The first few weeks of law school are a honeymoon.  You move to a new city, break off the end of a dying relationship, buy $800 worth of books, and try to acclimate.  While drinking and socializing and somehow dropping the summer pounds you picked up.  You love the smell of highlighters.  You love the smell of Boston.  The library is adorable, and you actually read there.

You go out to a friendly dinner with someone you’ve known for a few years, and the conversation and the wine flows and there is so much laughter.  You feel invincible.  You feel beautiful.  You feel like you’ve ended up in the right place for the first time in your life.  You wake up spooned, exactly the same position you were in hours before.  You love his smell.

There’s running along the river, sometimes alone, sometimes with others.  There’s barre class and girls’ night out.  Jeans you can’t afford.  Sprinting home from a bar without telling anyone you’re leaving because he’s waiting for you outside and you jump in without questions, top down racing along Commonwealth.

And then it is October.  And your classmates become shrill.  You have yet to start your outline.  You sometimes forget the right book.  You hate the smell of highlighters.  You are tired.  All the time.  And you wonder on occasion while you’re starfish on your bed watching Hulu again because you cannot bear to open that book if you are in the wrong place.  You break your foot.  You heal.

But this city still pulls you in.  The law is still comforting in a powerful, bizarre way.

It starts to smell like fall.  And he still smells like potential.