I submit

Chris and Jamie first met the night Stanford defeated USC. It was as if the Stanford campus had been turned upside down and shaken.

Each mission-style wall was buckling under the excitement. The fountains were thrashing and flooding high into the sky in lavish ribbon-like arcs. For these two freshmen, still grappling with the ominous nature of this new academia, the tumult was at once frightening and enjoyable. They were ecstatic, of course, but this game just illustrated again something that they had been hung up on ever since arriving. They could sense that with the passing of each bursting fountain they might never understand this place, could no matter how long they labored trace out a path or plan their landing.

For such an extraordinary occasion it should have been that Chris and Jamie meet under entirely unique circumstance. They could have locked gaze while passing Natty Ice at a frat. They could have bumped into each other while dancing at Maples. Maybe Chris was the man she saw leap across fire in the quad, fire licking the soles of his tennis shoes. Or, just as likely, they might just have locked lips during the final notes of “All Right Now,” playing at Trojan stadium – ground zero - in the Stanford Band.

Yet, unlikely as it seems, these two freshmen, with the best night and worst case of Shaken Baby Syndrome behind them, met while retiring exhaustedly into rooms across the hall. A consoling “Goodnight” was all that was needed to set things back in balance. It was all that was necessary to alleviate any worries that may have kept them awake against the pillow, gazing up into the ceiling. The night carried on at 3 am in a nearby frat, in a hotel in Southern California, and across campus for every fountain and student, but Chris and Jamie drifted into sleep much closer to home.