I deserved that raspberry Pop-Tart.

Like, really deserved it.
For the record, I didn’t even get the good half — Maya ate the one with the frosting mostly intact. Mine was the corner bit. The one that looks like it got dropped in a vending machine mutiny. You know the kind. Flaky, kind of sad, more cardboard than treat.

But whatever.

Because we walked away.
Because I didn’t let go of her hand.
Because even when my chest was tight and my pulse was racing and I felt like I might come apart at the seams… I didn’t run.

I guess that counts for something.

We were back in the dorm by late morning, Maya on her bed flipping through a used psych textbook with highlighter scars from four different owners — each one using a different color like they were competing for most chaotic annotation.

She was on her stomach, swinging her feet in the air and humming something under her breath. I was curled up in the window ledge like a cat, hoodie sleeves pulled over my hands, trying to finish the Pop-Tart crumbs without dropping any on the radiator. The sunlight caught the edge of the foil wrapper, making it gleam like treasure in a cereal box.

That’s when someone knocked, then walked right in.

“Hope you’re decent,” Jess called out, already halfway through the door like she lived here.

Claire followed, balancing a tote bag on one shoulder and carrying a plastic shopping bag like it held the cure for emotional distress.

“We brought backup Pop-Tarts and emotional support Oreos,” Claire announced triumphantly, holding the bag up like it was the Ark of the Covenant. “Your stomach growled in class yesterday. It echoed. I thought someone’s Tamagotchi was dying.”

I froze mid-bite.
Maya froze mid-page-turn.

They both looked at us. Then down at the tiny pile of pillows on Maya’s bed. Then at the fact that I was clearly not in my bed clothes, and Maya… well, Maya looked smug in my hoodie. Smug and warm and very much not subtle.

Jess blinked.
Claire blinked.

Jess tilted her head. “Wait… are you guys…?”

I didn’t say anything.
Maya didn’t either.

Jess’s eyes went wide. “OH.”
Claire let out a long, slow “OHHHHHHHHHHHH,” like she was winding up a cartoon sound effect.

Then silence.

Then Jess said, very calmly, “Okay. Cool. Took you long enough.”

Maya snorted. I just stared. “Wait, what?”

Claire grinned, dropping the bag onto the desk. “Riley, you literally look at her like she’s made of Pop-Tarts and existential answers. You think we didn’t know something was going on?”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. No words came out. Just air.

Jess tossed a pillow at me — the scratchy blue one with the worn embroidery that said Class of ‘94. “We’re not mad. We’re just mad we weren’t the first to hear about it. We demand cute stories. Or at least dramatic ones.”

Maya leaned back on her elbows, smug. “You want full story?”

“Exactly,” Jess and Claire said at the same time.

Jess dragged over my desk chair, flipped it around backwards, and straddled it like she was ready for gossip war. Claire grabbed my beanbag and plopped down with a crinkle.

And just like that… it didn’t feel scary anymore.

It felt like friendship.
Like safety.
Like maybe the world hadn’t tilted completely after all.

****

After the long story, Jess got up and laughed — a sharp, barky kind of laugh like she couldn’t help herself. She stretched her arms over her head, spine popping, then cracked her neck with a dramatic tilt like she’d just finished a Broadway monologue.

“You didn’t have to go tell everything.”

“But I thought you wanted…” I started, sitting up straighter on the edge of the bed, the corner of the blanket still tangled around my ankle.

Claire was already snorting into a throw pillow, her face half-buried, shoulders shaking.

Jess smirked, brushing imaginary lint off her jeans like she was a judge on a dating show. “I wanted the drama. Not, like, a minute-by-minute walkthrough of your hand placement.”

Maya groaned and buried her face in her hands. “Oh my God, Riley.”

“What?! You started it!” I said, defensive but already blushing. I could feel the heat crawling up my neck like I’d swallowed a heater.

She peeked at me through her fingers. “Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d give them the director’s cut.”

Claire wheezed, “Coming soon to Video and Laser Disk.”

I grabbed a pillow and launched it in her direction, but it missed and smacked the wall.

The room broke into giggles — real, loud, stupid giggles.

****

The room finally calmed down after a solid fifteen minutes of Jess doing impressions of all our professors ordering coffee.
“Okay,” Claire said, brushing her hair out of her face. “We’ve been emotionally wrecked, overfed, and mildly insulted. Clearly, the only logical next step is a party.”

Jess perked up. “There’s one in Foster Hall tonight. Third floor. Somebody’s birthday. Somebody named Jake, I think? Or maybe Blake. One of those guys who smells like Axe and owns one shirt.”

Claire rolled her eyes. “Ugh, yes. That one green flannel he thinks is lucky.”

Maya raised an eyebrow. “Are we actually doing this?”

Claire smirked. “C’mon. If not now, when? This is peak girlhood: bold lipstick, too much eyeliner, a playlist with Garbage and TLC.”

“Throw in some No Doubt and Jewel, and I’m in,” Jess said, reaching for her backpack. You could hear the faint rattle of a pack of Camels tucked inside.

Maya looked at me. “What do you think?”

I hesitated, then nodded. “Let’s go.”

I didn’t feel fully okay — not yet. But I felt surrounded. I felt held. That was enough.

We threw on hoodies and eyeliner, passed around a roll of cheap body glitter,” and by the time we opened the door to leave—

We stopped.
Dead in our tracks.

On the dry erase whiteboard outside our dorm door — the one Maya usually doodled frogs on — someone had scrawled:

DYKES GO HOME.

The marker ink bled slightly into the cheap surface, like it had been pressed too hard.
Ugly and permanent.

It wasn’t a dry erase marker.
It was a Sharpie.
The kind that bled through notebook paper and left shadows behind no matter how hard you scrubbed.

Whoever wrote it didn’t even try to be clever. Just fast and loud.

The hallway was quiet, save for the dull hum of the soda machine down the hall and the faint static of someone’s Nirvana tape playing through thin dorm walls.

No one said anything at first.

Jess stepped forward, fists clenched. “Fucking cowards.”

Maya touched my hand again. “Riley…”

I stared at the word.

I’d known people would stare. I knew there’d be whispers. But this — this was different.
This wasn’t whispering.

This was someone wanting us to feel afraid. To feel marked.

I took the cap off a red dry erase marker from our door caddy — the one Maya always used to draw tiny frogs — and scrawled underneath in bold, slanted letters:

WE ALREADY ARE.

Claire exhaled through her nose, smiling. “Hell yes.”