The music was too loud for a Tuesday.
It pulsed through the floorboards of Room 304 with unapologetic joy, forcing the air to vibrate and the windows to subtly tremble. Someone's sock had been tossed on the ceiling fan. Someone else was dancing on the couch. And in the center of it all, grinning like she'd personally invented fun, was The Spark.
She twirled in mismatched socks, oversized hoodie, and a floral skirt that made no real sense together, yet somehow did. In one hand, she held a bright red Bluetooth speaker. In the other, a slice of pizza she'd stolen from a box that wasn't hers. She didn't ask. She never did. Not because she was rude, she just assumed no one would mind. And strangely enough, they didn't.
"WHO WANTS TO DO SOMETHING IRRATIONAL?" she shouted, voice barely audible over the music.
"I vote we stop yelling!" someone barked from the shared study nook.
"That's the opposite of irrational!" she yelled back, beaming.
The Spark was a problem and a solution wrapped in glitter and chaos. The kind of person who remembered your birthday and your childhood fear of elevators. The one who planned late-night campus adventures based on coin flips. The one who cried at Pixar movies and also at videos of dogs being reunited with their owners after military service.
She had arrived in Room 304 like a meteor crash, bright, loud, impossible to ignore, and somehow bringing life to everyone in the fallout.
No one remembered exactly how she ended up rooming with the group. She claimed the RA said it was fate. Someone else said she bribed the housing office with cookies. Either way, she belonged now. Or at least, she made herself belong.
Back home, she was the third daughter in a family of overachievers. Her sisters had GPAs that sparkled. One was in med school. The other ran a nonprofit. She, on the other hand, had once written a ten-page essay on why glitter glue should be considered a form of self-expression.
She wasn't stupid. Just uninterested in things that didn't make her feel alive.
In high school, she'd been popular but not clique-bound. She was everyone's "best friend for a week," never quite fitting into one group. She had too many interests and not enough patience to fake liking algebra. Teachers called her "distracted." Her friends called her "the emotional support human."
College was her fresh start.
She'd walked into the dorm on move-in day wearing sunflower earrings and dragging a suitcase plastered with "choose joy" stickers. She introduced herself with a hug and two unrelated facts: "I have a birthmark shaped like Australia, and I once ate a pepper so hot I hallucinated."
Some of the others had blinked slowly, unsure if she was serious. She was.
And now, four weeks in, she knew everyone's favorite snack, biggest fear, most irrational dream, and worst ex.
She danced over to Maya, handing her the last cookie from a stash she kept behind the cereal boxes.
"You looked like you needed serotonin," she said sweetly.
Maya blinked. "You're not even in psych."
"I am psych," she replied, twirling again.
Her chaos wasn't accidental. It was armor. She'd learned early that energy distracted people from questions. From noticing the days she didn't feel like dancing. From realizing that behind the sparkle was a heart that cracked often and deeply.
She felt everything. And she remembered everything.
That time Anya said she was afraid of growing up? Stored.
That weird night the Observer stayed up watching the stars and she caught him whispering equations under his breath? Filed under "precious."
That guy in her first-year lit class who ghosted her after two weeks of texts and playlist sharing? Still stung. But she turned it into a meme and moved on. Kind of.
She wasn't shallow. She just knew that life moved fast, and if she didn't laugh loud, she'd drown in silence.
Tonight, she planned a spontaneous group walk to the vending machines across campus.
"Midnight snack diplomacy!" she called it.
Only four agreed to come.
She didn't mind. Four was enough for magic.
But first, she tiptoed toward the Observer's door and knocked softly.
He didn't answer right away, but she didn't leave.
"Good night," she said, gentle this time.
No reply.
She smiled anyway. It was enough.
She turned back toward the living room, where someone had just thrown a beanbag across the room shouting, "I DECLARE COUCH WAR."
The Spark was already running toward it, socks sliding across the floor.
Another night survived.
Another night lived.
Tomorrow, she'd feel everything again.
And she'd light up the room anyway.