Warnings: Implied anxiety and depression, dismissal of mental health issues, implied transphobia, implied homophobia, sexism/misogyny, jokes about murder, food mention, skipping meals mention, slight implication of neglectful parents, and slight spoilers for the book 'Strange the Dreamer' by author Laini Taylor

Beta Reader: Will be StarOfLightning because she's the best.

Word Count: 3,904 (oops, it's a big'n)

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Something about the corridors leading to the main cafeteria seem to dull the sunlight forcing its way through the windows panelled along Ava's left side, plastering itself to the white paint in patterns reflecting the shape of the windows. Dark striped shadows interrupt the constant light opening up the space for students — something designed as an attempt to comfort them. Not working.

Especially not with the eyes lingering on her for a little longer than necessary. Not with the reminder of upcoming exams that will decide her entire future sitting on her shoulders. No, not sitting. It feels more like someone has wrapped their arms around her neck, clinging on for dear life as she attempts to go about her daily activities (not that she has many), dragging their feet along the ground behind them and ensuring that they inflict as many breathing complications on her as they can. She wants to swat at them, maybe pinch or claw at their hands until they let go, but whenever she lifts her arm to do so, she remembers that this is just a metaphor and that there's nobody actually there.

Placing down a textbook marked and annotated to her creative writing lecturer's unrealistic standards, Ava decides that food isn't a good idea yet and takes out a book from her bag. It's a book she's read over and over, constantly absorbing each and every word, and holding each chapter close to her heart tighter every time she reads and re-reads it. She keeps a worn copy in her bag at all times, having her clean and almost untouched copy on her shelf at home. Running the soft tips of her fingers over the wrinkled top corners of each page and feeling the soft paper slide across her skin like the tiny wings of a hundred moths, she skims through the book, something that could be an insult to the very meaning of art if she hadn't already read and worshipped the book more times that is probably healthy. For the next twenty minutes or so, she plans on getting completely lost in the world of another author's mind and cherishing each character she meets again and again, silently treating them like old friends or old nemesis' already beaten down and defeated.

All hope of this is lost however, when a familiar voice murmurs in her ear. "Whatcha doin?"

"Jesus Christ," she tries not to exclaim too loudly in the crowded cafeteria, but almost being jumped by your best friend tends to cause unprecedented heart-failure. "Stop doing that, moron. Do you want me to die young?"

Rolling his eyes, Roman grins and slips into his usual seat beside her, eyes skimming over page one-hundred and one of what he knows is her favourite novel. "Not before you finish that book for the thousandth time. I know how much you love it."

Expression a blank canvas, Ava hums quietly in response. "Gee, thanks."

Taking out a plastic box filled with chicken sandwiches, a bag of hot Cheetos, a yogurt, a banana, an apple, and two cake bars, Roman unwraps one of his sandwiches and flips the cover of the book over, keeping his thumb on the page Ava had been up to to keep her place. "You never have told me why you love this book so much."

Suddenly, Ava finds one of the circle awards printed onto the cover very interesting, tracing the shapes within the badge with her index finger and half-heartedly reading the names of each reward in her mind. The laminated page shimmers in the direction of the infuriatingly bright cafeteria lights and despite how truly used it looks, Ava has never felt so much love and fondness towards another inanimate object before. She shrugs. "I can just relate to it a lot, alright?"

"Why, has the main protagonist refused to eat lunch for the past three days too?" Roman taunts, a hint of fondness licking at the edges of his words.

Ava smiles back at him and takes one of his offered chicken sandwiches, admittedly hungrier than she had let on. As she unwraps the tin foil and crumples it up into a rough, spiky ball, she opens the book to its last two pages and smiles as the last conversation between the two protagonists comes to an end. She reads over the last line over and over again, feeling warmth well up in her chest and a light flush heat up her cheeks. Not out of embarrassment, nor anger, nor shame. She doesn't completely know why, actually. But all she knows is that she's happy.

From beside her, Roman scans her face, looking for something that can tell him what she's thinking. Because, despite having been Ava's best friend for ten years, he is completely clueless when it comes to predicting her. There is rarely a time where he can anticipate her reaction to something. Sure, there's the variable of anxiety that can somewhat help him to predict her reactions to certain situations, but there are times where she can even surprise him with that.

Despite this, he has come to understand that Ava is prone to skipping meals.

And as Roman watches his best friend practically inhale one of the chicken sandwiches his mami had prepared for him this morning, he remembers her words as she stacked twice as much food as she'd usually give him: "Miho, tell Ava that if she ever needs anything, we've got her back, okay?"

He decides he'll let Ava choose whether she wants the apple or not.

"How long have you had that book for anyway?"

Ava shrugs and remains in her apparent staring contest with the open book beneath her left hand. Tapping her index finger against the crinkled top left corner of the page, she reads over the very last line once again and ignores the pleased twitch of her lips. "Like, five years or something. I bought it at a Barnes and Noble near my house."

She doesn't mention that her financial situation at the time was less than ideal and that she had bought the book with half of her lunch money that she'd saved for over a week. Her parents didn't know that either and despite his best intentions and efforts, Roman can never quite keep his mouth shut when it comes down to secrets or gossip. Instead, she asks him why he's so interested in the book and whether he wants to borrow it or not, she doubts it, but it's better to ask instead of dwelling on a memory that no longer matters. She kind of hopes he doesn't want to read it.

With his usual grin, he shakes his head. "Nah, I'm a reader, but I wouldn't want to borrow a book so important to you. If I got even a tiny crease in your newer copy, you'd kill me and bury my body."

"Burying a body makes it easier to get caught, I'd burn it or something."

Roman snorts in response to what he hopes is a joke of his demise (and murder no less) from his best friend. "You're definitely only strengthening my argument to not borrow your book, Tinkersmell."

"I'm definitely not complaining," says Ava, hiding the bottom half of her face with her free hand and bowing her head slightly, "I don't lend my books to anyone except you. You know how special they are to me. Especially this one."

After tilting the bag of Cheetos he's holding in her direction, he watches her take a handful and throw them in her mouth. "I have to say that I am really curious as to why you love that book so much. I've read the blurb and it seems like a typical contemporary to me, though, I won't lie and say that contemporary's can't be works of art. It'd be blasphemous to even insinuate such a thing!"

Ava's body jolts with a loose movement of dismissal. "I've already told you, I can just relate to it a lot."

He decides just to drop it and talk about how interesting his actor training lecture had been, and to surprise Ava with his three pages of notes, usually only writing a page at most. They delve deeper into some of the topics talked about during the lesson and have their usual petty quarrel about something they more or less agree on, but with one little tweak to one's opinion. For example, Ava believes in sticking to the script and only improvising when necessary or asked to, whilst Roman believes that sticking to the script is important for an actor/actress so they don't get off track, but that improvising is almost vital to truly understanding a role. "So many famous lines have been improvised and have been talked about for years afterwards, meaning that that movie has also been discussed for years after its release!"

"Yeah, but there have definitely been awful lines improvised and cut out of the final product. And I know that if I were an actor, I'd feel like an idiot if the line I improvised was terrible." Ava pauses to allow her friend to process her argument before continuing, "I think it's just better to follow the script and discuss any improvisations, edits, or additions to it with the script-writers and everything first."

Roman narrows his eyes, huffing out an incredulous half-laugh. "If they discussed it with the higher-ups, then they wouldn't really be improvised. They would be additions."

"I said additions."

"Yes, but we're talking about improvising lines here! You're acting like we're discussing novels. Acting like some sort of roman poet, here."

Ava raises an eyebrow. "You're being dramatic. Also, the pun wasn't funny and didn't even make much sense."

The pair eventually just agree to disagree and move on. Pulling out her notebook, Ava scrawls something down quickly before shoving it back into her bag. Roman's smile dances with confusion for a moment before he laughs lightly and gestures down at her bag with his head. "What was that?"

Ava shrugs, a thing she'd seemed to be doing a lot lately. "Just writing down an idea for a character. He's stupid and has stupid hair."

Immediately, the performing arts student presses a hand to his chest in feigned hurt and suppresses his growing smile with a saddened pout. "Wow, and here I thought we were friends. Guess I was wrong."

"Just because your stupid doesn't mean we're not friends. I'm stupid too, so we make a good pair."

Though they both know that there's a hint of truth in her joke, they laugh anyway because what else can they do?

Soon enough, they've finished Roman's lunch and are sitting in a field in front of the college building. But this time, they decide to quietly read together until someone has a topic of conversation they'd like to discuss. Ava, of course, picks up her usual book and starts from her spot at page one hundred and one, getting lost within the struggles between the protagonists. She can't help glancing up at her best friend every once in a while however, eyes falling from the curved bridge of his nose to the cover of his current read. It's actually a novel she had recommended to him, 'Strange the Dreamer' by Laini Taylor.

Since she knew that Roman had been obsessed with everything fantasy since the day he could process the things happening in the cartoons he watched as a child, Ava had known for a fact that such a lyrical and magical fantasy young adult novel would be right up his alley. Maybe she's looking up at him so much because she's searching for a reaction in his expression to whatever plot point he's up to in the story, or maybe she's just unintentionally admiring the way his umber brown hair sways gently with the movement of the sunlight.

She mostly concentrates on her own book though, feeling her heart beat harder as the protagonist is constantly asked about the one thing he really doesn't want to think of, which is something she can relate to heavily. Her parents don't seem completely interested in anything other than whether she has a boyfriend, or whether she's buying her clothes from the right area of H&M. But the more she's asked about these things, not only by her parents — even Roman has asked her about any romantic interests a few times, the more uncomfortable she feels about the concept of being in a committed relationship. And the more she's begun to feel more insecure in whatever item of clothing she decides to wear day by day, constantly pulling down the back of her skirt to ensure that there are no lingering eyes where there shouldn't be, or she'll pull down the hem of her shirt to cover up the back of her skinny jeans. Baggy shirts had become a godsend for her.

Why aren't people interested in different stuff, more important stuff if she were to be so bold as to say so? There are people suffering all over the world for so many different reasons, why not concentrate on solving those problems rather than trying to fix something that isn't broken enough to be a problem yet? She really doesn't understand the desperation people have for relationship gossip. Like, wow that one guy really likes that other girl. And? If she doesn't like him back then that'll suck, but whether she does or doesn't is her business to tell. People shouldn't gossip about someone else's feelings to the point that that person feels pressured to reveal them without wanting to.

And her clothes, who cares what she decides to wear every day? Especially her parents. In fact, her parents seem to be the only ones who care that much about her choice of clothing. They prefer for her to wear skirts and dresses or shorts, but sometimes she enjoys wearing skinny jeans when it's cold outside. Or sometimes, when she can't be bothered to make an effort in her appearance, she'll go to college wearing a pair of joggers and a t-shirt. Her father really doesn't like the joggers that she wears, most likely because they're baggy and dark.

But isn't it a bit weird that her father is bothered by her wearing clothes that she's just comfortable in? Shouldn't he be encouraging her to 'cover up' like most fathers do? Not that Ava completely agrees with it, but he's always been happier when she's in full makeup, a skirt or dress, and flats. Apparently high heels are for 'sluts' and she'd fall over in them anyway because she's too clumsy. And honestly, Ava can't disagree with him on that last thing. The first point is disgusting and she kind of hates her father for thinking such a thing, but she's happy to admit that her legs just don't understand their own function sometimes. Not that it's only limited to her legs. Oh no, she's clumsy with every part of her body that she can be clumsy with.

Her hobbies seem to be an interest of her father's too. Not because he actually cares about what she enjoys and is taking notes on what gifts he can buy for her that will directly coincide with them, but because he doesn't want her doing certain things. Sports, for one thing. He says that sports are for 'men' and that he wouldn't want Ava to be hurt during a match or something.

Not that Ava's ever been interested in sports as a hobby, but recently she's been thinking about joining a spinning class at the gym, or maybe even a sporting society at college. Just something to keep her in shape, though she does have dancing for that, but she'd like to broaden her opinions on sport in general. Because not only has she been conditioned to believe that only men can play sports and that all women who dare to play sports are 'lesbians' or 'butch', but she herself just thinks that sports are boring. But she doesn't want to think like that anymore, it's unfair. So many people love sports like soccer and basketball, and she wants to understand why. She's also heard that a lot of exercise can help boost serotonin and whatever other juices help keep you happy, and since 'depression isn't real' and 'anxiety is just you being paranoid', her parents haven't sent her to a therapist, or allowed her to take the medication recommended by her doctor.

She's eighteen now, so technically she could make more of these decisions herself, but she doesn't want to. Well, she does, but also she doesn't. It's very complicated.

To be frank, she doesn't really understand why she can't just make the phone call to her doctor that would probably change her life for the better based on what he had described to her, but every time she even thinks about dialling the number she starts to feel sick and decides to move onto something else. Could it be procrastination? She supposes that it probably is procrastination, partially because she doesn't actually want to delve into why she could actually be afraid to do these things herself. Is there a way she'll ever be someone completely her own?

"Thanks for recommending this book to me."

Roman's low voice interrupts her internal emotional crisis and guides her eyes back into focus, a mist separating into two half and gliding away as if afraid of meeting her gaze, reading the words of the protagonist in her story again. It takes her a moment to fully process his words, but when she does, she bites her cheek to prevent a smile from crossing her face and nods. "It's cool. I thought you'd like it."

He grins and his eyes are suddenly set aflame as he talks animatedly about the section he's on, and how he really doesn't know whether he should feel sorry for Thyon Nero or not. Ava snickers and shakes her head. "I don't, not really. Yeah, I feel bad for him because his parents treat him like garbage, of course I do, but he's still a pretentious snob. He's still treating Lazlo like dirt despite the fact that he's tried to be nothing but helpful and nice to him. I haven't read the sequel yet, but I either hope he eats wet mud or redeems himself."

As soon as Ava mentions a sequel, Roman's head sharply turns down in her direction. "A sequel? There's a sequel?!"

"Yeah, I can't tell you the name though, it would kind of ruin the first book."

"What?! How?!"

Ava simply winks. Roman groans loudly in frustration and throws himself across her lap, holding the open book above him, hiding his best friend's face from view. "You're mean and I'm not talking to you anymore."

There's a pleasant prickle of something akin to anxiety in her chest before Ava decides to just continue on with her book, letting Roman rest his own book on her arms that sit on his chest. She watches his tongue poke out of his mouth as he concentrates on the words, blinking rapidly every now and then until the sentence finally makes sense in his mind. The book she recommended to him is quite a difficult read writing style-wise, but she had forgotten about his own struggles with reading in general and had only been excited about knowing that he would almost definitely enjoy the book.

They're quiet for a while until Roman huffs loudly and slams his book shut, sticking the bookmark in place before doing so. He closes his eyes and swallows, ignoring the concerned stare Ava is so obviously giving him. "What part are you up to?"

"Page seventy-six, where Lazlo is trying to convince the Godslayer to take him to Weep."

Ava waits a moment, taking a deep breath before picking the book up from where he'd slammed it into his chest. Nerves tingle up her throat, stopping her breath for a moment before they finally let her read the words typed across the page. "Their vivid faces showed their surprise — not because Lazlo had called out, but because he had called out in Unseen, and unlike Thyon, he didn't treat it like a common thing, but the rare and precious gem it was."

Her voice shakes slightly; reading out loud is much more embarrassing than she had thought it would be, for some reason creating a more vulnerable air around her as Roman keeps quiet. After a second or so, he looks up at her and smiles gratefully. They don't say anything more, only listening to Ava's voice as she reads through the next four pages, her shaking voice calming to a much more serene balance. She smiles at her friend's relaxed expression, knowing that despite his closed eyes, he is listening so intently that it should probably make her anxious, but it doesn't.

Later, as Ava arrives home from college, she dodges her father's questions about how it went and whether she'd 'met anyone nice', and throws herself on her bed, opening her notebook again. Instead of stopping at the page where she usually writes down a few thoughts and feelings of the day, she escapes to the back page where a list of names are scribbled down in a list.

Connor

Alex

Alexander (kinda the same but w/e)

Ryan

Shane

Daniel

Roman (ew no)

Virgil

She reads through them again and gnaws at her bottom lip, feeling panic crawl up from her stomach to her throat, soon closing up her windpipe and bringing a certain dampness to her eyes. What was even the point in writing all of these down when she knowa for a fact nobody is going to use them? Maybe Roman would, but what if he doesn't? He could leave and Ava (?) isn't quite sure she's ready to lose him yet.

But, just for the sake of her wishful thinking, what name does she like best?

And despite every intention on going with Daniel, her eyes can't help falling back down to 'Virgil'. Such a weird name, she thinks. Weird in a good way, but still weird. She's weird too, whether it's in a good way is up to whoever she happens to meet or already know, but she's definitely weird. So, honestly, the name is kind of perfect.

Virgil. How would it feel to be referred to by that name for the rest of her life?

Or, his life, she supposes. He supposes? Whatever.

But she has to be sure before making any final decisions. There's no turning back after this, if she doesn't stick to one label then nobody will ever take her seriously. Her parents'll call it a 'phase' and although she doesn't really see anything wrong with that, everyone else will and she can't deal with that right now. Her parents won't like it. She knows that already. So, there will be no coming out to her parents until she's financially independent, which means living by herself and being stable enough to lose their support if they decide to cut her out of their lives. Him. Cut him out of their lives. As of right now, she is no longer a she. She is no longer Ava Sanders.

Looking into the mirror of his phone, Virgil Sanders meets himself for the first time.