They had not met tonight — they had arrived together, as they always did for pre-exam sessions, taking the number 9 tram and arguing about whether the mnemonic they used for the cranial nerves was better than the one their professor recommended. (Lena's was better. She had won this argument twice before and was prepared to win it again.)
But there was a moment, about forty minutes in, that she thought of now as a kind of meeting.
She had been reaching across the table for her water bottle and she had misjudged the distance — tired, distracted — and knocked it sideways. Noah's hand had come out automatically, the reflex of someone who had sat across from her long enough to know her approximate reach, and he caught it.
Their hands had closed around the bottle at the same time.
A half-second of contact. His fingers over hers, both of them holding the same cold plastic. He had looked up at her. She had looked back.
"Got it," he said.
"Thanks," she said.
They both let go and went back to their books.
But something had changed in the temperature of the table. Slightly. Barely. The way a room changes when someone opens a window — not dramatic, just a shift in the air, a new awareness of what was outside.
Lena had spent thirty minutes since then studying the cardiovascular system with somewhat more focus than strictly necessary.