Unsure of what to answer, I slid the phone back into my pocket.

Of course, I would love to drink with him and philosophize about antiquity for hours, even in real life. But that was not possible.

As I walked, I took a quick look around and spotted Vivienna with her forty new Quatura friends, she hadn’t even known by name before this semester. Now she, the other two goats, and all these Quatura were sitting under a large gazebo that until yesterday had belonged to the prayer group, acting as if this were their personal temple.

The girls were talking excitedly, laughing loudly, especially the Air Quatura. Yet they all shared the same emptiness in their eyes. The same fate. But Gloria’s serum seemed to work better on them than on me.

Because I was running so fast, I bumped into a guy in the crowd. Startled, I looked up and jumped back.

“Excuse me...” That’s all I could say, as the confused student had already collected himself and continued walking.

And for a moment I had played with the thought that it could be Erik. But this thought was absurd.

I turned around again, but he was already gone.

What is wrong with you, Julie?

I would recognize him immediately if I saw him, wouldn’t I?

With questions now overwhelming me, I sat down on the old bench by the stone table, unpacked my laptop, as well as some binders that made me look busy, and entered my password.

However, I couldn’t help looking around again when suddenly my cell phone vibrated. I winced, not at all ready to answer, when I read who the new message was from.

Of course.

Grace wasn’t used to me leaving without her, and that I actually could had surprised me a bit myself. But I couldn’t do what I was about to do in her presence.

So, I quickly texted her back.

Reassured, I left the chat.

I had pretty much always been readable to others, especially to Grace. Another thing I didn’t like about myself. She could read me, but I could not read her.

My cell phone buzzed again. This time, it was Erik.

My heart leapt. He wanted to meet with me. God, what was I supposed to say to that?

Until now, he had never asked me to meet simply because we both preferred texting. We were open-minded, just J and Erik, two nerds in their bubble.

I had to smile.

It was a relief for me, even if I immediately felt bad. He was open to a meeting, and I was already having a panic attack at the thought of him being on the same campus as me.

I wonder where he was right now? I wonder what he was doing right now. Maybe he was still in bed, had just woken up...on this campus? I wonder if he was sitting in a lecture right now? Or if I was most likely to find him on the athletic field or in the library?

All these unanswered questions made me put the phone aside so I could turn to my laptop undisturbed and a little too nervously. All the while, I couldn’t suppress the burgeoning feeling of excitement in my chest.

What was wrong with me?

This guy had literally triggered something in me, but I didn’t know what it was.

Interest in meeting him after all this time? Curiosity to see what he was like in real life? It had to be because, after all, my fingers moved as if automatically on the keys to get to the student lists via the university website.

It was forbidden, I knew that, but this was Erik and I just couldn’t live with the uncertainty that here every guy I ran into could be Erik, let alone that I attended the same university with him without ever having seen him.

My chest tightened at that thought.

What was this feeling? Almost as if I wanted to see him, as if I wanted to have all those conversations, we’d had in the form of text messages while walking across campus or spending time at the library.

A little further away from the responsibilities he had to carry through his complicated family circumstances. Like he sometimes implied.

We both had always wanted to escape the responsibilities imposed on us by our backgrounds, but with him, it had been a bit more complicated, he had said, without wanting to explain it to me in more detail.

I hardly believed that. His family could not make his life more complicated than mine did for me.

I turned to the list of names, which had just opened and brought me back to the present, and immediately entered Erik in the list.

A whopping twenty-five Eriks were located at Vanderwood, with seven of them spelled with a k. Of those, however, only two were in my semester, like Erik, who had just recently started studying at Vanderwood.

Thoughtfully, I looked at the two Eriks that were displayed to me: Erik Moos and Erik Finchland.

The first was the ungifted son of an Earth Quatura, but I didn’t have much to do with him, since he had been kicked out of the Circle because of his non-existent powers and was now, as far as I knew from Amara, devoting himself to his art studies. Normally all male Quatura babies ended up in orphanages or with foster families, but he had been thought to be one of the rare male Quatura, which in retrospect had turned out to be false. His memories had been taken from him.

So that left Erik Finchland, who even took the same minor as me.

Could that be a coincidence?

Erik Finchland.

I clicked on the picture, where there was a curly redhead with a plaid shirt and lanky shoulders.

I didn’t know why, but somehow, I was disappointed by his outward appearance. I had imagined him completely different: Brown hair, well-trained body. He had said himself that he was very active in sports.

Nevertheless, I decided to take a closer look at this Finchland. He actually looked quite nice and like a gentleman. Maybe he hid his second side well. The one he showed me every day.