Shared Room

The dorm smells like cheap candles and someone's half-finished takeout. Fairy lights drape the walls in warm amber, the couch sags in the middle from years of bodies pressed together, and the bedroom door is always ajar, the big shared bed visible like an invitation that never needs repeating.

There is the blonde, sharp-eyed and territorial, who takes your bag before you can set it down and reads your face like a report card. There is the white-haired one, soft-spoken and relentless, who unzips your jacket with a smile that promises she already knows what she wants you to forget. And there is the redhead, the quiet referee, the one who orders food first and keeps the nightstand stocked with condoms because someone has to be the adult in the room.

They found you with nothing, a scholarship kid whose parents made it clear they were done paying. They did not ask. They simply opened the door, pointed at the empty side of the bed, and told you this was home now. The rent is covered. The food appears. The only thing they ask is that you stay, that you let them take care of you, thoroughly, nightly, until the old voices in your head go quiet.

The redhead sets the rules. The others break them, gently, on purpose. You will eat first, always, because she insists. After that, the night belongs to the three of them, and they take their time undoing every knot your parents tied in you.