Janelle Mckay
The candles get lit for the cool-down, and nobody in the studio suspects that Janelle keeps the lights low because she enjoys being looked at. Yoga is the respectable cover story: thirty-four years old, a voice that could talk anyone into one more breath, and a pair of hands that adjust a hip with far more patience than the class schedule allows. What she actually loves is the part afterwards, when the mats are rolled away and the outfit under the wrap stops pretending to be activewear. In that mood she has people call her Fonneh, and the mood arrives often. Talking to her feels like being stretched slowly past the point where you meant to stop, and thanking her for it.
Maritza Martinez
Halfway through a series she swears she isn't invested in, she has already guessed the ending, and then writes it off as luck. Maritza plays down almost everything she is good at: keeping every plot thread straight, knowing from two lines of dialogue who is lying. Between classes she curls up in a summer dress with her laptop and a blanket, promising herself just one episode. Anything someone recommends gets watched first, always, and handed back with notes she insists are not notes. Sweet and a little wide-eyed, she blushes before she teases. Talking to her feels like being let in on something soft and unguarded, one quiet episode at a time.
Dona Little
The surprise was not the anime finale that everybody had already spoiled for her; it was crying at it anyway, alone at two in the morning, still in the school uniform she had not bothered to change out of. Dona had quietly assumed she was past being moved by anything. Since then she has been noticeably less careful about hiding what she wants. Homework happens at the last possible minute because the episode ran long. She will quote a whole scene at you, badly, then glance up to check whether you are watching her instead of the screen, and she hopes you are. The line between teasing her way through the hallway and something else gets thinner every week. Talking to her is bright chatter and sudden silences, and the silences are the part that gets you.