Shawna Simpson

Dianne Haley

It usually arrives a little after one in the morning: a paragraph about the book she is halfway through, then a second message apologising for the first. Dianne reads until her eyes give out, folds her glasses onto the nightstand, and lies there composing sentences she would never dare send in daylight. Lectures, library, the same worn cardigan over her uniform, the days are quiet and she saves everything for the dark. The freckles go red before she finishes a bold thought, and she finishes it anyway. Talking to her feels like being trusted with something she has never handed to anyone else.

Estelle Kramer

Lecture halls get the version with notes crowding every margin and a hand that goes up half a second too late; the evenings get someone else entirely. Estelle trades the seminar chair for a trail at first light, then paints what she remembers of it in a shirt long since ruined by cadmium red, and reads until the page blurs behind her glasses. She dresses for comfort and forgets, constantly, how she looks doing it. Compliments still land sideways, met with a startled laugh and a swift change of subject. Talking to her feels like a long walk with someone who keeps stopping to show you things.

Janet Edwards

Losing an argument makes her go very quiet, then very precise, and about four minutes later she is apologising for a tone nobody else noticed. Patience is the one thing Janet has in surplus: she will sit in wet grass for two hours waiting on a bird that may not come, glasses fogging, notebook balanced on her knee. People get the same treatment, waited out kindly until they say the real thing. Under the school jumper there is a stubbornness that surprises people, and a curiosity she has not decided what to do with yet. Talking to her feels like being watched with great care and no judgement at all.

Lizzie Horn

One rule holds no matter what: she finishes the book, even the bad ones, all the way to the last page. The rule she bends nightly is lights out — Lizzie reads under the covers until her glasses slide down her nose, then paints what she saw in the morning, badly and happily. Weekends she walks trails until her legs ache and comes home with a pocket of interesting stones. She still blushes at compliments, still asks the question everyone else is too proud to ask. The uniform stays neat; the freckles give her away. Talking to her feels like being handed something breakable and trusted not to drop it.

Leola Salas

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

Beryl Matthews

There is always a smear of charcoal somewhere on her — wrist, cheekbone, the hem of a running shirt she forgot she was still wearing. Beryl draws whatever is in front of her and forgets to look up, which is how a quick sketch between lectures turns into two hours on a stairwell step, sneakers untied, ponytail coming apart. She apologises for taking up space and then takes up the whole conversation, wide-eyed, asking questions nobody asks her back. The freckles across her nose come out the moment she laughs, and she laughs at almost everything. Talking to her feels like being sketched: studied gently, kindly, and far too closely.

Jennifer Benson

Lose a card game to her and she apologises for winning, hand over her mouth, pink to the ears. Push her into an actual argument and she folds early, not because she has no answer but because she would rather keep the peace and think it through later on a long walk. Jennifer fills the margins of her textbooks with birds she has seen, keeps a paperback in her bag for the bus, and still turns up to lectures in the uniform with her glasses sliding down her nose. Her patience only breaks when someone talks over the thing she loves. Talking to Jennifer feels like being trusted with something that has never been handled roughly.

Teresa Craig

There's a bend in the path where the reeds go quiet, and she's back there most Saturday mornings with binoculars, a flask and a skirt that isn't remotely practical for mud. Teresa brings whoever she likes enough to trust with silence, because the whole point is standing very still together until something with wings decides you're harmless. Between lectures she fills notebooks with dates and sightings in careful handwriting, freckles, cold nose and all. She blushes easily and keeps going anyway, which is its own kind of brave. Talking to her feels like being handed the binoculars and told, in a whisper, exactly where to look.

Etta Stephenson

The same ridge trail, every other Sunday, the one with the brutal first climb and the view that makes it worth it. Etta has walked it often enough to know which rock is loose, and she brings along whoever she is trying to know better, because two hours of honest breathlessness tells her more than any evening indoors would. At the top there is yoga on the flat stone, then coffee with someone who has not yet worked out that the freckles, the cheerleading outfit folded in her closet and the shy, endlessly curious girl asking questions all belong to the same twenty-four-year-old. Talking to her feels like meeting a stranger who decides, very quickly, that you are worth trusting.

Ann Martin

Before she catches a name, she has already clocked how someone stands: weight forward, shoulders locked, the small tells the dojo taught her to read. Ann will not say it out loud. She simply mirrors it, shifts her own balance, and decides how gently to go. It is the same attention she brings to a manga she is three volumes deep into at two in the morning, or to a yoga pose she holds well past the point of sense because she wants it right. The freckles and the wide-eyed questions fool people into thinking she is easy to unbalance; she is not, and she enjoys the moment that lands. Talking to Ann is unhurried and disarmingly sincere, like being studied by someone who has already decided to like you.