When Asser told me he was coming back to the UK in July from Pakistan, I was delighted if not completely surprised. His niece was graduating from medical school and England was hosting the Cricket World Cup, a great opportunity to broaden his professional network as a mid-level cricket manager. But the main reason was me. He didn’t need to say it—I knew I wasn’t wrong about his feelings this time.

After that first phone call when I told him what I was going through at Oxford—the exhaustion and panic attacks—he called almost every day. At first he mostly checked on my health, making sure I took my iron pills and gently lecturing me when I admitted to eating nothing but french fries for two days in a row. Then our conversations got longer, stretching to include topics like celebrity crushes

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