ARIELLE

Chapter4

You know that feeling when you wake up disoriented, not knowing where you are, and then there’s a loud noise?

Panic overdrive.

Well, that was exactly what I experienced the next morning.

I woke to the sound of chaos and a surge of panic that faded about five seconds later when I remembered where I was.

College. Halebridge. The dorm room with cream-colored walls and a window facing the courtyard. Right. Day two of my new life, where I was meant to figure out who I wanted to be now that no one was watching to judge my choices.

The chaos, as it turned out, was Star.

She burst through the door like a wound-up rubber band that had been waiting to be released, arms full of plastic bags filled with books, hair still wet from the shower, with an expression of pure manic energy that indicated she had already had several cups of coffee and possibly a small seizure of enthusiasm.

What a perfect way to say good morning.

"Oh, thank God, you're awake!" she announced, dumping the bags onto her bed. "I didn't want to go to the bookstore without you, but I also couldn't wait because they're probably going to run out of the good notebooks and I need good notebooks, you know? Like, regular notebooks are fine for regular classes, but I need something that feels intentional and aesthetically pleasing enough for my writing seminar because it involves actual writing, so I have to be very creative, but anyway—" She stopped, breathed, and took in my expression. "I'm doing that thing where I talk too much when I'm excited," she said, like the same thing had happened many times before.

"Enthusiastically," I confirmed, sitting up while trying to arrange my face into something close to human. I don’t even want to start thinking about what my hair looked like; I can bet that it’s a perfect representation of a bird’s nest. I had slept well, which was surprising because I hadn't expected to sleep at all in a strange bed, in a strange room. I had been ready for insomnia. That’s even putting it lightly; I had actually been bracing for it.

Instead, I had gotten actual sleep. Actual rest. My body apparently recognized there was no threat and had decided to behave normally for once.

Star grinned. "Sorry. My mom says I'm like a golden retriever with anxiety—too much energy channeled toward multiple objectives at the same time. It’s something I’m working on. Anyway, I got us some snacks." She pulled things from the bags with the reverence reserved for artifacts in the museum. "Hot Cheetos, gummy bears, the fancy popcorn they're selling for like twelve dollars, and—" She produced a container of brownies like it was a trophy. "My mom sent these early this morning. She always thinks I'm going to starve at school, so she sends food regularly. I can't eat them all, so you have to help me. It's basically a moral obligation."

I looked at the brownies; they looked homemade in a way that indicated the baker cared a lot about the person eating them. Unfortunately, I hadn't had something like that in about two years. Mom had stopped cooking around the time Dad died. It seemed her ability to nurture others went into the grave with him, and she never quite figured out how to retrieve it.

"My mom doesn't do that," I said, and I wasn't sure why I volunteered that information. It might have been because Star seemed like the kind of person who created space for honesty without interrogation.

"Does she cook at all?" Star asked. As nosy as that might have sounded, I didn’t think that was her intention. She just seemed to care. Genuinely.

"She used to, before my dad died. After that, she kind of... stopped doing a lot of things."

The words hung in the air between us, heavy and honest in a way that made me immediately regret saying them.

But Star didn't offer sympathy, which was somehow worse and also infinitely better. Not exactly sure how that combo worked. She just nodded and sat on her bed, which was still unmade, I noticed. It was its own kind of comfort in a weird — I’m not the only one still figuring things out- way.

"My parents are divorced," she offered instead, not in exchange for my grief, but as someone sharing a fact about themselves to feel less alone. "My mom's great, my dad's... around. But they're definitely not in my life in ways I'd choose if I were making active decisions about it. So, I get the complex family thing, even if mine’s a bit different."

"I'm sorry," I said automatically, but she waved it away.

"Don't be sorry, chica. Be my brownie accomplice instead. I've been keeping score of my snack consumption, and I need a witness to ensure I don’t eat like nine of them today."

I chuckled, carefully took one and bit into it, and the taste was so overwhelmingly good—chocolate and butter and something warm that tasted like home—that I had to close my eyes.

"Right?" Star said triumphantly. "My mom has won baking competitions. She's unhinged about it."

"This is really good," I manage.

"I know. And she knows that too, that's why she sent like fifty of them. I'm going to be everyone's favorite buddy by carbohydrate provision alone." She then took a brownie for herself and flopped backward on her bed, staring at the ceiling. "So, real talk. Are you freaking out about orientation tomorrow? Because I totally am. Like, I'm handling it with baked goods and aggressive enthusiasm, but the evidence is still there."

"Somewhat," I admitted. "I didn’t initially think much about it, but the fact that I'm going to be separated from the only person I’ve interacted with so far and share a space with other people makes me uncomfortable."

"We're definitely going to be separated," Star confirmed gloomily. "Different majors, different orientation groups. There’s nothing crueler than freshman bonding through forced separation. But here's what we're going to do—" She sat up with new energy. "We're going to meet for lunch. By noon, in the dining hall," she said, with such finality that it was non-negotiable. "I will leave whatever orientation activity is happening, climb through windows, if necessary, and cross the seven seas if I have to. Only to be with you, my lady." She finished with a look that said she was trying hard to hold in her laughter.

I, on the other hand, burst out laughing in a typical Arielle fashion. Unladylike. “I’ve never met anyone as dramatic as you, Star,” I managed to wheeze out in between fits of laughter.

“You’re the one to talk, what’s that laughter, girl?” Star responded, already laughing alongside me.

"But seriously, you don't even really know me," I pointed out after like two minutes. "I could be a terrible person."

"Yeah, no," Star retorted with absolute certainty. "I'm like, ninety-five percent sure you're not. It might not look like it, but I have good instincts about people. My therapist once said I can read people the way other people read books, which sounds more impressive than it actually is. I’m just really good at noticing things."

"Like what?" I asked, genuinely curious. I'd spent so long observing other people that the idea of being observed in return was both terrifying and oddly appealing.

"Hmm, let’s see," Star said, mock-thinking. "You're smart, but you don't want people to know, because smart girls tend to be threatening or boring or both, depending on who's doing the judging. You're trying very hard to come off as someone who has everything figured out when, for real, you’re just winging it like everyone else. You've also had to be okay with being alone for so long that the idea of being near people feels dangerous." She paused, taking a bite out of her brownie, before continuing. "Oh, and one last thing, you're here because you had to leave something behind, and you're not entirely sure if you made the right choice yet."

I just stared at her.

"What?" she asked innocently. "Too much? Well, I’m not a bit surprised. My therapist also diagnosed me with a condition called ‘over-sharing what I'm perceiving.’ But I'm mostly right about it."

"That's unsettling," I told her, quite impressed.

"I’d take that as a compliment," she said, then proceeded to change the subject. "So, here's what I'm proposing. We go to our separate orientation groups, survive the forced activities and the meet-and-greets, and then reconvene for lunch…." She continued.

Over the next few hours, Star became a force of nature in the small dorm room. She talked constantly, but in a way that didn't require me to contribute much. She shared things about herself—her childhood in California, her obsession with writing, and the complicated relationship with her father that, in her own words, has become ‘comedic material.’ She made opening up look easy.

Effortless.

I got asked a few questions, but not in an interrogative way. Rather, in a way that suggested she was trying to understand how my brain worked and get to know the real me. The things I cared about. My beverage preference. Whether I was an early riser or a night owl. Little things that felt like they mattered. She made spending time with her so easy and comfortable.

"You're very observant," she noted at one point, as I watched her movements and her manner of doing things. "Like, in a way that's a little intense? But good intense. Not creepy intense."

"I've always been good at noticing things," I said carefully. "Less good, however, at knowing what to do with the information."

"Maybe you don't have to do anything with it. Just notice and let them exist. Not everything needs to be analyzed and explained."

"That sounds inefficient," I countered.

"Welcome to college," she responded without missing a beat, "where inefficiency is basically the entire point."

By the time we were heading out for lunch, I'd eaten three brownies, Star had somehow reorganized my half of the room to make it feel more like mine, and I'd learned more about a person in a few hours than most people in years.

As the day wrapped up and night came crawling in, I felt more settled than I had been the day before. Star fell asleep mid-sentence while describing an article she had read about Halebridge’s history. Her words just trailed off, her eyes fluttering close, and she was gone, still half-sitting up against her pillows.

I looked at her—this girl I had met no more than twenty-four hours ago, who somehow had the superpowers to disarm my defenses through a combination of brownies and genuine kindness—and gently lowered her back onto her pillow, pulling the blanket over her.

Then I turned back to my window, something that soon became a habit, and looked out at the campus. The buildings looked softer in the darkness, the Gothic architecture less intimidating. And somewhere out there, that ominous tower was standing guard over secrets I wasn’t aware of yet.