it. A drink appeared in my hand, a boy asked me a question I had never been asked before, and within ten minutes I had forgotten to be nervous.
Sometime after midnight, I realized I had not looked at my phone once. I was in the library, speaking to someone whose name I never learned, and I felt more present than I had in years. I left as the sky was changing. I still think about the person I became after I walked through that door.