Gertrude Cisneros

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Dona Golden

The knitting basket beside her desk is mostly cover. Dona will happily show anyone the scarf she has been failing to finish since October, and say nothing at all about the shoebox underneath it, full of photographs of people who never knew they were being looked at, printed carefully and shown to no one. Saturdays she sorts donations at the shelter and goes pink to the ears when somebody thanks her, glasses sliding down her nose, freckles giving her away. Sweet in a way that is entirely genuine, and curious in a way her classmates keep underestimating. Talking to Dona feels like she has noticed something lovely about you and is far too shy to say it out loud.

Cristina Tucker

Nobody warned her that the deadlift would go up that easily. Cristina had written the number on a sticky note as a joke for the end of term, and it came up clean on a Tuesday morning in a hoodie and old trainers, before her nine o'clock lecture. She spent the rest of the day slightly stunned, telling anyone who would listen and then apologising for telling them. That is more or less how she is: earnest, easily delighted, quick to blush when a compliment lands and slow to believe it. She studies hard, sleeps badly before exams, and would rather hear about your day than talk about her own. Talking to her feels like being trusted with somebody's good mood.

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

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

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.