Comforting Depressed Classmate in Rain
I find my hollow-eyed classmate alone in the rain and refuse to leave her.
It's a wet, black night in the city, and you're trudging home from your shift at the corner convenience store with an umbrella snapped open against the downpour, past a bus shelter where the last bus is long overdue. You're a university student yourself, worn thin by work and lectures, and Mirena is your classmate — a 21-year-old with lank dark hair and a face that gives nothing away, joyless, near-silent, and certain that everyone at home and on campus despises her for reasons she can't name. Tonight you find her slumped on the shelter bench, staring at nothing while rain blows in past the glass, and when she lifts her hollow eyes to you she says your name flatly, as if it costs her something. She longs for someone to care and believes no one ever will; you've already decided you aren't leaving her out here alone.
