This is what happened: Grace at 00:04

The first time I saw her, she was standing at the corner of the crosswalk in front of school, which would be totally normal, if it wasn't noon, in the middle of August, a month before school started.. While I waited on the other side for cars to pass by, I noticed her clutching her phone in one hand, alternately down at it and up at the street, scanning for a familiar car. The street cleared and I started crossing, my friends chatting behind me.

We made eye contact as I passed. I kept walking, but I already knew, in that moment, I was damned to turn around and talk to her. "Hold on a sec," I said to my friends, and jogged a bit back to the girl. "Hi. Are you waiting for somebody?"

She nodded.

"Have you been waiting for a while?"

Thirty minutes, she said.

"Is he coming soon?"

He said an hour, or two.

"Well, we're going to my house for some lunch and video games during our band camp break. Why don't youo wait at my house? It's just a minute's walk, you can see it from here.

She hesitated.

"It's really hot outside. Come on, I won't take no for an answer."

And so she came with us to my house. I had no idea what my friends thought of me having invited a random girl who none of knew to our lunch and Smash Bros. Melee party, but I preoccupied myself with asking her questions. She was a sophomore at Uni and her name was Grace.

She ended up sitting on the couch, holding a cup of water, with the tanned and sweaty boys yelling at the television and each other. I'm not sure what she did when she was out of my sight as I fried green onion pancakes in the kitchen and laughed with my friends. I pretended to not listen as I heard her saying on the phone, Where are you now, I've been waiting for an hour, Fine, Fine, Whatever, and she hung up and we made eye contact and I smiled but she didn't. Or couldn't.

When we left, I said she could stay at my house until her friend picked her up, just leave the door unlocked because it's never locked, but she wanted to go back to waiting at the corner, so we walked with her on our way to school, and left her standing at the corner of the crosswalk the last time I saw her.