I had spent the whole day packing for my return to Idaho—second semester at Ricks, everything lined up like a row of dominoes. My classes were set. My grant money had been deposited. Cami was catching a ride with me in the morning, so I even had companionship built in for the drive.

Everything was ready. Everything felt good.

So naturally, I treated myself.
I went swing dancing at BYU for my last night in Orem.

It was perfect. Since I wasn’t a regular—but the guys could tell I actually knew how to follow—I got asked to dance almost every song. I stayed until closing, which in Utah County is the scandalous hour of 10 p.m.

As the dance wrapped up, a guy named Seth asked me for a ride home.

I’d met him earlier that year at these dances. He always made a point to dance with me at least twice. He was a decent lead. He played. He improvised. He made swing feel less like a mutually approved calisthenics exam. He was nice—if a little schmarmy.

He wore a fedora.

Not ironically.

That tells you everything you need to know.

He also wasn’t a Return Missionary, so he was absolutely not on my eternal-companion radar.

His apartment was only slightly out of the way, so I said yes.

He invited me in “just for a minute.” I sat down on his beanbag chair and immediately lost consciousness like a fainting goat.

When I woke up, it was 4 a.m.

Four. A. M.

I grabbed my shoes and bolted.

The whole drive home I spiraled. Do I call home? Do I not call? Who calls at four in the morning? No one. Psychopaths. I’ll just get home quietly. No harm done.

I eased my key into the lock, turned it slowly, and opened the door like a burglar there to steal their cat—

—and there were my parents.

Sitting at the kitchen table.
Waiting.
Like a two-person firing squad.

They had discovered I was missing and waited up all night, convinced I’d been abducted, murdered, or—worst of all—necking with a boy.

They demanded to know why I hadn’t called. I explained that I’d fallen asleep and didn’t think waking them at 4 a.m. was polite. I had a cell phone—they could’ve called me—but I was too flustered to point that out. I’d never disappointed them before, and I had no idea what to do with this new identity: Diana, the Disappointment.

I hadn’t done anything wrong. I hadn’t sinned.
I’d just… been tired.

Too rattled to stay in the house, I loaded the rest of my things, drove to Cami’s, and arrived hours early. She let me take a nap until she was ready.

I woke up still shaken, but slightly repaired. I went outside to move my car into the driveway so we could pack in her things—

—and there was a parking ticket on my windshield.

My first one ever.

Of course.

I tucked it into my pocket, took a deep, centering breath, and helped Cami stack her belongings on top of mine.

We waved goodbye to her family and headed for the freeway.

We did not make it far.

A few blocks from her house, I stopped at a four-way stop. The car behind me did not.

I didn’t see it coming.

Partly because the back of my car was stacked so high my rearview mirror had become purely decorative.
Partly because I believed I’d already hit my disappointment quota for the day.

Apparently, I was wrong.

BOOM.

The car jolted forward. And our stuff was packed in so tight it didn’t move.

Somehow, I didn’t melt down. I got out. I exchanged insurance. I called the police. Then, with deep dread, I called my dad—the same calm man who had stared daggers at me that morning for the first time in my life.

He sighed. Deeply. Then immediately shifted into mechanic mode. Told me to bring it by the shop.

The damage wasn’t catastrophic. The liftgate still opened. None of our belongings were crushed. He told us to go ahead and drive to Idaho. I’d just need to come home the next weekend to swap cars.

When I returned, my parents’ fury had cooled into quiet disapproval.

And my little blue SUV was replaced with a little blue truck.

The most gutless vehicle ever engineered by human hands.

So underpowered I practically had to push it uphill.

Dad had at least a dozen other vehicles he could’ve sent me back in.

I’m pretty sure this one was my punishment.

So, back at Ricks.

I moved into a new apartment with Amber and four other girls we didn’t know.

On the very first day, I found Amber under the kitchen table, carefully taping a plastic tablecloth to the table. No explanation. Just commitment. Naturally, I climbed under the table with her and lay down on my back so we could talk—because if your friend is under a table, that’s where conversations live now.

She used my belly as a pillow while she taped and I filled her in on the drama of my day. At some point I started laughing, which made her head bounce gently on what can only be described as a bowl full of jelly. That made her laugh. Which made me laugh harder. We were fully locked in a feedback loop and might still be there to this day if one of the other girls hadn’t walked in and forced us to confront the reality of what we were doing.

It was nice.
This time, I was moving in with an actual friend.
The other girls were not obsessed with country music.
And they believed in locking the front door.

Things were looking up.

One afternoon Amber was outside talking to a boy, leaning coolly against the door—casual, effortless, the kind of pose you don’t realize you’re doing until it matters. I was inside, unaware of her cool and casual placement, and opened the door.

What followed looked like a slapstick routine from a silent film: limbs flailing, gravity asserting itself, Amber disappearing from view. I stood there for half a beat, stunned—and then absolutely lost it. I don’t remember helping. I remember laughing.

As an apartment, we decided to take turns cooking. Once a week, one person made dinner for the whole apartment. We bought our own ingredients and cleaned up after ourselves.

In theory, it was a solid plan.
In practice, none of us knew how to cook.

There were questionable meals. Passive-aggressive sighing over dirty pots. And then there was the food safety situation.

One girl, trying to save money, developed a fondness for expired groceries. One week she found a deal on chicken breasts past their expiration date and cooked them for us. Fine. The next week, the chicken had turned gray. She used it anyway. It tasted… off. Nothing a lot of garlic couldn’t hide.

The week after that, it was green.

She hadn’t frozen it. The already-old chicken had just been sitting in the fridge, aging gracefully between her turns at cooking—getting smellier, slimier, and more threatening. It felt less like dinner and more like a science experiment with seasoning. She was genuinely offended when we refused to eat it, as though we were being dramatic about poultry with a visible agenda.

But for the most part, we got along.

No truly unhinged roommate stories.

Alas. Drama makes better material.

Speaking of drama, I guess I technically was in a show at Ricks.

Amber and I were in a theater class when they announced the opera Hansel and Gretel needed bodies. No singing. No acting. Just walking around dressed like angels in a couple of scenes. Of course we volunteered.

A half a dozen of us were chosen, and we were given long modest blue dresses and enormous feathered wings. I don’t know how we ever made our cues—we spent most of the show wandering the building taking pictures of each other.

We looked like the Mormon version of the Victoria’s Secret fashion show.

Honestly, Amber and I spent a lot of time taking pictures. For scrapbooks. For family. For whichever missionary we happened to be writing at the time. When we got bored, we’d wander campus looking for good light.

I have kicked myself many times for not doing the same thing with her in Europe.

There was a travel program—six weeks, guided, multiple countries, class credit.

Amber and I both got in.

We were in.

But when payment came due, I backed out.
At the time, the cost represented my entire bank account.

Which, looking back, was… nothing.
It was offensively cheap.
It was “you will never forgive yourself” cheap.

I try to give myself grace.
I really do.

But this is one of those decisions that still taps me on the shoulder at random moments—
in the shower,
in airports,
any time someone says the word “Europe.”

I should have gone.
I should have gone with her.
I should have taken the pictures.

GAH.

This is not my greatest regret.
But it is absolutely in the Top Five.
And unlike the others, this one involved croissants.

Anyway, moving on.

I met a boy that year. His name was Joseph.

He was very pretty—think young Colin Farrell, if Colin Farrell was Mormon. He was a percussion major, which meant he owned more rhythm than sense. We dated for a few months, and I was under the impression we were going steady.

On Valentine’s Day, I found him with his tongue in another girl’s mouth.

Which is a bold way to clarify a relationship.

She thought they were exclusive too, which honestly felt rude. To both of us.

I responded maturely.

I threw a giant heart-shaped cookie at him.

It felt proportionate.

When confronted—once the cookie situation had been addressed—Joseph explained that he wasn’t particularly interested in either of us. He was simply conducting a personal experiment to see if he could get away with dating two women at the same time.

Which means I wasn’t the only one running relationship experiments at Ricks.

I just think my parameters were more ethical.

Anyway, I graduated from Ricks with a 3.95 GPA, a completely useless associate’s degree, and absolutely no progress on my MRS degree.

So, in the year 2000, I did the only logical thing.

I doubled down.