Orientation week is over. Four days, including the weekend, of forced "fun" and getting to know people you probably will never speak to again for the next four years. Rae has introduced herself to more people in the past few days than she had in all of her eighteen years of life. She couldn't remember many of the names or the faces she'd encountered, could barely remember the names of the buildings she'd be going to for classes. There were a couple people that seemed decent enough but no one to write home about, well except for maybe her roommate, Izzy. She's sitting at her desk sorting her notebooks, binders, pens, and folders. Rae is bent over her own desk doing the same.
Rae had been nervous about being roomed with or meeting the kind of girls who tormented and judged her back in high school. Even though this is University people can still be cruel. There was still the chance of hiding her clothes while she showers, throwing things at her, pulling her hair. None of those things happened here yet but Rae is still on edge just in case. She was surprised and pleased to find that Izzy was anything but cruel. Izzy had greeted Rae and her family with tight hugs and chocolate chip cookies.
Apparently her parents had dropped her off much earlier than most students were and used the extra time to go buy some cookies from the bookstore since their dorm building didn't have an oven. Yes, Izzy had brought baking supplies in the hopes of there being an oven. She'd even decorated most of the room before Rae arrived with fairy lights, pink and purple tapestries, and two light yellow bean bag chairs.
When Rae and her family had walked in Izzy flooded them with apologies for getting carried away and offered to immediately take everything down. It wasn't exactly Rae's style but she couldn't deny that the room came together quite nicely and there was no real reason to ask Izzy to take everything down. Rae still put up her Stone Roses and Weezer posters and set up her record player in front of the window. In the few nights they'd spent in their new dorm room together the decorations had actually started to grow on Rae more and more.
Izzy's in her pale pink pajama shorts and a white cami, her red curls in a loose bun on the top of her head. They have a hall meeting tonight where they're officially going to meet their RA, re-meet the girls in their hall, and sign a roommate agreement. Rae looks down at her singlet and shorts. She'd never wear anything like this two years ago, not even in her room by herself.
The pink raised scars on her thighs are more than visible as is the way her thighs press together, stomach curves out over her shorts in a way other girls would shudder at, but years with Kester and some self-love have shown her that her body is not a shameful thing. It is soft, warm, comforting. Her beauty is not conditional on how much space she takes up on a seat or the number on the back tag of her jeans.
There are still days that looking in the mirror is a struggle but today is not one of those days.