Archive of Our Own

“Intellectually Attracted” didn’t sum up the half of it.

She had first seen the other girl on orientation day, her scarf a burning flash of sand in the sea of blacks and greys and browns. Her hair only fell to her ears at the time, held in a ponytail by a white fabric tie. You’d think the first thing she would notice would be the necklace that swung around her bosom, but Lana could barely see anything when their eyes caught, like thorns catching against skin in a bristle. The thin layer of cerulean, scrubbed translucent by grief and love, met the endless brown that lay dormant in Mia’s soul; life - giving like the river styx. Her eyes weren’t focused in the beginning, but gently gravitated to come together with Lana’s gaze. She smiled. Lana turned away, prepared to never see the other student again.

She had met Mia again- five or six months later - in an advanced civil law class. Her appearance had changed - her hair now rested in a severe - looking bun, she had donned a pair of white flats, and she appeared to be beginning to experiment with the distinctive bang over her eye. Yet again, their eyes met slowly, gradually, and Mia smiled again - Lana wouldn’t look away this time. Mia had arrived early, like herself, but scooted over out of habit, and patted the wood beside her - quietly enough so that it didn’t attract the attention of their fellow early birds, but loud enough that echoed in the other woman’s ears. Before Lana could smile back, or nod, she was sitting beside Mia, and Mia was idly talking about her family and her hometown, and her dreams of becoming a lawyer, answering and asking and answering again. As had been learned in the few minutes, Mia was to be a defense attorney to her future in prosecution, and she had a young sister barely older than Ema. Lana’s lips curled up, revealing a new bit of personal trivia - Lana had dimples.

Over the next few weeks, Mia met Lana outside of serendipitous eye contact and pre - lecture chats. They moved from eating meals together, to walking beside one another with their books in their arms, inviting one another to meet friends, rivals, sisters, and eventually advancing to the rather intimate, yet proverbial act of lying beside one another in bed, exchanging anecdotes and sleepy gazes as they studied hastily scrawled notes and filmed rambles. Occasionally, Mia would reach out, take one of Lana’s strands of hazel hair, and turn it around her finger, calloused skin unraveling bone - straight hair - frizzy and messy from lack of care and bouts of pulling during stressful nights of concentration and glowing screens. Lana would sigh, and her eyes would go lidded for a moment longer than a blink, as though the action was completely natural.

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Lana hadn’t cried when she had received word of her friend’s death. Ema, always understanding, had welcomed any expression of sorrow, even encouraged it, but she hadn’t cried. When Ema slept, she laid in bed, warm in the sweatshirt with the university’s name embossed across the chest, with the same old strands of hair strewn across her pillow. She closed her eyes, longer than she had before, drifting off to meet the girl in the quietest parts of her mind.

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