And so I wake in the morning and I step outside…
No, seriously. I actually did.

Barefoot, hoodie half-zipped, hair sticking up like I’d fought a tornado in my sleep. The air was crisp — fall was finally starting to show up for real — and the quad smelled like wet grass and the cheap soap they used in the dorm bathrooms.

I took a deep breath.
I got real high.

Okay, not high high — more like that floaty, still-smiling kind of high you get after something good happens and your body hasn’t caught up yet.

And then, for no reason except that it felt right, I threw my arms up and yelled:
“WHAT’S GOING ON?!”

A few birds flapped out of a tree nearby. Someone across the courtyard shouted back, “You good?”

“NOPE!” I called, laughing.

I couldn’t help it. My cheeks hurt from smiling. Everything still hurt — my legs, my heart, the echo of yesterday — but something inside me had cracked open, and light had actually gotten in this time.

I couldn’t stop myself.

I ran down the hallway barefoot, the carpet rough under my heels, my arms swinging like I was in a one-woman parade.

“And I say, hey-ey-ey!
Hey-ey-ey!”

A door creaked open two rooms down. A girl with purple scrunchies and smeared eyeliner poked her head out, still chewing on a Twizzler.

She blinked at me. “Hey… a-what’s going on?”

I grinned, breathless. “Exactly!”

And I spun back toward my door, heart pounding in the best way — like it finally remembered how to beat for joy.

I flung the door open, still laughing, and saw Maya stretched across the bed in one of my oversized tees, flipping through a beat-up issue of Sassy magazine like nothing in the world had changed.

She looked up.

I didn’t wait.

I crossed the room in two steps, climbed right onto her bed, and kissed her.

It wasn’t slow or nervous like before. It was bold. Sure.

Maya made a small surprised sound in the back of her throat — somewhere between what are you doing and don’t you dare stop.

She didn’t pull away.
She leaned into it.

One hand on my hip. My fingers in her hair. The edge of the mattress dipping as we shifted closer, laughter still buzzing in my chest like a leftover spark from the morning air.

When we finally broke apart, she was smiling that crooked, smug little smile of hers.

“Well,” she said, breathless. “Good morning to you too.”

****

We ended up missing breakfast.
Not on purpose.
It just kind of… happened.

One minute I was kissing her, the next we were curled up in a tangled pile of blankets and limbs, half-laughing, half-dozing, warm and weirdly safe in the soft morning light slanting through the blinds.

We didn’t even talk much.

She ran her fingers up and down my arm while I stared at the ceiling, not thinking about anything important for once. Every time I tried to sit up and say, We should go, her arm would tighten around my waist and I’d forget what I was doing.

We were still like that when the clock on the wall ticked past 10:00.

“Crap,” Maya mumbled, finally glancing up. “Wasn’t the dining hall supposed to close, like, thirty minutes ago?”

I blinked at the clock. “…Oops.”

She groaned and flopped onto her back. “That was your fault.”

“Was not,” I said, rolling onto my side to face her. “You’re the one who kept sighing dramatically every time I moved.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And you kept humming What’s Up under your breath like a dork.”

I smirked. “Fair.”

We lay there for a few more seconds, neither of us quite ready to let go of the quiet. The room still smelled faintly like lavender detergent and sleep. A breeze stirred the curtains just slightly, lifting the edge like even the wind was reluctant to disturb us.

And then my stomach growled loud enough to make the moment shatter.

Maya snorted. “Okay, that’s the universe yelling at us. Come on — brunch raid in the vending machines?”

I sighed. “Only if we get the last raspberry Pop-Tart.”

“Split it,” she said, grabbing her socks. “But I call dibs on the less broken one.”

****

We left the dorm still grinning, hands stuffed in hoodie pockets, hair a mess, both of us half-heartedly pretending we weren’t walking straight to the vending machines to scavenge breakfast.

The campus had that sleepy Saturday feel — crisp air, damp sidewalks, crows yelling at nothing from the treetops like they owned the place. Someone in the dorm next door was blasting Alanis Morissette through a cracked window. You oughta know.
A couple of guys tossed a football on the quad, half-aiming, half-bored, like they were doing it more for the vibe than the sport.

Maya reached out without a word and laced her fingers through mine.

I didn’t pull away.

It felt… right. Easy.
Even if it made my chest flutter in that anxious, oh-my-God-people-can-see-me kind of way.

We passed the main walkway near the library. I was mid-sentence — something dumb about how I’d rather eat old gum than attempt campus oatmeal again — when I heard a voice.

Behind us. Too close.

“Yo. Is that Riley?”

We both turned, slowly.

It was a guy I half-recognized from biology, maybe. He stood with two other guys in letterman jackets — all backward caps and soda cans, the kind of guys who traveled in packs like they were afraid of being quiet too long.

“Dude,” one of them said, nodding at our hands, “tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

The first guy laughed. “No way. That’s Riley. Riley from the guys’ team.”

Then, louder — too loud — “Damn. So it’s true. You’re really one of those now.”

I blinked. “One of what?”

He smirked. “You know… carpet munchers. Dykes. Whatever you’re calling it these days.”

Maya went stiff beside me. I felt it — the way her body locked, her breath hitched.

The guy holding the soda fake-whispered, “Should we give them space, or are they gonna start making out right here?”

They laughed — because they thought it was funny. They thought it was safe to laugh. Safe to make a scene out of us. Safe to be cruel and know nothing would happen to them for it.

I felt Maya’s fingers dig into my palm. Hard. I knew if I looked at her, I’d break — not from shame, but from the heat of all those eyes. From being seen like we were a joke. A punchline.

I looked the main guy dead in the face.

“Go fuck yourself!” I said, in a stern voice.

Then I turned and kept walking, still holding her hand.