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Josephine had not expected to lose so much sleep so early in her first semester at university. She had not accounted for her roommate, Sera. At first, she had taken a liking to Sera. It was like having a younger sister away from home. It couldn’t be worse than living with Yvette, right?
But Sera had quickly taken to the party scene, and so on this second Sunday night of the term, she had returned to the room at 1 a.m., waking Josephine, and proceeded to vomit profusely on Josephine’s bed.
It was absolutely worse than living with Yvette.
Between nursing a sick Sera and changing her own bedding, Josephine was awake until 5 am, with only a bare hour to sleep before she needed to be up for her 8 am Intro to International Relations class.
Perhaps she should have let herself sleep the extra hour and sacrificed her morning routine, but it was Josephine’s firm belief that presentation mattered, even if her classmates would arrive with barely-tamed bedhead and wearing their pajamas.
Thus, the Josephine who arrived at the campus coffee shop at 7:15 for a croissant and caffeine was polished and fashionable but perhaps less than fully alert.
“Cafe Americano,” the barista called, sounding as weary as Josephine felt.
She made her way to the counter through the small crowd of students. The barista hadn’t put the lid on the cup, so she took the cup in one hand and the lid in the other, then turned back toward the table she’d staked out -
And ran full force into another young woman. Coffee sloshed out of the cup onto both her and the other woman, and in sheer alarm, Josephine dropped the cup altogether. It crashed to the floor, spilling out as a puddle.
“My shoes!” the other woman cried. “Look what you’ve done, you awful clutz!” The French accent came through as clearly as the fury.
Josephine barely caught a look at the other woman’s face - mostly just noticed the curtain of bobbed red hair around it - before rushing to find napkins to sop up the mess. By the time she’d turned back from the napkin dispenser, the French woman had turned and was rushing away in a huff.
She hadn’t even had a chance to apologize. What a rotten day this was turning out to be, and it wasn’t even 7:30.
Josephine sighed and finished sopping up the coffee, before hopping back in the growing line to order a fresh cup. There was no way she would get through today without coffee. Changing out of her coffee-stained clothes would just have to wait until after Intro to IR. If she was quick, she’d have just enough time to change before her next obligation, her first meeting with the mentor she’d been assigned as part of her job at the tutoring center.
After class, she all but ran back to her dorm to get changed. It was only on the hurried walk to the library that she remembered the one thing she already knew about her mentor: she tutored French.
Surely there were plenty of French tutors who weren’t exchange students. Surely the girl she’d spilled her coffee on was not also the mentor she would have to meet with weekly all semester.
Her heart sank when she arrived at the tutoring center, where they’d arranged to meet. There sat a young woman with a curtain of bobbed red hair and spectacular shoes that didn’t quite match the rest of her outfit.
The girl leapt up. “I am so sorry!” she burst, before Josephine could even say hello. “I’m afraid I was quite rude to you this morning.”
“I’m the one who spilled coffee on you! I should be the one apologizing,” Josephine replied.
“It was just an accident. I should not have called you names.” The other woman offered an apologetic smile.
“Well, let us agree not to hold one another accountable for things that happen before we’ve had coffee.” Josephine smiled. “We still have not properly met. I’m Josephine,” she said, extending her hand.
“Leliana,” said the other young woman, pressing her hand rather than shaking it. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Was it Josephine’s imagination, or was there a hint of flirtation in the accompanying smile, in the light tone of voice relative to the heavy formality of her wording?
“The pleasure is mine, I’m sure. Shall we?” Josephine gestured to a nearby table.
“Actually, what would you say to a change of scenery? I think we owe each other a coffee.”