~Chapter 5~
One afternoon in late September, Rapunzel returns from class to find that, while Mulan is not in their shared room, her laptop is open…on Rapunzel's desk.
In fact, her roommate's side of the room is a complete mess, clothes tumbling out of her wardrobe and strewn all over the floor, books and papers scattered across her desk, more clothes on her desk chair, her comforter rolled up in a ball on top of the otherwise bare mattress…
Mulan comes bursting in moments later (she tends to do that a lot, Rapunzel has noticed—the only time she doesn't barge into the room is when it's late and Rapunzel has retired for the night), breathlessly apologizing.
"I swear this is a one-time thing, Rapunzel! It's just—I had some friends from culture club studying in here last night while you were out, and they kind of trashed my stuff, so now I need to do a major laundry overhaul and sort out this mess they made…"
She tries to remake her bed and fold her laundry and organize her desk all at once and fails miserably, so Rapunzel lends a hand with pulling the sheets over her mattress (making a lofted bed is a lot easier with the assistance of a friend) and helpfully takes out the trash.
When she returns from the trash room, Mulan is folding her laundry and stashing it back in her drawers. Her laptop is still open on Rapunzel's desk, running a screensaver slideshow of…something that looks like stars. Well, almost like stars. Anyone who's ever charted starts knows that they are always constant, but these don't look like any constellations that Rapunzel recognizes. Up close, they look like glowing kites against the night sky. There are also a few pictures of a large group of people standing on a bridge surrounded by a backdrop of those floating lights. In one picture, a smiling girl whom Rapunzel recognizes as a younger, gap-toothed Mulan is holding one of those glowing things in her hands.
Mulan catches her watching. "Oh, this old thing? Those are sky lanterns. My family went to China to visit some relatives one summer when I was…eleven, I think? The Mid-Autumn Festival was earlier than usual that year, so I didn't have to miss school, and the town where we were staying with our relatives had this really cool lantern ceremony."
"Is that a picture of you?"
"Yep, that was taken right before I accidentally set the village gossip on fire and then dumped tea on her to put it out. Needless to say, we haven't been invited back to the ceremony since then."
Rapunzel holds back a giggle and retreats into the kitchenette. "Speaking of tea, I'm in the mood for some chrysanthemum tea. You want any?"
"Sure, thanks! And sorry about commandeering your desk. I promise I'll take my laptop back as soon as I'm done reorganizing!"
"No problem."
She's still intrigued. While she waits for the water to heat up in the microwave, Rapunzel pulls out her phone and searches "sky lanterns" on Google Images to admire more pictures. They certainly look like they would be fun to do a painting of.
And by some twist of fate, this year's Mid-Autumn Festival apparently just so happens to land on her birthday, too. Ecpot has a Chinatown, and they probably host some kind of celebration for major lunar holidays every year. She doubts they'll have floating lanterns, though. Hot air balloons made of paper with a small fire suspended from the inside sound like a fire hazard for sure. But even without the lanterns, maybe the Chinese Cultural Club will be having their own celebration. She wonders if their invitation to join still stands.
Rapunzel's eighteenth birthday has been a pretty uneventful day, honestly.
There's a bulletin board in the hallway that lists the birthdays of everyone on the floor, and floormates who bothered to look at the board this morning wished her a happy birthday when they saw her around. Facebook also displays her birthday, but only a small handful of people wrote their well wishes on her timeline. Aside from recognizing their names from the Valley Tower 6-West group, Rapunzel doesn't really know them. She wonders if it's the proper etiquette to wish acquaintances a happy birthday over social medial but not do that for a friend. Maybe long lists of generic birthday wishes that can be typed out in 10 seconds cheapen the sentiment, the way Facebook has cheapened the word "friend."
At lunch, Rose, Snow, Ariel, and Mulan gave her what they called "a pinch to grow an inch." (Obviously, it's just a superstition. Rapunzel has long since accepted that she's going to be five feet tall for life, seeing as most girls stop growing about two years after menarche, and she stopped growing long before even got her first period.)
Otherwise, it's just a normal Thursday.
So now it's 11 p.m., and she's at her desk, triple-checking the calculus homework that's due tomorrow. She's already had her daily phone conversation with Mother, who expressed worry that Rapunzel would starve because dining hall food tends to plunge in quality after the first few weeks of school. She didn't even get a chance to protest that she was fine before Mother announced that she'd ordered a tape measure for her as a birthday present, to track her waistline and make sure it doesn't shrink or something.
It was a nice sentiment, except Rapunzel was pretty sure the expression is actually the "Freshman Fifteen," wherein freshmen take advantage of the unlimited buffet and gain weight. And she couldn't help but remember Mother explicitly calling her "chubby" very recently. She didn't bother pushing the subject, though, since Mother would just deny ever saying such a thing. At least she was sending the tape measure under the pretense of worrying that Rapunzel might be underfed, instead of outright calling her fat again.
The dorm is surprisingly quiet. Mulan and Ariel are nowhere to be found. A lot of classes are having their first wave of midterms around this time. Rapunzel took her first physics midterm earlier in the week, and she recalls Ariel complaining about how her Anthropology and Human Origins midterm is the same day she has a paper due for her writing class. There's probably a test or something major tomorrow, so everyone else on the floor is most likely at the library or holed up in their rooms studying.
Rapunzel is about to turn in for the night when someone knocks on the suite door.
It's one of her floormates—the guy who goes by "Jumbo," probably a reference to his big ears. With him is Lottie, the blonde who lives in the suite across the hall. Rapunzel opens her mouth to rattle off the usual "No, Mulan and Ariel aren't here, they're probably at the library studying, it's no problem, bye!" but Jumbo speaks first.
"Hi, Rapunzel! We're having an RA meeting right now on the Meadow."
(The Meadow is a giant lawn in front of the school library, just inside the gates, with the iconic statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse as its centerpiece. It's a popular spot for visitors on campus tours to take photos, and for students to spread out a picnic blanket and sunbathe. WDU is an open campus, so random people living in Epcot who aren't students often bring their dogs to the Meadow to play, too.)
"Oh!" Rapunzel doesn't remember either Max or Tiana mentioning a floor meeting for this week, but she's been kind of distracted with schoolwork. "Um…I'll be there in a minute. Let me grab my keys."
"Sure," Lottie replies. "We'll walk there with you."
A few minutes later, the three of them are walking briskly down the sidewalk, headed for the university gates. It's only late September, but it is cold tonight. Rapunzel rubs her hands together in a vain attempt to warm up her already numbed fingers.
As they approach the gate, she notices a large group of about fifty people, whom she assumes are the rest of the Valley Tower 6-West floor, gathered in a huddle in the middle of the Meadow. There's something else there—a bunch of strange flickering orange lights—but it's too dark, and she's too far away to make out what it is.
When she gets closer, though, a hush falls over the crowd, almost as if everyone's been talking about her, and now they realize she's here. She's close enough now to see that these people are, in fact, her floormates. She can recognize several kids from the crowd she'd gone to the frat party with. She also sees Mulan's friends from the Chinese Culture Club: Yao, Ling, and Chien-Po (whom she has started referring to in her head as the Three Musketeers). Those three don't live in this dorm, though, do they? What are they doing at this floor meeting?
No sooner does everyone quiet down than someone starts singing the happy birthday song. And then everyone else joins in.
Ohhhh…
(She really should be embarrassed that it took her this long to catch on, if she weren't so flattered.)
When the song's over, one of the Three Musketeers yells, "Now let's sing it in Chinese!" but everyone ignores him. Mulan and Ariel emerge from the crowd, a large sheet cake balanced between them. "Surpriiiiise!"
And then, someone else (Flynn?) steps forward, holding out one of the weird flickering orange things Rapunzel had noticed earlier. "Here ya go, birthday girl! Make a wish and smile for the camera!"
It's a sky lantern.
It's official: Her dorm is the best dorm ever.
It turns out, her roommates had been agonizing over what to get Rapunzel for her birthday, but Mulan got the perfect idea when she noticed Rapunzel admiring her sky lantern screensaver. She promptly decided to order the sky lanterns off Amazon and even talked a few CCC members into attending the celebration as well, since it is the Mid-Autumn Festival. And Ariel had the idea to involve the entire floor and buy a giant ice cream cake.
(Sorry, Mother. You only turn eighteen once. And this is the first birthday cake she's ever had that she didn't have to bake for herself. Plus, it's a real cake, not a sad, lonely cupcake. And it has ice cream in it! Yeah, she's definitely trying a piece.)
So Rapunzel takes the lantern and grins from ear to ear as one of the girls takes a photo of her, and then she releases it. Then someone counts to three, and the remaining lanterns are released all at once.
It looks absolutely amazing, even if there are only about ten of them (they were probably worried about the city's fire code). She makes sure to take as many pictures as she can. They keep rising and rising until they're tiny specks in the sky, no bigger than the stars.
After they send off all the lanterns (and collectively almost have a heart attack because the wind nearly blew one of them into a tree), they all decide to go back to the common area to tackle the cake. Most of their floormates get their slice and retire to their rooms, since they have midterms to study for, but Mulan, the Three Musketeers, and a few others convince Rapunzel to stay up late and play Apples to Apples with them.
By the time they've grown tired of Apples to Apples, it's nearly 1 a.m., probably the latest Rapunzel has ever stayed up. The others don't appear tired at all, since they've comfortably transitioned into the "college student" time zone, where they sleep and wake up several hours behind the normal population. But as fun as tonight has been, tomorrow (today?) is a Friday, which means Rapunzel has to get up early for her 8 a.m. chemistry TA section.
So she bids goodnight to everyone still in the common area and retreats to her room to post a quick thank-you on Facebook to everyone who was at her birthday celebration. To her surprise, someone on their floor has already compiled an Instagram photoset of the lantern celebration and tagged her in it, and multiple people have shared it, all with comments to the extent of "Valley Tower 6-West FTW! Happy birthday, Rapunzel!"
And someone (presumably Ariel or Mulan) has left a little purple envelope on her desk, with her name written in loopy, curly script on it. Curious, she opens it to find a birthday card signed by just about everybody on the floor. Most of her floormates just wrote their names, but a couple made her chuckle.
Congratulations on successfully completing another trip around the sun! -Belle
Under that one, Aladdin has added, Good job, you survived another year on a planet with a 100% mortality rate. Keep it up! (Do I get bonus points for being wittier than Belle?)
And under that, someone else has simply written, No. -F.R.
Rapunzel feels incredibly fortunate to have been assigned to this dorm, to meet these amazing people. And yet…she doesn't really know why, but she feels…guilty? Like she doesn't deserve kindness from these people—they don't even really know her because she avoids them, yet they go out of their way throw her a birthday party, even though she knows most of them have some midterm or other coming up?
She recalls a few weeks ago, during orientation, before she'd resigned herself to being a social recluse, how she'd been so optimistic about making new friends here. Maybe it's time to quit doubting herself. She's settling into college; her classes are going swimmingly; her floormates have pretty much proven that they see her as a friend, even if she's never around… All things considered, she's doing pretty well.
She can't let her fear of being caught in embarrassing situations turn into "I can't leave my room, there are human beings outside." She should go to a Girls' Night session with Ariel, Mulan, Snow, and Rose some time. She should hang out more in the lounge with these amazing people on her floor. Because even if her awkwardness makes her look stupid, she still has amazing roommates looking out for her, and floormates who are patient and understanding.
So what if she didn't have the best time at that frat party? So what if a guy saw her underwear and her first day of classes got off to a rough start? If she lets a few bumps on the road stop her from trying new things, her insecurities are going to rule her life and prevent her from living it.
She needs to let her life begin.
Mulan looks delighted to see Rapunzel the next evening when she hesitantly wanders into the common area after dinner. Ariel, Rose, and Snow are there, too, along with Belle, who's apparently friends with Snow and Rose, too. Her friends look up their laptops, wave cheerfully, and go back to whatever they were doing.
She's a little surprised that Ariel is staying in Valley Tower on a Friday night. Rapunzel briefly wonders if something happened with that Eric guy Ariel was interested in, but she dismisses the idea. If something had gone wrong, Ariel would have told them, and their friends would have declared an emergency Girl's Night and cooed over her and petted her hair. Maybe Ariel just wants to switch things up and hang out with her friends tonight.
Everyone seems to be content to work in companionable silence, though. Aside from Mulan, other girls are all wearing headphones. So Rapunzel takes the open seat on the couch next to Mulan and pulls out her laptop.
Then she realizes she doesn't really have anything to do. With midterms out of the way, she doesn't have any pressing deadlines in any of her classes.
Mother always got angry whenever Rapunzel wasn't busy doing something and would accuse her of "loafing around." It got to the point where Rapunzel would gauge how long she would reasonably be allowed to read on her own before Mother quizzed her on the material, and then she would slow down her studying accordingly to look busy. She probably spent more time studying back when Mother homeschooled her than she does now in college.
It's strange to have this much free time after three or four weeks of dedicated studying. It's like that weird anxious feeling she got during orientation before classes started, like she's almost expecting Mother to pop out from somewhere at any moment and shout, "Gotcha!" Maybe now's a good time as any to break out her paints and art supplies…
She's about to get up and go do just that (the lighting's better in the common area than in the dorm rooms) when someone else walks into the lounge.
"Flynn!" She recognizes the newcomer instantly. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be out at a party?"
His eyes widen in mock shock. "Your Highness, you know I'd rather spend a Friday night with my besties—right, Mumu?"
Mulan rolls her eyes. "We," she deadpans, "are not friends."
"I'm wounded. I bet Blondie here would make a better bestie than you anyway. What do you say, Blondie? Wanna be my new best friend? We can get friendship necklaces that say 'Flynn and Blondie: BFFs for Life!'"
"Sure, so long as we can change it to 'Saucepan Guy – Child Pornographer Extraordinaire.'" She blushes as soon as she says it. Where did that come from?
Flynn actually laughs at that. "Nah, I prefer 'Flynn Seximus Rider – God's Gift to Women, Though Gay Men are Welcome to Look, They Just Can't Touch.' You gotta say it in full, Blondie, or else you'll get the Smolder."
At this, he makes a ridiculous face at her, which morphs into delight when she shrieks with laughter. Across the room, Snow and Rose both look up to see what the commotion is about. Flynn shoots them a wink, and they duck back down.
"Right, Flynn Seximus Rider – God's Gift to Women, Though Gay Men are Welcome to Look, They Just Can't Touch," Mulan cuts in dryly. "Can you stop sexually harassing my friends now? Because I've got a secret of yours that I can spill if you don't, Fitzy."
"Mumu—"
"Don't try me, Fitzy."
"Okay, fine, you win, I'll stop!"
His hands fly up in surrender at the same time Rapunzel asks, "What secret?"
Mulan smirks. "Let's just say that our bestie here once let an embarrassing little secret slip during a drunken game of Truth or Dare. And, being the only person who wasn't completely wasted, I was the only one to remember his little secret."
"You're not going to tell them are you, Mumu? After I calledyou my bestie?" He actually darts a nervous glance at Ariel, Rose, Snow, and Belle, all of whom are still engrossed in whatever they're doing on their laptops and seemingly oblivious to this conversation.
"I'm considering it, since you won't quit calling me Mumu."
"Mulan, then!"
"Fine."
"Thanks, Mumu!"
"Fitzy."
"Sorry—habit! It won't happen again, Mu—lan."
Mulan rolls her eyes and stands up. "I'm going to go Skype my parents. Rapunzel, hit him with your saucepan again if he misbehaves."
Flynn flops down in the seat Mulan has vacated, practically squishing Rapunzel between himself and the armrest. "So, Your Highness, I couldn't help but notice, that is a very patriotic backpack you've got there." He gestures at the yellow sun patterning on her purple bag. "You're from Corona, right?"
She nods. "Made it myself, actually." It was pretty fun to repurpose an old shower curtain and repaint it, but she'd actually made the bag out of necessity. (She never needed a backpack growing up until it was time to leave for college, and by then, the only backpack in the house was Mother's old bag from her college days.)
Flynn is already leaning over her (invading her space) and picking up her backpack (without permission) to admire her handiwork. "That's so cool! How'd you do it?"
"It's an old shower curtain. I wanted to use something waterproof, and the material seemed sturdy enough."
"Yeah?" He starts fiddling with the zippers. "What about these? Did you get these from a craft store? Do you sew for a hobby?"
"Actually, I took apart an old jacket to reuse the zipper."
Wait. Maybe she shouldn't have said that. People from Corona Woods are already looked down upon for not being…up to scratch. Her making it sound like she had to pick through the trash to find reusable parts instead of buying something brand new would only be reinforcing that "country bumpkin" stereotype.
It's not that her family is poor poor. They had a roof over their head, and electricity, and running water. And they always had food in the house. It's just that being a single working mom with no child support to fall back on is difficult, especially since Mother left everything behind when she and Rapunzel left Corona City. But Mother was smart. She knew how to live on a budget and stretch every kroun for as far as it could go, so that she could save up to pay for Rapunzel's college tuition. And, of course, she instilled in Rapunzel the kind of work ethic that got her into a school like Walt Disney University so that her own future could be brighter.
To make ends meet, anything that Mother deemed still functional was good enough, from the chipped and mismatched tea cup set and the kitchen table with the wobbly leg, to the blocky old computer that still ran Windows XP until Mother caved and bought a new desktop when it finally died. Mother would also cut up Rapunzel's old clothes when she outgrew them and save all scraps and zippers and buttons in her sewing basket, "just in case." It would go toward patching up holes or tears, or replacing broken zippers or lost buttons. For years, Rapunzel wore patches all over her clothes like the "hobos" in her hand-me-down fairy tale picture books. (After all, she spent most of her time home alone. It wasn't like anyone was going to see the state of her clothing.) It got a little better once Rapunzel learned to sew and make her own clothes and alter the stuff that Mother found in thrift stores, so at least she didn't have any visible patches or ill-fitting clothes for the other teen volunteers at the nursing home to make fun of.
Rapunzel is proud of how far Mother has gotten them. But the idea of telling her new friends about her family's financial situation is just…weird. So uncomfortable. Like telling them her underwear size. (Flynn's actually seen her underwear, but that isn't the point.) And she and Flynn are practically still strangers, so it's even more inappropriate. She really should stop talking.
Fortunately, Flynn is still more interested in the backpack than in sleuthing into her personal business. "And you painted all these suns?"
"Yep."
"Any particular reason you chose to paint a flag, though? Like, were you just feeling super-patriotic and wanted everyone on campus to know you're Coronan?"
She shrugs. "I just thought the suns would look nice."
The truth is, when she was really young, back when her parents were together and they still lived in the apartment in Corona City, Rapunzel's bedroom wallpaper was the same pattern of yellow suns against a purple background. She remembers very little from those early years, but she does distinctly remember being mesmerized by that wallpaper. She didn't even know until years later that the yellow seven-pointed sun/purple background was the flag of Corona, but it apparently imprinted itself very deeply onto her psyche—Mother saved some of Rapunzel's toddler scribbles, which still remain taped to the walls of the little cottage to this day, and most of those early drawings feature some motif of that yellow sun. Honestly, that sun wallpaper was one of Rapunzel's only memories of life outside of Corona Woods. So when she was making her new college backpack and anticipating life in the "outside world," she figured she would pay homage to it by painting over that plain white shower curtain. (Also, the faint pink mildew residue refused to disappear no matter how hard she scrubbed at it, so the purple paint was the perfect choice to conceal it.)
She knows Flynn's just trying to make friendly conversation, but his current line of questioning is just a little too inquisitive for her liking. Would it be rude to change the subject abruptly, or ask directly to talk about something else? Or would she just come across as secretive and raise more questions? If this continues, he might start asking about even more personal things, like her alcoholic father, or the reason she lived for so long in the middle of a forest…
"So what part of Corona are you from anyway?"
Ugh, and there it is.
"Look, Flynn, it's nothing personal, but can you put my bag down? I don't like people touching my stuff without asking first."
(How's that for asserting herself? She'd also like to ask him to not sit so close to her that she's pressed up against the armrest to avoid touching him, but it's a start, right? Baby steps and all…)
He drops it instantly. (The subject, not the backpack. The backpack got set down gently.) "Sorry, you're right! I should've asked. I swear I'm not trying to be nosy. I just got a little excited because I'm actually from Corona City. You?"
"Woods."
"Wait, people actually live out there?"
"Obviously."
"Wow… You must be one of, like, two people that live in the Woods."
She shrugs. His guess isn't that far off. There is a small town there, but it isn't much beyond a nursing home, a local library, and a small family-run grocery store. Anything else they needed, Mother had to drive into the city, or the suburbs at the very least, to buy. There was no school in Corona Woods, either; the few kids that lived there attended the same high school as the suburban kids, nearly an hour's bus ride away.
"Your school and mine are probably basketball rivals or something," he continues, unfazed by her silence. "Greno, right? I went to Howard."
"Homeschooled."
"Oh." This only seems to heighten his curiosity, and she finds herself staring back, as if challenging him to call her a freak. "Oh. Touchy subject?"
For someone who initially came off as such an outrageous flirt, Flynn actually turns out to be pretty considerate. He immediately changes the subject to something more neutral, like school, and they discover that they're both taking Physics 101 with Selvig (same course, different lecture times).
"Hey, want to compare homework answers? Wait here—I'll go get my laptop and book!" He's up and running for his room before Rapunzel can even respond.
There's nothing wrong with checking answers with someone else, she supposes, as long as one person isn't blatantly copying everything off the other. Besides, not everything has to be a competition. The class is graded on an absolute scale: Everyone who finishes the class with 850 points out of 1000 gets an A. The professor, Dr. Selvig, even said during the first lecture that he encourages students to work together.
She and Flynn spend the next half hour comparing answers for the homework due next week. (Then she begs and begs Flynn until he relents, and they jump ahead and do a few problems that aren't due for nearly two weeks. Rapunzel mostly just wanted to see if the upcoming material is stuff she already knows—it is—but she winds up teaching it all to him.)
The study session in the lounge turns into a slumber party when Mulan returns from her room with an armful of extra pillows and blankets.
Apparently, Snow and Rose have been "sexiled" by their suitemates back in their own dorm, so they're spending the night in the Valley Tower 6-West common area. Ariel, Belle, and Mulan are keeping them company (and deterring questions from the RA's, in case they come back and find two strange girls who don't live on their floor taking over their lounge), so Rapunzel decides to join in, at least for a little while. She figures she'll just go back to her own bed when it's actually time to go to sleep. There are only three sofas and two armchairs, after all, so there's no way they'll all have somewhere comfortable to sleep out here.
Flynn had clapped his physics book shut and retreated to his room, complaining that his brain was mush from being forced to overachieve on a Friday night, but he returns a few minutes later sans laptop and physics book, and Rapunzel has to admit she's secretly pleased that he's sticking around.
The more the merrier, right?
Mother would faint if she found out Rapunzel was sleeping in the same room as a guy and not studying on a Friday night. But they're college students. They're allowed to have co-ed sleepovers if they want, especially since they're out in a relatively public space.
Flynn volunteers his HDMI cable to hook Belle's laptop up to the flat screen TV mounted on the wall of the lounge. And Ariel even makes a big bowl of popcorn for everyone to share, which, of course, prompts a three-way debate over what movie to watch on Netflix.
They eventually pick Mean Girls because Flynn had teased Rapunzel about her absolute lack of awareness of 2000s pop culture references, and everyone was collectively horrified that Rapunzel has never seen the movie before and decided it was absolutely imperative that she be "initiated" or whatever. (In her defense, Mother told Rapunzel it was a dumb documentary about school bullying, and Rapunzel accepted the explanation because it wasn't like she'd ever seen any movies that weren't documentaries before.)
So now she's curled up on one of the sofas and sharing a blanket with Mulan and Flynn on either side. The movie isn't terrible. She finds herself relating to the protagonist, Cady, who's also a homeschooled freak who finds herself getting lost upon starting school. But she definitely understands why Mother would dismiss it and discourage her from watching it. It's an entertaining story, but it doesn't have any educational value.
It does have some funny moments, though. Rapunzel thinks "and none for Gretchen Weiners bye" is probably her favorite line. And it helps that the others laugh at the same lines as Rapunzel, too, so at least her sense of humor seems to mesh with society at large.
She's a little distracted from the movie, though, because she's being pressed shoulder-to-shoulder with Flynn.
It shouldn't be a big deal. They're friends, sort of, and it's just their arms touching. And unlike other parents, Mother taught her a long time ago that other things need to happen for a baby to be made—and he hasn't even put his arm around her or made any obvious moves or anything. But this is the first time she's sat so close to a guy that she can feel his body heat radiating (technically conducting) off of him, and neither of them is moving away.
In Rapunzel's defense, she can't really lean away without invading Mulan's personal space. But Flynn has plenty of room between him and the armrest on his other side, yet every time he leans forward to reach for the popcorn bowl, he always goes back to pressing his arm against hers.
Maybe it's a normal thing to people who didn't grow up sheltered away from the rest of the world. Maybe she's just making a big deal out of it because she's touch-starved compared to other people. Mother's not much of a hugger; they did exchange hugs before Mother left for work every morning, but more often than not, Mother would be "not in the mood" when Rapunzel needed physical comfort, especially after a fight. (Hence why she secretly fished Pascal, her old plush chameleon, out of the trash years ago when Mother decided Rapunzel was too old for "transitional objects.")
Rapunzel doesn't even realize she's staring in his direction until Flynn turns around and catches her.
"Found something more fascinating than the movie, Your Highness?"
She flushes, because of course she does. "Just spacing out," she grumbles. "Watch your dumb movie."
He laughs and turns back around, his shoulder still pressed to hers.
After the movie is over, he doesn't mention it, so neither does she. But the incident lingers in her mind far longer than it should for the rest of the evening, especially after he holds her backpack for her and walks her to her door, even though her room is literally ten feet away.
Ever since her birthday, Rapunzel has been staying up past midnight every night.
She didn't mean to do it originally. It started when her floormates went through the trouble of organizing a surprise party for her, so it was only polite to stay up and play Apples to Apples with them. And then the next day was the "sleepover" in the common lounge with her friends, when she stayed up past her usual bedtime because it was a Friday night, and the movie went on longer than she expected, and it was not because she wanted to stay there with her arm pressed against Flynn's.
After those two times, she just started staying up after her nightly phone calls with Mother because she wanted to hang out in the common area. The girls would be there, and doing homework was a lot less mundane when she had friends suffering with her. Plus, most people on their floor sleep late and wake up late (the joys of registering for afternoon classes), so if she wants to have a social life, she has to be awake when everyone else is. And if Mother leaves her alone after 11 p.m. every night and doesn't blow her phone up with calls, texts, or emails because she thinks she's asleep…well, Rapunzel isn't going to disabuse her of that notion.
She was pleasantly surprised Sunday morning when she wandered into the common area and found Flynn already there, tapping away at his laptop. Most people on their floor sleep in until noon on the weekends (because they can and because the ones who were out partying the previous night probably have killer hangovers), so it was a nice change to find the dorm not entirely devoid of life. She and Flynn wound up finishing the upcoming week's physics assignment together.
Hanging out with Flynn isn't all that different from being with her other friends, except that she and Flynn actually share a class, so they can collaborate on homework instead of each just working on their own thing in the general vicinity of the other.
That, and sometimes—she can't believe she's even thinking about this—she swears he keeps glancing across at her through his lashes while they're working together. But she's not like Flynn; she doesn't have the guts to catch him staring and tease him about it the way he would do to her.
It's an understatement to say that she doesn't have much experience with guys, especially flirty young adult ones. But she's pretty sure that when a guy keeps looking at a girl, it probably means he's interested in her. (Although, it could have been that she forgot to brush her hair and a family of birds decided to move in.) Do sidelong glances and putting one hand on her shoulder to lean way over and look at her work count as flirting? Or signal subconscious interest? Or is she just overthinking this? People can flirt without it meaning anything, right?
The only other man who's ever flirted with her was one of the residents of the Corona Woods Nursing Home. Everyone called him "Tramp," and he would hit on all the girls who volunteered there. When Rapunzel first started out, she was a little disturbed by the way Tramp would sweet talk her, since his file read that his wife, Lady, passed away decades ago. But then she learned that he has Alzheimer's and thinks he's in his twenties again, back when he was apparently quite the charmer. Tramp's a decent guy, though, and she became good friends with him over the years she volunteered there.
Then again, Tramp was nowhere near as attractive as Flynn. An elderly man with a devastating neurodegenerative condition who hits on her because he thinks he's twenty again, that she can deal with. What she can't figure out is a guy around her age expressing casual interest in her. Is he subtly flirting with her, or does she just have something on her face? And why would he flirt with her? She's nothing special to look at, just an average blonde white girl with long hair. Was it the hair that was attracting the attention? She thought guys preferred girls with short hair or curly hair. Was it her eyes? Green eyes are pretty rare, but brown eyes (like Flynn's) are the ones that get all the songs written about them.
It's all very confusing.
Fortunately, though, Mother has warned her about guys who come across as really forward. They're only after one thing, and they won't look back once they get it. So whenever Flynn casually leaned in closer to take a look at her laptop screen—so close that she could practically feel his facial hair brushing her cheek—she'd remember Mother's words and scoot away, politely requesting her personal space.
He just laughed and went back to doing his homework.
He also added her on Facebook. Flynn Rider. The name rolls nicely off her tongue. Rapunzel would rather die than admit it to anyone, even Pascal, but she may have stared at the friend request notification on her phone longer than necessary while her heart did all kinds of weird pitter-patter things.
Tonight, though, Flynn isn't there when she comes to the lounge. Which isn't unusual. He doesn't make an appearance every night. Actually, he's rather unpredictable about showing up—and no, she does not go to the common area every night in the hopes that he'll be there.
It's Friday night, so Flynn is most likely out at a party. Ariel isn't present either. It's fine.
At least Mulan and the other girls are here, along with a few other people Rapunzel hasn't seen around before. She sits down in the one remaining seat, next to one of the guys she doesn't recognize.
He turns around and says, "Hi! You're Rapunzel, Mulan's roommate, right? I'm Quasimodo!"
He's a hefty-looking guy who looks like he would tower over Rapunzel if they were standing. Then he turns his head a little more to face her, and she notices that one of his eyelids is really…swollen? It's not discolored, though, so it's probably not a black eye. She tries her best not to stare. Rule Number 2 back at the Corona Woods Nursing Home was "Thou shalt not stare at patients' disabilities. It makes them uncomfortable." This guy looks friendly enough, though.
They shake hands, but it's a little awkward because they're sitting next to each other, and her right arm doesn't have any room to move. She winds up elbowing Quasimodo in the ribs, causing him to flail his arms and accidentally knock her things out of her lap, and then they're both apologizing profusely.
"Sorry," he coughs, retrieving her textbook from the floor. "I'm a really awkward person. I didn't really get around much back home."
"Oh, that's all right. I'm pretty awkward myself."
It's refreshing to meet someone who gets nervous when introducing himself, too. Although, Rapunzel knows from personal experience that when two shy, awkward people try to make small talk, the conversation tends to die a slow painful death. Probably because introverted people are inclined to think things through before speaking, so there's nothing but silence to fill the gaps when they're still contemplating what to say.
She wracks her brains. "So…um…what do you like to do?" (There. People like talking about themselves, right?)
Quasimodo thinks for a minute. "I was mostly on my own when I was growing up," he admits, gesturing at his face. "Born with it. People back home weren't very accepting. I wasn't allowed out of the house, and I didn't have any friends, so I spent most of my time on art."
"Oh…" What is she supposed say to something like that? He mentions his appearance so casually. Does that mean he just wants to gloss over it and not talk about it? Better to stick to a safer topic, then. "So are you studying art?"
"Nah, it's more of a hobby. I'm thinking about a creative writing major. I got so lonely sometimes that I'd pretend that these three plastic plants in the house were real people, and then I'd talk to them. I named them Hugo, Laverne, and Victor." A nervous laugh. "It sounds insane when I say it out loud, doesn't it? What about you, Rapunzel? What do you like to do?"
Wait. Is she actually carrying on a conversation? (Congratulations, Rapunzel! Your prize is a lifetime supply of air—oh wait. Can't think for too long, or the conversation is going to sputter out.)
"My mom really wants me to go into medicine, so I grew up reading scientific articles and research abstracts. It was really tedious, and I wasn't really allowed out of the house, either, unless it was to go volunteering. But I do like art as a hobby, too."
"Really? Cool! I'm thinking about joining that one arts and crafts club. I saw them at the activities fair—what was it called? They sell the stuff and donate the proceeds?"
"Crafts for Charity?"
"That sounds about right."
"I joined their email list, but I haven't been to any meetings yet because they haven't sent anything out. I'll keep you posted if they're doing anything, though," she offers. It would be nice to have a familiar face at club meetings.
"Thanks. So, uh, what kind of art are you into?"
"Oh, I've tried just about everything, really. Painting, pottery, papier-mâché, embroidery, knitting… I like painting the most, though." (Is it rude to keep talking about herself? Maybe she should redirect the conversation back to Quasimodo before he finds out how extraordinarily boring she is.) "What kind of art do you like?"
"Whittling! I carve the pieces and then paint them. I lived on the top floor of the building, so I'd look down and see all these people outside on the streets. I once even took a picture and carved out little figurines of all the random people in it and recreated the scene with cardboard. I lived in Paris, so there were lots of cool subjects there. Except I only ever saw them from way up, so it was hard to get the proportions right… "
He's rambling.
That's new. She's had senior citizens ramble off on her, especially the ones who couldn't remember if they've told her the same story before, but never neuro-cognitively intact people around her age. Actually, most of her conversations with new acquaintances only last a couple of seconds, and she's so awkward that she gets all tongue-tied—and then she just panics and clams up, and the person shakes their head and walks away, probably thinking, "What a weirdo."
Hey, maybe she and this Quasimodo guy could be Awkwardness Buddies!
(…Nope, there's no way to make that sound cool.)
His eye catches the book in her lap. "Is that physics? Are you doing homework? I could leave you alone if you want."
"Oh, no, that's okay. I actually already finished my homework for next week. I don't even know why I brought it out here."
Okay, so maybe it had something to do with working on homework with Flynn again. But, come to think of it, that's literally all they have done whenever they're in the common area at the same time. Plus, they've already completed next week's assignment. Maybe that's why Flynn isn't here tonight—maybe he doesn't want her to force him into doing the homework for the entire rest of the semester before the material is actually covered in class.
Of course Flynn wasn't flirting with her. Why would he see her as anything but That One Girl He Does Physics Homework With?
(At least it's preferable to Crazy Girl Who Hit Him With Cookware.)
And no, she does not come out to the common area for the sole purpose of seeing Flynn. Nor is seeing Flynn the reason she's been wandering into the common area this past week whenever she has free time. Of course not. She's only properly known the guy for a few days!
So she wrestles her thoughts away from a certain brunet flirt and turns back to her new friend. "Want to see some of my artwork?"
"So how's your social life?"
Oh yeah, she'd "forgotten" to tell Mother about the lantern ceremony her floormates threw for her birthday. Also on the list of Unmentionable Things are the frat party, the fact that she's staying up past bedtime, the fact that she shared a blanket with a guy, the fact that the same guy commented on her underwear, and the fact that she doesn't, in fact, spend every waking moment studying alone at her desk.
Call it rebellion, but she likes to think it comes from years of living in fear of Mother learning literally any little detail of her life and using it against her.
At the moment, though, Mother has asked a question, and Rapunzel has two ways to respond. She could talk about Mulan, Ariel, Snow, Belle, and Rose, and say that she's started visiting the common area more often, and she's on decent terms with the rest of the floor. Or she could talk about how, up until a week ago, she spent most of her time in her room because she was afraid of embarrassing herself.
In the end, she settles for something in between. "Well…I don't really have any friends here, since we've only been here for a month and haven't really gotten to know each other that well."
Mother sighs, because of course she does. "Rapunzel, you know I told you about building up your social network in college. You won't always be able to depend on your dear old mother, you know. Someday, you're going to need to move out of school housing and into your own apartment. And if you can't afford to live on your own, you'll need friends who can split the rent with you."
When will she learn? If Mother's itching to criticize, then there is no right answer. No matter what she says, Mother will find a way to shoot it down. Next time, she'll say she's friends with everyone on the floor and get a lecture about how she needs to focus more on her studies. Why bother trying?
So she un-grits her teeth and puts on her most saccharine voice. "That sounds great, Mother! I'd never thought about that. I'll be sure to keep it in mind. Love you, drink your chrysanthemum tea, bye!"
So maybe she was stretching the truth a little bit when she told Mother that she doesn't have any friends at college.
She's fairly close to Mulan and Ariel because they live together.
And Snow and Rose are always happy to see her.
And Quasi is her art buddy, and they have nice painting sessions out in the lounge.
And even though she doesn't know him that well, and especially despite the fact that she nearly fractured his skull, Flynn does physics homework with her instead of writing her completely off as that weird nerdy girl with no sense of social competence. (And no, he doesn't copy answers off her. He actually does his own work and gets annoyed when Rapunzel overzealously tries to tell him the answer instead of letting him figure it out.) He doesn't like-like her, yet he still willingly chooses to hang out with her, so that makes them friends, right?
She supposes Belle counts, too, since they have the same friend group.
And if Belle counts, then so does Jasmine, the girl she walks with to and from calculus section.
Obviously, some friends are closer than others because she spends more time getting to know them. But they've all reached the point where they're comfortable to share their stories.
See, in addition to accepting applicants predominantly from outside of Epcot, WDU also has a reputation for prioritizing students with rough childhoods or unusual family circumstances because it believes in helping underprivileged kids who otherwise wouldn't have a chance at higher education. It's kind of like an equalizing opportunity for misfits who grew up in unfortunate circumstances out of their control. When Rapunzel applied to WDU, in addition to the stuff she had to submit on the Common App, she also had to write a personal statement describing her family's situation (whether she lived with one or both parents, whether or not she lived with her birth parents, whether or not both are alive, married, divorced, etc.). So, in a way, her abusive alcoholic father helped her get into college.
And because of the predominance of misfits with unusual backstories at this school, they say that you know you've made friends at WDU when you know each other's stories.
Normally on Girls' Nights, they just sit around Ariel's room and complain about their week or talk about TV shows, or movies that they should go see together, and Ariel updates them on her progress with her crush while Snow and Rose paint each other's nails, and maybe Rapunzel and Belle will nerd out and debate random trivia, like whether the Ring Around the Rosie song was about the Black Death or whether that interpretation is just an urban myth. But at the most recent hangout, they had a newcomer to the gang—a strawberry blonde girl named Anna who apparently also lives in Valley Tower 6-West but hadn't really interacted much with anyone until Ariel invited her to join them. She was pretty friendly and bubbly, albeit a little awkward and out of place, probably because she was the least close to the others. Rapunzel could relate, having been the last to join the friend group before Anna.
Snow must have sensed Anna's unease, too, because she suggested that they all tell their stories as an icebreaker.
Rapunzel learned a lot of things about her friends that night—things that she would never guess by just looking at them.
For instance, Ariel's mother died in a fishing accident when she was five. Ariel must be really good at masking away negative emotions, or she's pretty well-adjusted. In fact, from the way she sometimes whines about her older sisters and her father treating her like a baby and how no one in her family understands her, Rapunzel initially thought she was a typical upper middle class suburban girl who's admittedly a nice person but easily loses perspective.
(Not that she's judging. Rapunzel could be considered the luckiest girl in the world, seeing as her mother basically sacrificed her own future and dedicated it to giving her a chance to have a better one, yet she always complains about how Mother's parenting techniques have isolated her so much that she acts like a gutted fish when talking to people…)
Mulan's story is much less dramatic. "My family's pretty ordinary," she'd admitted with a shrug. "Mama, Baba, Grandma, my dog, and me. I guess I was one of the lucky ones. Or maybe I got into Disney because my dad's a war vet." She did, however, admit to living on a farm when she was younger and tricking her dog into doing her chores for her.
Rose revealed that her real name is Aurora and that up until she was sixteen, she had lived with her three godmothers because her father was a politician, and her parents didn't want the news media back home, especially The Maleficent Gazette, hounding her while she was growing up.
Snow has never talked about her parents, ever, though she once mentioned a stepmom in passing before quickly changing the subject. Her story, it turned out, was that her stepmother was abusive and obsessed with her appearance. Eventually, a concerned neighbor notified the authorities during one of the stepmom's violent rages, and a judge by the name of Eric Hunter placed then-fourteen-year-old Snow in the care of a branch of the Dwarf Brothers' Orphanage.
Anna had been a little wary about sharing deeply personal history with a bunch of girls she'd basically just met, but she did reveal that she's from Arendelle and that her parents died in a plane crash when she was fifteen. Now, at eighteen, she's in the process of repairing her relationship with her older sister, who left for college shortly after their parents' death, turning custody of Anna over to their great-uncle in Wesselton.
Belle joined them later, having just returned from her late night study session at the library, with another newbie in tow. She'd burst into Ariel's room, breathlessly apologizing for being late and panting, "I've brought a friend from my 19th century literature class. Everyone, this is—"
Much to Rapunzel's surprise, the new girl stepped out from behind Belle, and it turned out to be none other than…
"Jasmine!" Her friend from calculus!
Funny how the world works sometimes.
Rapunzel was also relieved. It sounds awful to say out loud, but it was nice to see that she made a "good" decision in befriending Jasmine, since Belle is also friends with her.
She's always been bad at making friends because of her trust issues. Part of it comes from just interacting with the local high school girls who volunteered at the Corona Woods Nursing Home with her. She usually just did her job and stayed out of their way, but sometimes she would catch snatches of conversation, how one girl would whisper to another that she'd heard that a third girl whom Rapunzel had thought was their close friend had slept with the entire football team, and then they would slander the third girl behind her back. One time, one of the girls even cornered Rapunzel and told her, "So-and-so hooked up with five different guys at Such-and-such's party last Friday! Spread it around!" She couldn't help but wonder, if these girls would talk so badly about their friend, then what kind of nasty things were they saying about her behind her back?
The other part of it comes from the fact that, when Rapunzel was little, Mother would promise to let her go outside and play if she was good and helped her pull out her grey hairs and massage her face with moisturizing cream because she worried that the stress of simultaneously working a job and raising a daughter was causing her to age prematurely. Yet after Rapunzel made sure that Mother's hair was the luscious raven black that she wanted and all the little lines and creases were masked away, Mother would just claim that she had promised no such thing, and why would she let her outside when there are wanted criminals and poison ivy and quicksand pits out there in the Woods? Never mind the fact that she shouldn't even have to promise Rapunzel anything because everything she did was for her own good, so the least Rapunzel could do was make her feel beautiful in return…
(Maybe Rapunzel's moral compass doesn't point due north—and it shouldn't, because everyone knows that the Earth's magnetic north pole is not its actual north pole!—but she's always been of the opinion that people who make promises should never, ever break them. Is that so much to ask?)
Anyway, they had propped the suite door open as an invitation for other floormates to stop by and chat, and sure enough, Flynn Rider joined them not long after Belle and Jasmine arrived. He'd been to several Girls' Nights now, under the defense, "Is it a crime for me to visit my best friends Mumu and Blondie/Her Highness?" In retaliation, Rapunzel and Mulan have taken to calling him their "gay best friend" (though he is neither gay nor their best friend).
On this particular night, he'd plopped down in the circle of girls, exchanging the usual banter with Mulan and Rapunzel. Then he noticed the new arrivals and leaned back, using Rapunzel's lap as a pillow.
"While I'm pleased that you have finally accepted that we are best friends, I don't see how you can call me gay, Mumu. I'm living the dream—I'm in a room full of cute girls, and I'm pretty sure they're all legal, too."
Belle, who had been curling Snow's hair, noticed her friend's extreme discomfort and immediately advanced on Flynn with the curling iron. (Not that she was actually going to burn him with it…hopefully.)
But he just grinned cheekily and said, "You planning on using that on me, O'Hara? I didn't know you were into that kind of thing!" He proceeded to launch into a rather graphic description of his not-so-innocent encounter with a "bombshell upperclassman" he'd met at a frat party on Friday.
At that point, most of the girls were starting to resemble fire hydrants (Ariel's face was probably as red as her hair), so Mulan and Rapunzel groaned and started to usher him toward the door. (He finally left, chuckling, when Rapunzel got out her trusty saucepan and Mulan threatened to "out your secret, Fitzy!")
It was definitely one of the more interesting nights.
Later, after she'd climb into bed, Rapunzel lay awake for a while longer. It was very late, but for once, she wasn't awake after 3 a.m. because of noises from next door.
Come to think of it, her neighbor hasn't been giving her any trouble in a while now. Maybe they've been too busy with school to indulge in extracurricular activities.
End note: Yes, this is the second half of the old chapter 4 because it was too long. I'm overhauling this entire story and doing it over because I was a bad writer at 19. Still a bad writer 4 years later, but improved enough to recognize how cringey the original was.