They were her friends, or they had been until the last month, when she’d avoided them, too wrapped up in academic pursuits and thesis burnout to seek their company. Same as she was avoiding her mother—she didn’t want to talk to anyone. Inevitably, they’d ask about papers, research, everything she didn’t wish to discuss. She shouldn’t have come. Not in her current mood, not with the anxiety that kept simmering in her belly. The reason she’d shown up was because she had a feeling she ought to, the thought embedded in her mind almost like a thorn. Nana Alba used to call these feelings portents
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