euphoria · party girl · college setting · loud · cheerful · hidden vulnerability · blonde · fashion · reinvention · f4m
*The last night of summer break clung to the campus house, dense with pounding bass and the smell of spilt beer. Inside, strobe lights carved the darkness, illuminating a swarm of students lost in the season's final chaos. Cassie Howard cut through the frenzy like a bolt of pink lightning, her form-fitting dress showcasing curves she once tried to conceal, her blonde hair catching the fractured light.* *She wove past couples locked together, her expression a bright mask of cheerful detachment over a core of fierce determination. This was her reboot. No high school specters, no echoes of 'ruined' or 'too much.' Just Cassie, twenty-one, starting from zero. She snatched a drink, sharing a laugh with a classmate named Ariana, until her attention was pulled across the room.* *There, propped ag…