fuck are you doing?"

When Jake walked into the eighth floor common room, it was about four in the morning. Typical of his late-night snack sessions, he was shirtless and clutching a packet of instant noodles. After his startled question registered through my murky thoughts, I realised I must have looked odd to him, sitting motionless on the couch in the dark.

Following my shift at Topaz, where I had an unexpectedly profound conversation with Jo, I felt... different. Like my world had shifted a few degrees on its axis. Outwardly, everything appeared the same as it always did. But some part of me knew—especially considering my sudden career path change that no-one knew about yet—that something had just irrevocably changed.

When I came home, I had been too tired to immediately jump into the shower, so I took to the common room. It must have given Jake a big fright to see a shadowed figure sitting alone, silently contemplating all the things that had happened this semester.

I tossed a bashful smile over my shoulder. "I'm thinking."

"You're creepy," Jake said sassily. "That's what you are." He gave my neon-green singlet and faux-leather a cursory glance, before fixating on my absent expression. His cheerful smile dimmed a fraction. "Take it Topaz was eventful?"

I sighed humourlessly. Eventful sounded like an understatement. "Yeah. It was."

I heard Jake tear open the instant noodles and prepare them. The sounds of rustling plastic and then the whir of the microwave. He suddenly asked, at length, "What are you thinking about?"

My mind was simultaneously working too fast and too slow for me to string together exactly how I felt. At length, I shrugged and said, "Life."

"How specific. Care to share?"

"Hm." I was thinking about many things, spanning many years.

I was thinking about my first modelling job and how scared I'd been. My most recent modelling job and how apathetic I'd been. That time Mom had screamed at Kevin for an hour when he told her he wasn't going to college. Quen's fingers skimming like a cool, thin breeze across my back.

Eventually, I picked the thought my brain kept circling back to. "Do you think I'm fake?"

"Fuck," Jake exhaled. "That's what goes on in that head of yours?"

"Usually, I have two brain-cells running around and occasionally sparking a good idea between them actually," I joked dryly. Jake laughed like he didn't believe me. "But tonight, yes. That's what's in my head."

Jake waited for the microwave to stop before he gave me a reply. I was sitting on the couch that faced the coffee table, and behind that the TV, so he slid his food onto the edge of the coffee table and sat down opposite me.

"I don't think you're fake. You might have a lot of different vibes, but that doesn't mean you're fake. I think... that's being adaptable?" He shovelled a large clump of noodles into his mouth with his chopsticks and threw out a disclaimer: "I don't know, bro. I'm just here to eat my noodles. But feel free to bounce your thoughts off me."

I nodded, thankful for Jake's company but too tired to voice it. He didn't push me to speak as I ruminated on myself. Admittedly, that was probably more because he was completely engrossed with eating rather than actually listening.

"I think I can mask too well," I said eventually. "I become the person I need to be in different situations. I say that I don't like socialising, but I do it so naturally, the second people expect me to. I write for science, but I'll sell stupid hair gummies and teeth-whitening products for money. I say I love my fans, but I've literally wanted to run and hide from them sometimes."

At the end of my rant, Jake arched an eyebrow at me. He swallowed the contents of his mouth, then questioned archly, "Isn't that hypocrisy, not fakeness?"

I blinked. "Yeah." Jake liked to joke around and play the fool a lot but I knew he was truly sharp and observant. I admitted, "You're right. I'm being a hypocrite."

"I... was joking, Kris," he laughed incredulously at me. "You're not a hypocrite, and you're not fake. But you're really stuck on this, aren't you?"

"Yeah. I told a customer to 'look inside' herself and tricked myself into doing the same. Never doing this again," I laughed shakily.

Jake held another clump of noodles in the air, gesturing to his food. "Well, again. Just here for noodles. But, I will say that it sounds like you're a normal person," he shrugged. "Society places different expectations on everyone. For example, I'm going to say I like my boss, even when I hate him. I can't punch my Dad, but I can punch Jamie."

I scolded, "But you shouldn't."

"I can't show up to work shirtless, but I can do it around my floormates."

"Though I wish you wouldn't," I rolled my eyes.

"Har, har. Those are superficial examples," Jake explained. "On deeper levels, it gets stupid and it gets exhausting. But that's life. Everyone's got to perform in different situations. That's not being fake. That's adulting. Anyone who doesn't understand that needs to grow up."

While Jake chewed on his noodles, I chewed on the perspective he'd imparted to me. The vindication I felt when he indirectly told Noah to grow up made my lips twitch. So right.

Perform. That sounded like a much better word than being fake. It wasn't like I was a completely different person depending on the situation I was in.

My interests, goals and values didn't waver—at least, I hoped they didn't. I couldn't deny that my actions changed, however. I was confident and in command at work, but reclusive at home. I wrote research pieces about the effect of social media on mental health while I posted perfect, stomach-sucking bikini pictures on my own social media profiles.

I was the same person in different masks. Switching in and out of those masks, in a neverending carousel, was draining.

And I knew I couldn't keep doing this.

Work had become unworthy of the money it paid me. I was sleeping as much as I usually did, but I was feeling more restless than ever. I was afraid I would become more and more numb. Afraid that the numbness would consume that bright, saturated, multi-coloured future I had decided for myself weeks ago.

"And, Kris, only good people worry about whether they're good people or not. You are a good person."

Warmth rolled through my body. Jake was right. I was a good person. A great person. An awesome person.

What I really wanted was to rip the mask off and show the world that.

In a perfect world, Natural Affairs would be the best job for me. But I'd noticed that the old, white academics that ran the journal had a selective view on what intelligence looked like. I wanted to tell them that their most-read writer wore heavy makeup, miniskirts and danced in nightclubs for a living. And that I would, one day, be a better scientist than them.

I wanted to tell my fans that I loved them. I appreciated the ones who had asked for my autograph after runway shows when I was fifteen, the ones who bought the magazines I appeared in and the ones who just followed me on Instagram yesterday. I loved them, I loved them, I loved them. But get those cameras out of my fucking face. I had so much more to give than my appearance. Maybe they could ask me about my culture, the advice I had to give, or my aspirations for the future.

I wanted to tell Zach, Charlie and the Topaz crew that they were all some of the most wonderful people I'd met in my life. Zach went out of his way to give a struggling Pre-Med student an income. But the job just wasn't suited to me. I could do it well, but not without sacrificing my sleep, peace of mind and comfort. I'd much rather spend my Friday nights coding, watching movies and eating pizza.

I wanted to tell my Mom that I wasn't going to be Olivia 2.0. I knew she only pushed us into conventionally lucrative careers because she grew up without so many of the comforts she had provided for us. It came from a place of love and care. But I wished she wouldn't yell at Kevin for daring to break the mould. I wished she would place my happiness above my qualifications. I wished her support was unconditional.

And I wanted to tell Quen that I loved him—a fact that I hadn't even known until I looked Jo in the eyes, and decided I could let him go, if it meant him being happy with the person he couldn't get over. But not before being completely honest with him.

"So," Jake sang curiously. "Did I help?"

I looked up from my lap, meeting his smug, knowing eyes. "You did, surprisingly. Well done, Jacobus."

Jake's face immediately twisted into a revolted expression. "Ew! Why did you say that?"

His first name was his one, deep, dark secret and it was not to be mentioned lightly. If he'd had it his way, no-one on the eighth floor except Jamie would have known the truth. But I'd seen it on the check-in register on move-in day, and promptly told everyone else.

"You looked too proud of yourself for coming up with something philosophical," I shrugged. "Had to knock that smug grin off your face somehow."

"You're too cruel to me. Even after I gave you an epiphany, which I clearly did," he said matter-of-factly. "So, what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to stop," I said decisively.

Jake paused, confused. His next mouthful of food froze mid-air as he clarified, "Stop what?"

I smiled. "Faking it."

I spent that weekend ripping up the delicately woven fabric of my life.

My carefully-constructed, perfect routine. It felt like I was feeding the most important essays of my life into a paper shredder. More precisely, those important papers were probably something like med school secondary applications. Even though I'd sent them all out, if I was accepted into any of them, I would reject the offer.

It was the most liberating thing I'd ever done.

I didn't have a concrete backup, but I knew the direction in which I wanted to go. I set my sights there and crossed my fingers, pretty much. I couldn't see the destination, but the next step of the path was right in front of me. All I could do was walk it.

I wrote a resignation letter for Zach. And then, because I knew him—and how little weight he would give a piece of paper—I went out and bought him a litre-bottle of rum as a farewell gift. He would appreciate that much more. He would also probably force me to drink some of it with him on my last shift. He had never gotten me to break sobriety while I worked, after all, not even a little bit. He would see it as my first and last drink on the house. He would see it as fitting.

I asked for a raise from Natural Affairs. This wasn't purely spurred by my sudden need for more income now that I'd resolved to quit Topaz. I'd consistently written some of their most popular articles for two years. When other contributing authors had left the publication, I'd taken on their workload so that our output didn't have to drop. The worst that could happen was that they would say no. The best that could happen was I would have monetary proof of the value I contributed to science communication.

Before I told anyone else about my drastic change of course, I knew I had to tell Mom. She was the first person who deserved to know. She'd helped with a portion of my college tuition, and she really put her heart on the line for my career. Granted, it wasn't supposed to be that way. She shouldn't have interfered so much with my life choices. But there was no denying she had given her soul to my future.

"Mom..." I cut right to the chase when I called her. "I'm not going to med school."

When Mom switched to full Mandarin, that's how I knew she was livid.

Never mind the shrillness or the volume of her voice; Mandarin was a punchy language, full sounds and clean breaks between words. Her words were so loaded with emotion I could almost feel them, like bullets through my heart.

She asked if I wanted to hurt her. Really, that was the only thing she could think of that explained my rash, ungrateful and destructive actions—those adjectives exactly. She said that it was a stupid decision, for many reasons that she went on to list.

Firstly, we both had invested money in my Med career. I had also invested nearly four years of my time, and it would be the greatest loss not to use any of the qualifications I had earned.

Secondly, turning my back on medicine was limiting the financial options I had in the future. Mom was convinced I could make a stable living if I continued to study for Med school, and to switch tack was to blow more money on retraining.

Thirdly, I was naive if I made this decision for self-actualisation. Work wasn't always fulfilling. My job wasn't supposed to be a sanctuary. If I passed on legitimate career opportunities chasing a maybe, a possibility, a dream—

Then I wasn't as smart as she always thought I was.

That last one cut deep. Though I didn't think she was right all the time, it still mattered to me what Mom thought. I knew she was hurt, angry and just lashing out. I knew that and it still hurt—although her words didn't hurt me because I was offended. No, they spoke right to the doubts I harboured about my decision.

Every letter I sent, I felt a weight roll off my shoulders. I felt like all my different masks were fusing into one, and it looked beautiful. It looked like me, flaws and all. My insecurities. My cowardice. My doubts.

What if, at the end of the day, society couldn't accommodate my demand to be myself?

I knew it was a privilege to be able to chase one's dream, something that often came second to having food, water and shelter. I didn't have the means to spend my days however I wished, but I was fortunate enough to dictate my career options.

I was afraid the path I had set out on would end nowhere, or worse, even lower than my starting point. My plan rode entirely on a few things going right—things I hadn't thought were particularly far-fetched till Mom lambasted my decisions.

She scathingly asked me if I would rather be happy and poor, or rich and bored.

"I don't know. But I'm going to figure it out. On my own, if I have to."

Then I hung up.

Woohoo! Go Krista, go Krista, it's ya birthday!

I love this chapter. Uni is a troubling time. You compare yourself to all of your peers and start wondering things like "am I a sellout?" and "have I convinced everyone I'm a good person?" and it's maddening. I love watching Krista have her moment of clarity and find herself.

We can all do it too!

Aimee x