Things kind of started rolling an hour after December had awakened at 2pm to a voicemail from May, three minutes ago, annoyed, and then practically fell half-asleep down the extremely dusty wooden staircase of their apartment building to hug May in from the cold. They shared the hour over a single re-steeped bag of chamomile tea and a loaf of banana bread that December had made from the last of their blackening bananas.

"Okay, so you had time to bake literally the best banana bread I have ever tasted—I mean what, were you running banana bread experiments in here the whole time, or something, without telling me? Is that what you've been doing this last semester? You got some failed loafs in the trash over there?—Oh, um, here. Thank-you, thank-you." December walked to the sink with May's cup and plate, rinsing them over a tall pile of their roommates' dishes, barely holding back their smile at May's vigorous hand motions and pretend anger. "You have time for that but not to sleep in preparation for this most momentous day of my visitation, to greet me as I deserve when we haven't seen each other in months?"

December rounded back in front of May. "Yeah, you just ate #73. No, . . . I'm kidding, it was easy. I made it last night. I couldn't sleep. I needed to get rid of those stupid bananas. You're welcome."

"Don't you ever sleep? I call you like midnight California time and you always pick up. So that's like 3am or something, right, and you seem to still have a few hours left in you. I mean I know you're always procrastinating, but what is there to procrastinate about at this point? You worried about something?"

"We've had this conversation before."

May sighed. "Okay."

"If you want to know how I feel then let me tell you the dream I had last night."

"You mean this morning, when I was freezing outside your building? . . . Alright fine I kind of like hearing about your dreams, you know in the same way I like watching fucked-up movies. Sorry, that sounds mean somehow, go on."

December sat down. "Yeah, I mean, I guess it was kind of fucked-up. I don't even really know where to start. It seemed like I still had a bunch of assignments hanging over my head even though I've graduated. I was sending professors emails just completely lying to them. It was like I was trying to gaslight them into thinking that I had been there and done all of the work, when I hadn't done anything. Everything was a lie. Also I was boarding these weird trains that seemed like they were as long as the United States, so you got on in Rhode Island and walked off in California in a matter of seconds. I was working some job during the day in California and then making my way back every night without sleeping."

May stopped scrolling on their phone and looked up. "Wow. Yeah. Very meaningful, very Freudian. Cool train idea. They should build those so I can visit you more than once a year or whatever. Now, what I want to know before we leave is, why have you been squinting like that at me this whole time?"

December held up a finger and ran into their room, returning with a pair of glasses cupped in their hands like it was their last gulp of water. The legs lay separated from the lenses and were covered in super glue.

"That's not good. . . . I see you tried to fix them like last time. Can't you just wear your contacts?"

"I already packed them away in one of these boxes. I only have a pair. I can't risk losing them."

"You should go get them. We can stop by the glasses shop and order some more before they close. You can have them sent to your new apartment. Remember, you aren't going to have health insurance or anything for much longer."

December nodded numbly and began ruffling through the boxes, squinting at their contents, nagged by their memory of the email they received a month or so ago that read:

At the end of this semester, on December 22, 2023 when your status as an active student ends, you will be ineligible to continue to use University facilities such as University residences, Health Services, Dining Services contracts, etc.

It was December 21, 2023.

---

The glasses shop was closed for the holidays. December's dream of trying on glasses with May, receiving their good advice, getting babied a bit, looking at the two of them together again for a time in the mirror, was short-lived, and they moved onto other dreams.

They hit the dining hall first. May piled up food to the dismay of the workers and went around telling everyone that they "used to go here, so it's okay. Yeah I graduated last year—oh, please could I have a little bit more of that rice. Oh it's been so long since I've had this rice. How do they make the rice like that here? Is that like cilantro or something in there? Maybe I can make it myself."

But December didn't feel like eating. Seeing the look on their face, May decided in a rare moment not to pester them, and grabbed one of the styrofoam to-go boxes. They gave the food to the homeless woman that sometimes sheltered near campus on their way to the library.

December pulled some of the books from their bag and shuffled the pile, then shoved a few into the return slot. They both looked down at the remaining book, a slim volume of poetry that December had checked out of the library every year and never read.

"You could keep it," said May. "No one else tried to check it out, right? You already graduated. They won't come for you. No one will miss it."

"You know I used to work here, before we met? I can't steal a book from this place. It was so annoying when we didn't know where the books went." December sighed and listened as the poetry book slid through the slot and thunked onto the pile. They took the elevator to the basement where December used to sit and study. Every single desk was scrawled with doodles and messages, conversations between generations.

"I've always wanted to do this." December took out a pen beside one of the desks, lowered the point contemplatively, and wrote simply: me too. May felt this was somehow characteristically sweet of December until they saw the titanic inscription above that read: NEED DICK.

"Wow, okay, I thought we were having some kind of genuine moment here. But, uh, nice one, I guess. Is this really what we should be spending our time doing right now?"

To please May, they set off for the pool, May's old haunt. On the way, May's phone rang. They spent the whole walk discussing work with their boss while December listened to the formal shift in their tone of voice and the stiffening of their body language. December looked away. When the call ended, it was like May had been brought back from another world, had been unpossessed.

December swiped them both into the pool. For the first and last time, December got in and swam a bit. One of their contacts fell out into the water. They got out and sat on the edge of May's lane with their feet in the water. Their eyes stung from the chlorine. When May swam up, they managed to smile at them, but when May kicked off, December began to cry.