The girl, disheveled with her hair in knots and dark circles under her eyes, dragged herself to the lecture hall. A stylist would look at his girl and lament at potential gone to waste, but she was long past the point of caring, and from most the only attention she would get would be a look of concern or disgust. Her manner matched her appearance. She moved like she was dead on the inside, a perfect fit for looking almost dead on the outside.

She payed no attention to the people shying away from her as she worked her way up to her usual spot at the back of the hall. She was used to it, and furthermore was never one to put too much stock in what people thought of her in the first place. She had always been withdrawn, to put things lightly. The more accurate description would be to call her gloomy and anti-social.

Her parents, quite frankly, had no idea how to deal with her growing up. She had always been a good student, when the topic interested her, and when the topic didn’t interest her she would avoid it. She didn’t march to the beat of her own drum; to say she was marching would give the false impression that there was some sort of pattern and coordination to her actions. It was more of the view of someone absentmindedly ambling through a trail in the woods, occasionally picking up the pace to run off when something caught her interest. It goes without saying that this approach to life was concerning to those around her.

Opening up her laptop, took a swig from a travel tumbler before pouring over her notes from the previous night, making sure to set out a voice recorder to pick up the lecture. This was part of her reason for sitting in the back of class. She already had a less than stellar reputation among her classmates, with many of them assuming all sorts of things about her. The nicest of them thought that she had just never grown out of an edgy middle school sort of phase, while others had her typecast as someone with a severe mental illness, studying neuroscience as a way to solve her own problems. If they saw her monitor full of musty manuscripts and arcane sigils, they’d assume she was some sort of nutcase.

While her behavior up until recently could be described as pathological, there hadn’t actually been anything wrong with her. That much she was sure of; her parents had her tested, and had been surprised when the doctors said she was perfectly...err… not at the point of meeting any sort of diagnostic criteria. She was odd, sure, but medicalising every odd person who showed up to a psychiatrist can be actively harmful. She had been odd, introverted, but at the end of the day she had been perfectly able to function in society if need be.

At least she had been. She grew out of her habit of slacking off in classes that didn’t catch her interest, and graduated near top of her class in high school. She got accepted into her first choice of school, a very respectable university, and got an academic scholarship to boot. Her parents eventually got used to her somewhat odd nature, and even trusted her to use her college savings, no longer needed thanks to her full ride, in a responsible manner for whatever she wished. As a surprisingly responsible recent high-school graduate at the time, she bought a car, school supplies, and set the rest aside for unforeseen expenses that might pop up at school.

The first of those unexpected expenses came about in her second year of school. Like most universities now, students are required to take a multitude of required courses completely unrelated to their majors. The school’s say these are to widen the perspective of the students, though most believe the justification is more to widen the budgets of the less useful faculty members. This girl thought that. How else are you going to get a practical-minded science major to take garbage courses like Feminist Dance Therapy Throughout the Ages or Intro to Hermetic Schools of Thought: From Coptic to Crowley (After certain revelations, she signed up for the later as an elective for her upcoming Spring semester).

The issues came about when she ran into difficulties with the course Sub-Aqueus Approaches to Basket Weaving in Colonial America. She had always been confident in her intellect, and not being able to learn something easily was something new to her. Reluctantly, she had asked the professor if she knew where she could find a good tutor, and the professor recommended a new graduate student who had just started there, by the name of Rose Snyder.

When first meeting her, the girl initially thought she was an airhead. It was only natural she would feel this way. She had always been able to accomplish anything she put her mind to if she wanted to, and even the thought that she needed help with something needled her. Yes, she was hiring this Rose girl as a tutor, but she still had the ingrained notion that she was better than her.

She must be, since instead of studying something useful she was focusing on colonial fiber arts and clothing. Anyone who decided to make that their field of study instead of Science couldn’t be that bright. Most likely she had gotten in to the school to fill some sort of quota. Not sure which one, but is there a quota for batting for the other team? She does sort of give off those vibes. Or it’s probably due to having been in the military. She mentioned that briefly. Most schools want to seem military friendly, and what better way to get guaranteed income than someone with a GI Bill?

But then the girl began to get to know Rose. She almost had a certain energy she gave off, one that drew people to her. Yes, she was often air-headed, but while the girl felt she should have been irritated by these lapses, they just fascinated her. She managed to make colonial crafts, something that up until then had been nothing but an annoying check in the box for the science-focused girl, seem endlessly interesting. And slowly, the girl began to realize that while her tutor’s mind was prone to wandering, she always managed to accomplish what needed to be done for the day.

And while she was a bit of an airhead at times she wasn’t that bad of one. She always payed attention to her appearance, with a decent mix between sensible and fashionable. Although she was a graduate student, she went out of her way to keep her wardrobe up to date, and wasn’t afraid to wade into the mire of “trendy” to try out new looks and ideas. She may have been in love with history, but she still had her hand on the pulse of the present.

She was more surprised to learn that Rose hadn’t even studied History in her undergraduate work. She had been a Biology major, and had gone on to do research work before deciding to change careers. Unlike most of the people she interacted with, as part of her major, she felt Rose was more… dynamic. She didn’t just focus on history, and she didn’t just focus on science. There was a depth to her, as if she could pick up on things so much further down below the surface of things. The more she talked with and interacted with Rose, the more enamored the girl became. Eventually, before she knew it, she realized she had fallen in love.

Nearing the end of that semester, she had finally decided she had to act. She had begun to abandon the antisocial ways she had been known for in middle and high school, but she was still a novice when came to love. She had never been in love before, actually. She had avoided getting close to anyone, and always assumed she would eventually fall in love with some man long, far off in the future if at all. Love had been something to happen to someone else, not her. And to fall in love with a woman...she had always looked down on that even more. It wasn’t, in her mind, logical. At least that’s how she used to feel. She knew people couldn’t help how they were born but she also felt, in the past, that it’d be difficult having a much higher risk of being rejected. She had been so stupid, in the past.

She eventually, her heart in her throat, asked Rose if she wanted to go for coffee, and was thrilled when Rose answered yes. She had already picked the perfect place, a small coffee shop in a quaint town in the suburbs. They could chat for a while, then go for a walk in one of the nearby parks. But, as they sat there in the coffee shop, the girl slowly became aware of something off. They were talking, much like how they did when she was being tutored. Almost exactly like they talked during their tutoring sessions. Rose was being polite with the girl, but wasn’t acting interested in her. Did she even know it was supposed to be a date?

She clearly didn’t. While she was surprisingly perceptive at times, it seems she had a blind spot. The date was a disappointment. We sat for a while, chatting about various topics over coffee, then left. The only highlight was that she was able to get Rose’s social media info. Well, that’s a start. Maybe, she though, she could get closer to Rose, and eventually…

That’s what the girl, thought. She continued to think that, for several years, glued to her phone and reading all of Roses posts. Eventually, she would tell herself, she would work up the courage to tell Rose how she felt. Eventually…

Then, one day, Rose went missing.

The clatter of chairs and the shuffle of notes being shoved into backpacks woke the girl up. It seems she fell asleep in class again. As usual. Quietly, she put her laptop away and turned off the recorder. As she left the room she had though she had heard the professor calling her name, but she ignored it.