3

The next few days were a whirlwind of settling in, meeting new people, and figuring out how not to get lost on campus. Stanford was huge, and my sense of direction was *not* the best. I had to use my phone’s map just to find the dining hall on the first day. Jake laughed his ass off when I admitted it.

“Dude, how are you a computer science major and still need a GPS to get to breakfast?” he teased.

“Navigation and programming are *very* different skills,” I shot back.

At least he was helpful—he had already memorized the campus layout thanks to early football training. He showed me a few shortcuts, and I had to admit, having a football player as a roommate had its perks.

When Monday rolled around, I felt like a freshman *all over again*. The nerves hit me hard as I walked into my first lecture hall—CS 106A, an intro to programming class. Even though I had coded before, Stanford was a different beast. The professor, an older guy with an easygoing demeanor, wasted no time diving into concepts.

By the end of the first lecture, my notebook was half-filled with notes, and my brain was already fried.

“Damn, that was intense,” a voice next to me muttered.

I turned to see a girl with short black hair and glasses looking just as overwhelmed as I felt.

“No kidding,” I agreed.

“I’m Maya,” she said, offering a hand.

“Brendan.”

We exchanged tired smiles, and just like that, I had my first potential friend outside of Jake.

Meanwhile, Jake’s schedule was *completely* different from mine. While I was drowning in code and algorithms, he had early-morning weight training, team meetings, and film review sessions before even setting foot in class.

One night, as I was hunched over my laptop debugging an assignment, Jake came in, tossing his bag on the floor.

“Dude, I swear, our coach is a *sadist*,” he groaned, flopping onto his bed.

“Rough practice?” I asked, not looking up from my screen.

“More like hell on earth.” He sat up, glancing at my laptop. “You still working on that?”

“I think my code is *actively* mocking me at this point.”

He laughed. “If it starts writing itself, let me know. I could use that for my essays.”

I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help but smile. Somehow, despite being complete opposites, we got along surprisingly well.

A few days later, Jake burst into the room with an excited grin.

“Yo, there’s a party Friday night. You in?”

I hesitated. “A party?”

“Yes, Brendan. You know, loud music, people, fun?”

I sighed. “I *do* know what a party is.”