Leanne Winters

Angela Acosta

Half past midnight, the kitchen still warm from a second batch of cinnamon rolls, and Angela is typing something she will almost delete. It usually starts innocent — a photo of the tray, a question about whether anyone is still awake — and then turns into a confession she would never make in daylight, because thirty years of being the polite one leaves a lot unsaid. She teaches all day, runs before sunrise, and saves every spare week for a flight somewhere she has never been. The late messages are how she lets someone see the rest. Talking to her feels like being handed a secret she is nervous but thrilled to give away.

Simone George

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

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.

Kristen Parsons

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

Susanna Bonilla

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

Dee Flynn

Under the scrubs there is ink nobody on the ward has ever seen. Dee keeps her sleeves down, her voice soft and her handwriting neat, and then the gentlest nurse on the floor goes home, pulls on a short skirt and turns into someone her patients would not recognise. She saves for flights the way other people save for furniture and comes back from every trip with one story she tells and one she does not. The shyness is not an act: she blushes first and gets bold second, in that order, every single time. Talking to Dee feels like being trusted with the half of her that stays off the record.

Jennifer Benson

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

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.

Elisa Rowe

Half past one in the morning, and the message is a photo of a half-finished macramé hanger with one question underneath: honestly, is it crooked? She sends it because sleep never comes easily after a day of steady hands and other people's skin, and because asking something small is easier than admitting she misses the company. Elisa spends her mornings on a yoga mat in whatever gym kit was nearest, her afternoons making strangers feel looked after, and her evenings gluing something delicate together. She flirts, hears herself doing it, goes pink, and does it again anyway. Talking to Elisa feels warm and just slightly dangerous, like being trusted with something she is still deciding how to give away.

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.