text: “That’s it! This is the last time I’m smoking that stuff!” screamed Mikayla as she burst into her dorm room. In front of her lay three sets of blank white, terrified faces. The bloodshot in their eyes was as red as the exit sign behind Mikayla in the hallway. The three girls dressed in mismatched sweats and baggy t-shirts from Universities they have never visited before and likely will never go to, sat there guiltily on various chairs and bunks as Mikayla exclaimed. “I can’t even throw these pizza boxes away without feeling like I have the eyes of every soul on campus staring at me while I walk out back to the dumpster”, Mikayla expressed. Once the girls realized it was their responsible friend who was coming through the door with such force and not an overly suspicious resident assistant with an army of campus safety officers they were able to breathe again. “Well maybe if you didn’t look like a bum dumpster diving in the back of the dorm at 1:00am, maybe people wouldn’t be so alarmed by your presence”, chimed Mikayla’s roommate and close friend Gracie in her regular sarcastic tone. Gracie grew up in a privileged family in an upper-middle-class suburbia with no concept of struggles. Regardless, she acts like she’s been through it all because she has two older brothers who would constantly tease her and call her Bracie since she required 6 years of consistent trips to the orthodontist to correct her teeth. Mikayla rolled her bloodshot eyes as she was already used to Gracie’s comments. For the past year, she has been dealing with them on an unrelenting basis as the two have been practically inseparable since they met in their first year of college. “Anyway, do you guys want to watch something?” asked Mikayla trying to ignore her paranoia. “We’re watching You ”, said the three girls collectively in excitement which seemed almost scripted. “Whoa whoa now, I did not like that! Did you not see how freaked out I was just two seconds ago?”, Mikayla asked with a look of slight fear that had some truth behind it. “We’re talking about the Netflix show you tweaker, we decided as a group while you were gone, just take a deep breath no one’s watching you”, said Mikayla’s friend Sammie. “Yeah, you’re not pretty enough” snarked Gracie. Mikayla rolled her eyes yet again and brushed it off. She knew Gracie well enough at this point to know she was kidding and that she just likes knowing she can snap back quickly if she needs to have someone’s back. She was a good friend, loyal and trustworthy, but wow she could be a lot to handle. “Sammie, did you three plan that little trick, or did some evil stars align tonight to not let me fall asleep?” Mikayla questioned. She always went to Sammie when she needed a straight answer from her friends. Sammie was a naturally smart girl who almost seemed like a television character in the way she was always dependable using logic and experience to get through life. Her first-year roommate left the school after only 6 weeks and was able to quickly hit it off with Mikayla and join the group with ease. “No I wish!”, she shouted. “I don’t think any of us are thinking straight enough to come up with anything like that. Maybe it’s a sign that you are being watched”, she said as she fluttered her fingers in front of her face, clearly trying to get Mikayla riled up. “Did you see that?” Erin cried with fear as she pulled the blinds on the window and pointed outward. Mikayla’s heart basically stopped at that moment, this was all too much for her to take in at this point. She sat down pushing her face into her hands pleading to make all these feelings go away. “Got yaaa”, Erin said toyingly. She was the friend in the group who everyone loves, but the term ditzy is a vast understatement. The type where the room can turn in synchronicity with the collective thought of “there’s no way that girl just asked that” after asking something she felt was a valid question. “We’re just teasing you, Mikayla, it’s all jokes, you know that. Now everyone shut up so we can watch this” commanded Gracie. The girls sat and watched, but did not make it very far into the show. Erin fell asleep within minutes, followed by Gracie who made it maybe 20 minutes, and finally Sammie shortly after. Mikayla paused the show to go to the bathroom and turned at each one of her friends now realizing they were going to have to restart the show another time as they were all sound asleep. As Mikayla stepped into the hallway she was briefly stunned by the seemingly bright lights which would feel normal had she not crawled out of the pitch-black cave her friends were asleep in. Having lived in this room for two months she obviously was aware of the communal bathroom location being to the left down the hall, however, given she was still under the influence she mistakenly went right out of her room. The building was a large square with rooms on both sides of the hall and a courtyard in the center where ecology students would test soils, beautiful flowers, and other various plants; students of other disciplines would sit and study with weather permitting. The stairs to the emergency exit were located at the end of the hall in the direction she was walking, the same stairs that she took to throw away the pizza boxes. “ Thump, thump, thump ”, Mikayla heard from the stairwell. She immediately averted her attention to the beige, metal door to the stairs. Specifically, the small square window with metal wiring laced through it as if that serves as some sort of security blanket. She caught what she thought was a shadow against the dusty white wall on the other side of the stairs. “What am I doing?” she asked herself as she snapped back into focus and realized she was walking in the wrong direction. Now much more cognitively aware of her surroundings after her brief scare. “I really need to stop smoking that stuff”, she told herself knowing she actually meant it this time. She turned around and headed in the correct direction towards the bathroom, listening more carefully now to her environment, but heard nothing. Before leaving the bathroom she splashed water onto her face and had never felt more refreshed. She caught a glimpse of her bloodshot red eyes as she dragged her fingers from her forehead down her cheeks just below her jawline. “Why do you always tweak so much?” she questioned herself. She knew the answer to this. Sober or not she was always questioning what was going on around her, worrying for no reason, and always going to the worst-case scenario. She thinks it’s in part due to her parents growing up always worrying about how to pay the bills even though in her eyes she was always able to get or do whatever she dreamed. This was hard for her to understand, their constant worry, everything always seemed fine to her. If anything she viewed herself as being more skeptical of others than having paranoia. Just then she heard the creak of the bathroom door open and for the third time in the last hour her heart skipped a beat and she struggled to take in air. “Are you okay?” asked the girl who just came through the door realizing how shaken up Mikayla was. “Ye-yeah, sorry you just startled me”, Mikayla managed to get out before heading toward the door realizing how long she had just been staring into herself through the bathroom mirror. She didn’t know the girl's name but had seen her around the floor plenty and knew she was not a threat. She turned the corner and started towards her dorm room, but through the film of her dry eyes, she saw something. She quickly rubbed her eyes, putting all of her focus into the small square window to the stairwell which seems to be stretched miles down the hall. At that moment she felt like she did just seconds ago in the bathroom. That someone was staring into her. Terrified, knowing that her dorm room was in the direction of the figure staring at her through the glass, she turned and bolted back toward the bathroom. Behind her, she could hear fumbling of the door knob followed by the asymmetric thumping of footsteps growing louder, almost as though they were displaying a poor attempt at galloping. She breached the bathroom door like a SWAT team and quickly shut it behind her as she slid her back down the door, her hands falling into her knees. “Alright now are you okay?’ the girl asked as she was standing at the sink washing her hands. At that moment the girl had the same expression of fear as Mikayla did a minute prior when she first entered the bathroom. Before Mikayla could gather the composure to answer she was jolted forward by the force of the door. This brought her to her hands and knees, but her feet still blocked the door. Again, a push at the door, this time with less force, and Mikayla was able to keep it closed. The girl at the sink was able to catch sight of the intruder through the mirror. “What are you doing? Open the door!” the girl exclaimed. Skeptical of the command, as always, Mikayla felt fear for her life but at that moment realized she had no other choice but to move out of the way. To her, this may be the end, but still, she removed herself as the human barricade just before the door swung open for the third attempt. Mikayla’s fear dissipated as she saw a girl in black jeans and a gray cropped t-shirt dive headfirst into a bathroom stall. Mikayla heard the splash into the toilet water and was thankful the girl was able to make it through all the obstacles Mikayla threw at her. “You need help”, the first girl said to Mikayla as she strutted out of the bathroom. Mikayla, now sitting on the bathroom floor with her arms looped around her knees, thought about what she just heard. The whole situation was ironic. Telling her she needed help just to leave a room that contained two different girls obviously struggling in their own ways. In this moment she realized that she wasn’t just tweaking, being skeptical, or distrusting all along. We are all constantly being watched by those around us, perfect strangers see us at our best and worst moments. They pass judgment, as it is the normal human thing to do, but it takes a special connection to break down those walls. She thought back to her friends sleeping in her room. Gracie, Sammie, and Erin are all different in their own ways, but all there for each other at a moment's notice. She wondered if they would be friends had they met under different circumstances. If their first impression of each other was at their worst moments, would things be the same? The fact is we’re constantly being watched and analyzed, expected to be our best when we all know that's an impossible standard to meet. We think we’re better than others going through pain and struggles and envy those who seem to have it all. There’s nothing human about being at the top of your game every second of every day. If you are, you’re only experiencing half of what life has to offer. Just then Mikayla came back to Earth and snapped out of her trance. Recognizing the situation she stood up off the floor and walked towards the occupied stall, door wide open. “How can I help you?”, Mikayla asked. “C-can you- p-please text my roommate?”, she struggled to get out between the dry heaves. Mikayla grabbed the girl's phone out of her back pocket and held the face ID over the girl's face above the cloudy toilet water and found the most recent text conversation with the contact name Roomieee with a heart emoji next to it and alerted the girl’s friend of her location. Mikayla sat there with her until the girl’s roommate came and took over. Mikayla walked back to her dorm room, more aware of her surroundings now than earlier in the night. She saw no face looking back at her in the stairwell window, and heard no suspicious sounds. Just the silence of the night and the occasional dry heave from the bathroom behind her. She opened the door to her friends still asleep and laid down in her bed. “Yeah, I’m done smoking that stuff.”, she whispered to herself before closing her eyes for the night.