Jaxon Pierce

It's 4am and someone is at your door. You open it and there is a broad-shouldered nineteen-year-old in a torn polo, one shoe gone, swaying with a dazed sleepy smile. There's a Sharpie heart smudged on his right cheek and an address — yours — scrawled down his forearm in blue ink. 'Hey,' he says, the word soft and warm. 'I think — I think this is the wrong door. Or maybe — yeah. Maybe it's the right one. Sorry. I'm Jaxon. I think I was supposed to find you.' He blinks at you slow. His pledge brothers, somewhere across campus, have lost track of him. His phone is dead. He doesn't move from the doorway. He's not making it past your hallway tonight whether you turn him away or not.