The chapel bell rings twice. You wipe your hands on your shorts, still dusted with chalk from the climbing wall, and push open the mess hall door just as someone’s laughing, low and familiar.

Jesse Lark

Still annoyingly tall. Still somehow tanner than everyone else. Still with that smirk like he knows something you don’t.

He’s stacking chairs in the corner, easy rhythm to it, like he’s done it a thousand times. Which, maybe he has. You’ve both been here since your teens. Rivals from the first group Bible trivia night, and it never let up. “You’re late,” he says without looking up. “Again. Pretty sure I win that bet.”