Some people say that the moment you meet that person, the rest of your life begins.  The second you shake hands, or awkwardly nod to each other over the roar of a Saturday night party.  In that second, according to some, the direction of everything shifts; you are Alice falling through the rabbit hole.  They say it can only happen once. 

They must have met in September.  It was a communications class, a requirement for a degree in business; a common enough goal.  Any combination of two thousand students in business could have been in that class.  Out of those two thousand, any one of three hundred could have chosen the seat beside her.  

She sat with the notebook resolutely before her, a pen cradled loose in her palm.  

He looked at her with a hidden smile and dark, round eyes, saying nothing as one thousand thoughts whirred blindly through his brain.   (Kettering from Hospice)

The Antlers