Lucy Hamilton sighed. She threw her bag onto her bed and jumped on after it with a "thump!" Burying her head in fabric, she let herself grumble, "Why's it gotta be so hard?"
A chair spun around dramatically somewhere in the room. "What's hard? Who's hard?"
Lucy sighed again. Her roommate, Casey Matichek, the most obnoxious woman--Person? Woman? She said she was a "demigirl," which Lucy had tried to research but gave up on understanding. When asked, she said, "I identify with women, enbies and certain mathematical and chemical structures, particularly semigroups," which just about broke Lucy's business major brain--to have ever lived.
She turned her head to see the blue-haired demigirl sitting there in her oversized office chair looking up ever so innocently at the blonde woman laying there in her crumpled beige pantsuit and cursed herself for not checking the perimeter before letting her guard down. It was a living hell having her as a roommate and Lucy constantly thought about asking to transfer to a new room.
The problem was that nothing Casey did was exactly *wrong*. She wasn't cruel or unkind, she gave Lucy space when she requested, she always asked before bringing boys (or anyone else) back to the room, she kept her side of the room clean and when she wanted to stay up until 3 o'clock in the morning drinking Red Bull and playing Valorant she went out into a common area.
No, it's that she was *so* helpful, *so* accommodating, *so* eager to be the best roommate, the best student, the best friend, the best person she could be that Lucy couldn't stand it. At the slightest indication Lucy was upset, Casey would jump in with a million suggestions to "cheer her up." Whenever she was bored, Casey would extend an invitation for her to join them at one of their "fraternity" events ("Don't you mean 'sorority?'" Lucy had asked, but Casey just shook her head, "It's a gender-inclusive fraternity. I know it'd be better if there was another word, but Greek isn't the most gender-inclusive language, y'know?").
It was exhausting! And Lucy had just given them the mother of all openings! Argh!
"Life," Lucy muttered, accepting defeat. She knew better than to try to convince them that she was feeling alright. Casey had jumped on her for far less.
"Oh? That can't be true." So resolutely, disgustingly positive!
"*My* life," Lucy suggested.
"Oh!" The demigirl squeezed her thighs together. "That can't be true, either! Your life is so beautiful, Lucy! You have so many things to be grateful for!"
"Like having you for a roommate?"
The sarcasm went characteristically unnoticed. "Yeah! And you're at a good school with a loving family to back you up and you're young and you have your health and, if you don't mind, I mean, you're really pretty and, I mean..." Casey jumped up and walked over to the bed. They reached their hand over to Lucy's scalp, but she automatically tensed up and they backed off. "Sorry. I just- Your hair, it's so pretty!"
Lucy blinked. She let out a little sniffle. "Yeah." She felt her lip quiver.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Casey sat back onto their own bed, legs dangling. "Is that what's wrong? You're upset about your hair?"
Lucy grabbed a strand. She looked sadly at the golden blonde lock of hair, watching it shimmer in the fading sunlight, following its intricate curls with her eyes. "Yeah..."
"Oh, honey!" Casey leaned forward, just barely stopping themself from reflexively grabbing her hand. "It's so beautiful, though! I know girls who've tried dozens of products trying to get your natural color and texture."
"Well, right." Lucy knew there was no point trying to point out that the girls Casey knew were either STEM major supergeniuses who got published as freshmen and could do whatever the fuck they wanted with their appearances or queer humanities majors who had no job prospects to begin with. "I just wish I wasn't judged for it, is all."
Casey cocked her head. "Oh, is that what this is about? Was someone making fun of you?"
Lucy cringed. She hated how Casey treated her like a child. Just because *they* were a child didn't mean everyone else was! "No! It's just that, well..." She returned to her bag, willing herself not to cry. She would never hear the end of it!
She heard footsteps. "It's okay, Luce! You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I just hope you have someone you're comfortable talking to, is all."
Lucy tensed up. She took several quick breaths. "No, no," she sputtered out, raising her head, "It's alright! Quite alright! I mean, jeez, Case, it's not that big of a deal!" Lucy pulled herself up to a crosslegged position, finding Casey standing awkwardly by her bed, one hand behind their head and another gently stroking the bedpost. "I just got a question wrong in macro and I got a little bit upset about it, that's all. It's stupid, no point dwelling on it."
Casey did an exaggerated frowny face. "Our emotions are never stupid, Luce. They're how we learn about ourselves. I've actually been helping a friend of mine with a neuropsych project. There's some really interesting things our brains do when we feel emotions! And our bodies, too!" Lucy thought she saw a smirk.
She got down from the bed. "No, it really is stupid, Case. I've been, like"--her face twisted into a grimace as she became conscious of her use of that particular filler word--"ruminating, or something, on what a classmate said. It's not emotionally healthy."
Casey seemed to brighten up in a strange way. It made Lucy shiver. "What did they say?" Casey asked, swaying from side to side slightly as they spoke.
Lucy stared down at the floor, focusing on the ugly green carpeting to distract herself from the painful memory. "The professor asked me a question. I didn't realize he was speaking to me at first. There was already somewhat of a reaction to that. Then, I, um, said what I thought the answer was and the professor just- He just shook his head and asked for anyone else to speak up and fucking *Brad*, the brainless jock who is only here because 'Daddy is a senator,' who is going to have to switch to communications next semester, he just says the opposite of what I said and the professor goes, 'Well done, Bradley,' like he's a fucking Rhodes scholar now because he can figure out *not-A* is right if *A* is wrong, and the fucker turns back to me once the prof starts babbling again to say, 'Hey, tough luck, Bambi,' and I just freeze and have to pop a Nicorette to keep from exploding and-"
"Hey, hey, hey..." Casey was rubbing the side of Lucy's bed, stroking the soft fabric. The rustling sound seemed to soothe Lucy a little. Returning to full awareness, she noticed how her leg was shaking.
"I'm sorry." Lucy collapsed into herself.
"But what does that have to do with your hair?"
Lucy blinked. Her intense sadness turned to rage, which she worked quickly to quell (she wasn't going to be the one who was the problem). She just raised a lock of hair to the light again. "Blonde. I'm blonde. I'm blonde and a woman and..." She looked down at her body, knowing there were shapely breasts, a toned stomach and a tight waist obscured by her shapeless attire. "...Conventionally attractive, so people think I'm dumb. It doesn't matter what I wear, how bland and professional I present myself, they just can't help but see me as some stupid bimbo. One little mistake and they jump on me... It's awful."
"Oh, poor girl..." Casey kept stroking the bed. "I'm sorry those mean boys made you feel bad about your beautiful hair..."
Lucy winced. She felt like she was going to explode. Were the math and chemistry departments really such feminist utopias that she had no idea what she was going through? Jesus fucking Christ, she acted like a goddamn schoolgirl! If anyone was going to be discriminated against... But that was a horrible thing to even think. Lucy tried to shake it from her head. She started taking even breaths. "It's *not* about my *hair*," she said, as calmly and evenly as she could, "It's about the *disrespect* I face on a daily basis from those *fucking pigs*. Argh!" She fell back onto her bag.
Casey nodded. "I'm sure it's hard, feeling like you have to constantly fight against stereotypes. It must be a lot of pressure you put on yourself, to have to defy this image other people put on you."
Lucy kept breathing deeply. "Right, yeah..."
"It must take a lot of energy, just fighting and fighting... You have to project this counterimage, just to feel like you have a chance. It must be a lot of stress. It must be pretty tiring. I'm sure you're exhausted..."
The business major felt her eyelids fluttering. Come to think of it, she did feel pretty tired...
The polymath's hand inched closer to her on the bed. "Don't you wish sometimes you could just... *Stop* fighting? Stop projecting this uberprofessional 'girlboss' counterimage? Just... *Accept* some of the things that other people tell you about yourself?"
Lucy's eyes fluttered open. "What? Fuck no, what are you talking about?"
Casey pulled her arms back in surprise. Holding them behind her, she started swaying slightly. "Oh, okay, I was just wondering if you might want a... *Break* from some of the pressure?"
Lucy sighed. As much as she hated to admit it, she *was* pretty drained. It had been a tough week. This was just the cherry on top. "Maybe... It depends on what you had in mind."
A smile came over Casey's face. "Yay!" She clapped her hands together, opening them up to reveal a small, pink pill bottle that looked like it came straight from one of Lisa Frank's nightmares, being adorned with rainbows and unicorns and little skull hearts and so on.
Lucy shrunk away in horror. "What is that, some fucked up LSD for middle schoolers?"
Casey giggled. "Oh, nothing so simple. Remember I mentioned I was helping my friend with her neuropsych project? Well, she's been trying to counterengineer one of that TERF bitch Erika's concoctions to make a temporary version and we think we've got it juuuuuuuust right."
They reached the bottle out to Lucy, who accepted it cautiously. She examined the sparkly exterior. Rattling it, she heard what sounded like small capsules.
"Xan and Dex have already tried it. Their brains were pretty fucked to begin with and they seemed to go back to something like normal after a day or so! But just to be safe... You don't have anything this weekend, right?"
Lucy shook her head. A voice in the back of her head told her she should be worried that Casey seemed to know her schedule, but she was tired and sad and, if she was being honest, lonely... And the bottle was very sparkly.
"Great! You can comfortably be back to your normal uptight self by Saturday, Sunday at the latest! You've got all your homework done?"
