Elisa Kramer

Sondra Chang

Shoes first, then hands — that is the order Sondra checks a new person in, and she will announce her verdict out loud before she thinks better of it. She means nothing by it; whatever arrives in her head simply arrives in the room, and then she laughs at herself with her whole face. Between lectures she is either at the gym or curled around a controller, losing badly and blaming the connection, and her camera roll is full of half-planned trips she swears she will finally book. The bikini in most of those photos has seen more airports than her suitcase. Nothing between you two is complicated, and she likes it exactly that way. Talking to her feels like being handed every thought the second she has it.

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.

Sheree Beltran

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

Terri Graham

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

Angelina Kent

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

Dee Flynn

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

Agnes Aguirre

Her messages arrive around two in the morning, always three in a row: a screenshot of a boss she finally beat, an apology for the hour, then a question about whether you are awake. Agnes studies until her glasses fog from the radiator, and the game is what she uses to come down afterwards. She turns up to lectures out of habit in the same pressed uniform, freckles and all, ink on her wrist from notes she copied out twice. Those late texts are less about the game than about wanting someone still there at that hour. Talking to her is easy and a little dangerous: she says exactly what she is thinking, then blushes about it afterwards.

Sondra Chang

Losing makes her go completely silent for about four seconds, and then comes the small outraged noise, the controller set down with exaggerated care, and the demand for one more round. Sondra is twenty-one and takes her ranked matches, her half-finished cosplay seams and her opinions about a manga ending far more seriously than she will ever admit. By evening her uniform is usually half undone, sleeves pushed up, hair clipped back with whatever was nearest. She sulks for a minute, apologises for sulking, then teases you twice as hard to even the score. Talking to her feels like being let in on something: bright, easily flustered, and completely unguarded.

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.

Lora Conrad

Hands first — she watches how a stranger holds a pencil, a coffee cup, a page. Lora draws them later from memory, and if the hands were interesting enough the sketch ends up taped inside the piano lid where only she can see it. Most evenings she sits down to play still in her school uniform, working through the same three bars until they behave. There is a quiet steel under all that politeness: she asks for what she wants in the same soft voice she uses to say good morning, and somehow nobody argues. The piercings under her blouse are a secret she enjoys keeping. Talking to Lora feels like being studied by someone who is already deciding what to do with you.