sent out my secondary application to Columbia.

Each school had different deadlines for applying, so my life had been a consistently stressful carousel of duplicating dozens of application essays and slightly personalising them for each school. Everything was textbook: my application proudly displayed my job as a freelance science writer; I spoke of the practical experience my agriscience and pharmaceutical internships had given me; my personal statement said I'd always wanted a tangible way to change the world for the better—no matter how big or small.

My heart was supposed to be in my chest.

But as I took a mental register of all eleven of the Med programs that had gotten back to me after my primary application, I felt nothing. No weights rolled off my shoulder, nor did my stomach twist tighter into knots. I just thought well, that's done.

Now it was just a matter of waiting. Waiting to see if I'd cleared the chasm. Waiting to see where I would land.

I finished off an article for Natural Affairs about the link between O-negative blood types and the rate of injury mortality, and then found an update was waiting for the code processing app I used to write Python. I'd updated the app many times, but this time something went wrong. My laptop was far hotter than it usually was, and the intense whirring noises coming from its vents unsettled me.

And then a message box popped up on the screen, telling me the update had gone awry. It informed me that the device folders would be uninstalled and the device would be shut down. I could re-download the app to get the newest version.

"No!" I shouted, clutching the sides of my laptop like it was a sentient person. "Fuck!"

This couldn't be happening. I hadn't created an account with the app's servers. I didn't have backups for my coding projects in any cloud storage sites. Python was supposed to be a quick hack for processing my lab data more efficiently; I hadn't expected to fall in love with it. It had just been a hobby, before it became something more.

As such, I never thought much of backing up the code scripts I wrote. I knew I only wrote them to learn the skills behind each project, but those were still important to me. They were records of my entire learning process. They were trials, challenged and successes. Those models were testimony to the things I could create and the things I could change.

Yes, I could replicate the code—probably to an even higher quality than the originals—but I couldn't replicate the things I'd felt. I couldn't replace the frustration behind specific keystrokes. I couldn't replace the satisfaction I felt when that one particular figure finally loaded itself.

My heart hammered as I frantically waited for my laptop screen to turn on again. I could see the panic in my eyes, the thin frames of my glasses, the stern set of my jaw, reflected back at me in the obsidian glass. When my laptop finally restarted, my fingers flew across the keyboard as I tried to re-download the coding app.

It was an arduous twenty minutes. My laptop was still overheated, and it didn't run as quickly as usual. When the installation process was complete, I started the app.

"Thank fuck," I sighed, collapsing back in my chair.

My old projects were still there. From my most recent wave function plots to the very first file I'd ever created, titled simply flower. The functions that Quen and I had jokingly made during my very first attempt to code. The flower with my name inside it.

I felt such a wave of relief that my work was preserved, that my journey was still there for me to revisit at my own leisure. Nothing had ever made me feel so weightless, so hopeful. As the shock of the relief wore off, gratitude edged itself into my heart.

During the lecture last Monday, I'd been so bitter. I remember wishing that Quen had never given me a seat to take at the start of the semester. If I'd never known him, I wouldn't be feeling so dejected now. The feeling had softened during the Thursday tutorial. Contrary to my worst fears, Jo and Quen didn't seem overly romantic with each other. They were both polite and upbeat, but they didn't look at each other much. Probably to compensate for the attention they paid each other in private.

But if I'd never known him, I would never have discovered coding. Granted, Quen wasn't the one who'd made me what I was. He wasn't the one who'd stayed up late and searched the internet and tweaked syntax structures for hours on end. I had always been capable of this. Quen was just the one who inadvertently made me realise it.

Without him, I wouldn't know the stinging blade of rejection. But I wouldn't know curiosity, desire, jealousy, hope and joy either. It was like he took the saturation dial of my life and turned it all the way up. He taught me that I had to go get the things I wanted. My heart was in my chest. The way risks were supposed to feel.

If your family was fully cared for.

Who would you be?

I knew what I had to do.

I think I might have known since freshman year, or even earlier. But I was faced with Mom's invincible dreams, my siblings' shoes to fill and incredible pressure to be more than just a model. I'd jumped the smallest chasm. I'd taken the easy path, though it might not have looked like it.

Three hours later, I was starting a new document.

It was a blank white rectangle, yet I could see winding, multi-coloured roads threading around the page. I could see options and challenges and successes.

I could see a saturated future that felt like mine.

Finally.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

"Heads up," Charlie warned me.

It was Friday night—just about to be Saturday actually, given how late it was.

"That lady in purple is looking a bit woozy. Check-in with her? Find out if she needs to be cut off."

"Yessir," I mock-saluted our lovable security guard.

Charlie was big, tall and brawny—as required by his job—but he was a total softie. I was the one who had to deal with any spiders in corners because he was afraid of just about everything he couldn't pick up and body-slam.

"Thanks, Krista," he grumbled.

When I turned to the bar and singled out the lady in purple, my eyes widened. I walked up to her immediately and gently touched her shoulder. "Jo?"

"Krista?" she asked groggily. "Oh, yeah. I heard you worked here."

I'd seen Jo drink before, so I wasn't too shocked to see her out on a Friday night. But at SciBall she'd been peppy and upbeat, whereas now she looked positively miserable. My eyes ran up and down her sprawling form, leaning heavily on the bar for support.

"How are you feeling tonight?" I asked gently.

"To be very honest, like crap. Don't tell anyone," she whispered conspiratorially. I nodded in agreement, but then she flung her arms up and screamed to anyone that would listen, "I feel like crap!"

"Aw, that sucks," I said smoothly, unbothered by her outburst. Drunk people were predictably unpredictable, but they usually weren't my friends. I felt a strong tug of concern for Jo. "Want to tell me about it?"

Jo looked at me with sad, blue eyes. "Sure. I don't even have to explain to you like I did to my friends, because you know the whole story. Quen is a bastard! A pompous, stuck-up bastard!"

My blood ran cold. Did Quen hurt her somehow? Was that why she was drinking herself silly in Topaz? They looked like a promising couple just two weeks ago, before the semester started again. What had happened?

"Oh, my God," I baulked. "What did he do? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Actually," Jo added despondently, "he's not a bastard. He's a goddamn freaking angel."

My concern for Jo was alleviated slightly by that, a small dose of relief calming my nerves. I didn't know what I would have done if I discovered some conflict between my two friends.

"I just wish he was a bastard so it would be easier to get over him."

"I know how you feel," I said truthfully. More than you think. "I thought you guys had a great time on your date. You sure looked cozy."

"I thought so, too! But it turns out, he doesn't feel the same way for me. Says there's another girl that he thought he could get over but, turns out, he can't. Oopsies!"

"Aw, Jo. I'm sorry. You gave it your best shot, though," I stroked her shoulder comfortingly. "There's nothing to regret."

"I suppose not." Jo's glassy blue eyes slid up to my face and she pursed her lips. "You know, I thought the girl was you. But I didn't want to ask. But now I'm drunk, so I'm asking. Are you and Quen a thing?"

"No! Believe me, he doesn't like me. He's gone further with you than he has ever wanted to with me."

It was true: at least she'd gotten to go to lunch with him. Whenever I thought about how quickly Quen had shot down my suggestion to meet up outside of class, all those weeks ago, my cheeks still flamed with residual embarrassment.

"That's fucking depressing," Jo muttered, suddenly resting her head on my shoulder.

Zach, at the bar, noticed her make contact and shot me a questioning look. I gave him a thumbs-up to indicate she hadn't, in fact, fallen unconscious. When he nodded, satisfied, I asked Jo, "What do you mean?"

"Look at you! You're so beautiful, so confident, fucking intelligent, and super nice as well. If he didn't like you, this girl of his must be a literal goddess. A divine being. Way out of our leagues."

I frowned. That phrase reminded me of something Noah had said to me. He'd said Quen and I couldn't work because I was out of his league. I didn't want Jo buying into the same crap.

"Not necessarily. It could be a girl he saw once that he can't get out of his mind. It could be a girl he met in kindergarten and recently ran into again. It could be an ex that just won't quit," I listed. "I don't think there's such a thing as leagues when it comes to love."

"That's so deep, Krista. I love it when you're deep," Jo murmured blissfully, angling her head into my chest. "Keep going."

"Well, I don't know much on the topic," I warned. "But..."

I thought of Noah. He'd done the exact same thing I did with Quen, I realised. He tried messaging me and striking up banter. He sat with me a few times as I studied in the Business building. All the things I did with Quen at first. And we'd both failed. "Some people who want chances don't get them."

I thought of Quen, and the lunch date that never was. That was the last gesture of many that I'd made for him—including prioritising him at work, entertaining his friends, forming a study group and visiting his marching band practices. "Some people who get chances don't take them."

I thought of Riley and Phoenix, wedged apart by a recurring pain that was just slightly stronger than their love. "Sometimes two people both take a chance and the world intervenes."

I thought of Viv and Jamie, who actually hated each other the first time everyone moved into the floor and now—I strongly suspected—loved each other. "And sometimes weird shit happens just right that it all works out."

There was nothing to say who would fall in love, who would fall in hate or who would stay friends. In fact, I was more confused about love than before I opened my mouth to Jo. I told her as much, too, sighing and shrugging: "I don't know, really."

"It's okay. I'm drunk. This all sounds magical to me." I laughed aloud. Jo never failed, even in her sadness, to make people happy.

"Then, I want you to try really hard to remember this. Whatever happens between two people, says nothing about the two individually. Rejection doesn't make you unworthy. Being desired doesn't make you a good person. It's all about what's inside, love."

"I know all that on a superficial level," Jo whined. "It's just so hard to make myself think that. I know I should be confident in who I am, but then I'm surrounded by so many amazing people I feel ugly and bland in comparison. I can't stop comparing myself."

If that wasn't the truth.

When Jo revealed the way she saw me—intelligent, beautiful, confident—I couldn't believe it. My 'intelligence' only came through long, arduous hours of studying because I had never been naturally smart. My beauty—if not purely skin-deep—was mostly amplified by makeup and stylish clothing.

And my confidence?

I tried really hard to keep a handle on it. But sometimes, when I questioned all my life choices up till this point, it was hard to believe I had ever been the same teenager who strutted down New York City fashion runways with her head held high.

"It's hard, I know. But try not to look around you. Look inside you. This is just my opinion—which is irrelevant, remember—but you are incredible, Jo," I stepped away from her so that she would have to look at me. "You're always cheerful and welcoming. You push yourself in class and speak up for your shyer friends. You're the bomb dot com."

At my words, seeing Jo stare at me with pure reverence and awe, it dawned on me that every person felt this way. Inadequate. Uncertain. Less than.

I felt that way when I looked at Jo and saw pure sunlight streaming through her smile. I felt that way when I looked at Quen and wondered why—despite knowing on a superficial level, as Jo said—he didn't like me back. Did that make me vapid or weak?

"Do you really think that of me?"

"Yes," I answered instantly. That deadset surety suddenly spilt over into my own self-doubt, and then I knew.

No, I told myself. Having insecurities doesn't make me vapid or weak. Just as seeing Jo get sad-drunk in a club didn't sway my opinion of her, I reminded myself that the people closest to me accepted me for who I was—not who I pretended to be. The right people would never think I was fake.

Halfway through this rumination, I realised that Jo had dropped her gaze to the floor and buried her face in her hands. She didn't speak for many moments too long.

Shit. Did I say something wrong?

"Jo? Are—"

"Goddamnit, Krista!" Her chin jerked up and she grinned blearily. "I told myself I wouldn't cry tonight," she laugh-sobbed. Her eyes were streaked with red veins and her mascara was running, but they shone with strength and joy, and I smiled in return.

I said simply, "Happy tears don't count."

"Okay. Okay," Jo said steadily. She used a napkin from her minibag to wipe her eyes. Then she got off the chair and hugged me so tightly I think I heard a rib pop. But I didn't mind. I even beamed at Jo when she let me go.

Before she disappeared into the crowd, ostensibly to find her friends, she repeated, "Happy tears don't count."

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Quen leaving a trail of broken hearts behind him...

And knowing what he's really like, he's got no idea. The boy is so oblivious.

Anyways. Thanks so much for sticking with this story! I read somewhere that you get more votes if you remind people in your author's notes, but I've just been saying random things in mine.

I will probably do this one and then forget in the next ones XD I would appreciate you voting if you enjoyed this chapter!

Aimee x