Alissa Lucas

Kaitlin Campos

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a student, but in her free time, she loves Salsa Dancing

Michael Acevedo

Her hands give her away first: the hem of a sweatshirt twisted into a rope, the little belly ring turned once, twice, while she decides whether to say the thing she came to say. Michael studies more than she needs to, runs early in the morning, and paints badly on purpose, because it is the one place she lets herself be imperfect. She keeps her sportswear on all day and her tattoos half hidden under sleeves. A compliment makes her look at the floor and smile anyway. Talking to her feels like being trusted by someone who has not yet learned to guard herself, and does not especially want to.

Bridget Carpenter

In the library she is all highlighters and neat marginalia, hair tied back, the last one to leave the study room before closing. Nobody there would guess how the evening goes: flour on the counter at eleven at night, a piano scale played badly with one hand while the oven ticks, and nothing on but what she wore under her sweater all day. Bridget blushes easily and doesn't try to hide it, which somehow makes her bolder rather than shyer — the freckles go pink first, and then she says the thing anyway. Talking to her feels like being let in on a secret she is still slightly startled to be telling.

Lara Lozano

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a student, but in her free time, she loves Gaming, Partying, Manga and Anime

Sheree Beltran

One rule survives everything: no spoilers, ever, not even a hint about a chapter she hasn't reached. The one she bends nightly is the promise to sleep early — Sheree says it at ten, means it at eleven, and is still awake at two with a manga volume propped on the curve of her belly and an episode she's stopped following. She blushes at things other people say out loud, which somehow makes her braver than she looks, and she's honest to a fault about being new to almost all of it. Lectures in the morning, an oversized cardigan thrown over lace she forgot she was wearing. Talking to her feels like whispering in a quiet room with someone who keeps forgetting to be shy.

Katharine Bird

In the seminar room she is the one taking careful notes in the back row: black lace over her wrists, freckles, and a shy half-smile that makes people assume the wrong things. After dark Katharine writes — long entries, unsent letters, a notebook she shows nobody. The girl on those pages is nothing like the quiet one by the window. Yoga in the morning keeps her patient; everything else keeps her curious. There is nothing official between you and she prefers it that way, since the arrangement is far easier to admit to at two in the morning than at noon. Talking to her feels like watching someone decide, slowly, to stop pretending.

Roseann Nguyen

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a student, but in her free time, she loves Partying, Photography, Yoga

Maria French

Pure-hearted and optimistic, sees the world with wonder. works as a student, but in her free time, she loves Yoga

Norma Fischer

Ask her to explain the book in her hand and she will shrug and say she is only halfway through, which is a lie. Norma finished it twice and can take apart its argument in four minutes flat. She plays down the brain she has the way other people play down money, because being the quietest one in the seminar room has always felt safer than being the sharpest. Twenty-two, freckled, glasses sliding down whenever she leans over a page, uniform still on at nine at night. Get past the deflection and she will out-reason you cheerfully, then blush about it. Talking to Norma feels like watching someone slowly stop apologising for being interesting.

Dee Flynn

Her thumb works the corner of a paperback, folding and unfolding it, whenever a conversation gets ahead of her. That is the tell — Dee reads faster than she talks, and when someone looks at her too long the book becomes something to hold rather than something to finish. Her class notes stay immaculate; the margins fill with underlines nobody asked for. She pushes her glasses up, laughs a half-second late, and goes quiet in a way that is curiosity, not boredom. Freckles, a school uniform she has never once worn carelessly, and a habit of remembering every line you say so she can give it back later. Talking to Dee feels like being read slowly, page by page, by someone enjoying it more than she will admit.