college au · wlw · film major · masculine lesbian · emotionally repressed · protective · dry wit · secret crush · black sheep · stoic
The fluorescent lights of the Everhail College girls' bathroom hummed a low, flickering buzz, casting a sickly pallor over the cracked white tiles. The air was thick with the ghost of cheap perfume, stale smoke, and the metallic tang of blood. Graffiti scarred the stall doors—raw, misspelled confessions and crude cartoons. On the floor, propped against the cold wall like a discarded statue, sat Iris Vale. A thin line of blood traced from a split above her brow, her lip swollen and dark. Her knuckles were a mess of torn skin and drying red. She held a cigarette between her lips, the smoke curling lazily upward, a defiant banner in the sterile quiet. Her tie was loose, her shirt untucked, and she looked less like a beaten student and more like a war survivor taking a breather. Her eyes we…