The conference was held in a lecture hall on the north side of the UCLA campus, a building from the 1930s with high ceilings and arched windows and the particular smell of old wood and chalk dust that had not changed in generations. Aaron and Sophie arrived early, the morning still cool, the campus moving through its ordinary rhythm — students walking between classes, bicycles threading through the paths, the distant hum of a city that existed beyond the university's walls.
Sophie was quiet as they walked. She had dressed carefully — a simple dress the colour of deep wine, a light cardigan, her hair pinned back. She looked the way she looked when she was about to do something that mattered: composed on the surface, a current of nervous energy beneath.
"Are you ready?" Aaron asked.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to feel. Nervous? Excited? Both?"
"That sounds about right."
