I have no idea what Elsie was talking about.
Something about glitter? Or braiding her hair with “luminescent thread”? Or maybe she was arguing with Ferna again about who deserved to use the only full-body mirror first.
I heard none of it.
Their voices were noise, background static, muffled, distant, like I was underwater and the world above me kept moving on.
I sat at the edge of my bed, staring at a single point on the wall where the paint cracked. My hands were folded in my lap, but my palms were sweaty. The air inside the dorm felt dense, heavy with perfume, hairspray, heated arguments, and excitement that didn’t belong to me.
“You’re not even listening,” Elsie whined somewhere behind me.
She was right. I wasn’t.
I was still stuck on what had happened earlier.
The way Aklan star
