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Although I am fully aware I am mirroring him again, I take another sip of my perfectly unsweetened Americano.

I can’t stand sugar in my coffee. If that were my cup, I’d go back to the counter, politely explain the mix-up, and ask for a new one. But if he seems fine dealing with it, I will just add that piece of info to my small arsenal of Mackenzie Smith facts.

“Um…” I hesitate, wondering where to start. “I’ve never actually done this before.”

He raises an eyebrow and grins. “Had coffee?”

“Had a roommate,” I correct him. “I’m not really sure what I am supposed to ask you.”

He sets his cup down and thinks. “You’re actually my first roommate as well. If you don’t count my brother Clive, and I can tell you already you’re a significant upgrade based solely on the fact that nothing is living in your fridge and that you have a toilet paper holder installed in your bathroom.” He takes a big bite of his doughnut and nods his head approvingly as if he likes it before setting it down, swallowing, and continuing on. “What else is important? Um…I’m from West Lake—which you already know. I do not play the tuba—which you learned yesterday. I have two brothers, actually, and a sister.” He grins and then reaches for his doughnut again, but stops right before he bites. “What about you? Big family?”

“Just me, actually,” I answer, then take a long sip of my coffee. He doesn’t need to know that I never knew my dad, and my mom died in a car accident three days after I turned sixteen. Then, my one and only living relative took me in, only to pass away seven years later from pancreatic cancer, leaving me completely alone.

“So…” I change the subject before he can ask a follow-up question. “Were you a musician back in West Lake as well?”

Once I’ve said it, I realize I’ve asked him while he is mid-sip. He shakes his head, but I have to wait for him to swallow before I get his answer.

“I was a mechanic,” he finally says. “Not your most logical step to a soft rock cover band, so this is all a little new for me. New job. New city. New roommate.” He lifts his cup toward me in a cheers-ing motion.

“That’s a lot of news.” I pick up my cup and knock it with his.

He leans back in his chair. His fingers absentmindedly drum out a beat on the tabletop. “It is, but I have a feeling it’s going to work out.”

He smiles, and I note that his teeth are both very straight and very white.

“You said you work in a research lab. What do you research?”

I open my mouth to answer his question, but the two women who were looking at him earlier walk by and pause just as they reach our table. The taller of the two seems to be looking for something in her purse, but also keeps sneaking glances at Mackenzie. He, however, either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, and his eyes stay fixed on me.

“I am studying substance abuse and its impacts on the brain,” I say once the two women move on.

Mackenzie sets his coffee down next to his half-eaten doughnut. “Did you always want to be a neuroscientist?”

I think about his question. “I guess I always enjoyed science but maybe started thinking about it more as a career toward the end of high school.”

It was about a year after my mom passed away. Larry had made me see a grief counselor to help me process my emotions. My counselor’s name was Hal, and we spent six very long months together working through my “parental grief and resulting depression.” For Hal, this meant guiding me to embrace my emotions by lighting candles, taking bubble baths, and going on long walks in nature, where I gave each of my feelings a name. Well, I can understand how this might be an acceptable and even therapeutic method for some people, but it absolutely did not work for me. I begged Larry to let me quit. I pleaded. I argued and even gave him the silent treatment for weeks. Eventually, we compromised. Larry agreed I could ditch Hal if I found someone who better suited my personality. That’s how I started working with Dr. Kelly Koppelman. She was a doctor at CAMH in the Family Resource Center, and her approach to working through grief could not have been more different from Hal’s. She spoke to me like an adult and explained that during periods of grief, our brain’s reward system is disrupted, and dopamine is cut off, which leads to a feeling of numbness. For the first time since my mother’s passing, I understood what was happening to my body, how chemical reactions were making me do and feel things I didn’t want to do or feel. For the first time I felt like I had control over what was happening to me. The more I read, the better I understood my grief, and in doing so my love for neuroscience was born.

Mackenzie finishes the last bite of his doughnut, then crunches the paper it came on into a ball in his fist. “Do you think you will go back to your job once you finish your doctorate?”

I consider his question. “Maybe. I mean, I’d need to be offered a job first, and I really like CAMH, but I’m not sure…” I don’t feel pulled to my work right now. It’s almost as if the fire that was in me a year ago has gone quiet. “I’m hoping a little time away will help me figure out what I want to do next.”

He leans forward, his forehead catching a beam of sunlight streaming through the front window. “Well, I guess then cheers to new beginnings for both of us.”

He lifts his cup and waits for me to clink mine with his before downing the last of his coffee in one gulp.

We toss our empty cups in the trash and walk back to the apartment. As we pass Koko’s store, I pause just as we near the coatracks.

“This place has a lot of great stuff if you’re ever looking for something special.” I’m not satisfied with my Baader-Meinhof theory. I need to know if his jacket is the same one from yesterday.

Mackenzie reaches out and picks up the sleeve of a denim shirt, examining it for a moment before letting it go. “Yeah, it’s great. I actually popped in yesterday. Picked up a few things.”

My heart rate quickens. “Really? Anything good?”

He shrugs. “A pair of jeans. A couple of shirts.” He pauses as if it’s the end of the sentence. “Oh yeah, and this.” He holds out his arms, showing off his leather sleeves. “I’m not normally a leather jacket kind of guy, but this one called to me.”

I stop, unsure if his word choice was intentional. “Did you…happen to notice anything weird when you put it on?”

The hesitation before he answers has me holding my breath. Maybe there is something wrong with the jacket. It’s laced with a pesticide or traces of some topical LSD.