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There was a knock at her door.
Max rubbed her eyes and glanced at her alarm clock. It was 11:24 PM. She already felt anxious at the idea of dealing with someone given how fatigued she felt: AP English had been kicking her ass, and all those late night into early morning study sessions were catching up to her even though her blood to caffeine ratio was majorly skewed. She threw the covers off herself with a huff.
There was another knock, followed by a muffled voice, one that was very familiar to her at this point. “Max? Are you in there?”
The first thing that made Max worry was how Dana sounded. None of that usual bright and airy energy was in her voice. Instead, it carried with it a wavering uncertainty, as if she was afraid.
After she hopped off her bed and opened the door, the second thing that her worry was how her girlfriend looked. A stain of smudged eyeliner underneath each misty eye, arms hugging herself, and the shaky smile that seemed more like a grimace. The finer details of her appearance were lost in the darkness, but Max could tell at a glance that she was uncharacteristically upset.
“Wait.” Dana hovered at the room’s threshold and glanced over Max’s shoulder toward the lack of light in her room. “Did I wake you up?” She suddenly pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed, “Shit, I forgot you were sleeping earlier tonight! I’m sorry, go back to bed.”
Max caught the door as Dana tried to pull it closed, already turning to walk away from her room. “Dana, stop. Are you okay?”
She paused and regarded Max with a hollow smile. “Well, I mean,” an uncomfortable laugh bubbled out of her, “I’m not, but you need to sleep—”
“I’m not taking that for an answer.” Max interjected. “There’s no chance I’m going back to bed after seeing you like this. Come in.”
Dana shook her head. “Max, I’m fine!”
“If I showed up outside your room in the middle of the night, refused to come in, and then said I was fine, would you believe me?”
A beat passed as Dana stared at Max, sighing after a moment in resignation. “No.”
She walked into the dorm as Max stepped aside to let her in. The door was closed behind her, and the lights were turned on in short order. Dana sat down on the edge of Max’s bed, drawing in on herself and staring into space.
Max took a seat next to Dana and took her hand, brushing a thumb over her knuckles in a comforting gesture. “What happened?”
A bitter laugh escaped Dana’s mouth. “That’s the thing. Nothing happened to me. This is just me being fucking stupid.”
“That’s not possible. I’m pretty sure Dana Ward has a higher GPA than me, and you’re constantly telling me I’m not stupid.” Max shifted, leaning closer with a tentative grin. “So, I think you should apologise to her.”
That got a chuckle out of Dana, one that sounded a lot less derisive. “I’m sad for no reason. That’s stupid, Max.”
“You’d be giving me a lecture right now if I said that.”
Max studied her face. Dana looked away from and instead gazed at their joined hands, not saying anything. They sat like that for a few minutes, with Dana eventually placing her head on Max’s shoulder, a bit of the tension in her body melting away in the process.
Max threw an arm around Dana’s shoulder and pulled her in closer. “I’m sorry, I just... I don’t know what to say,” she said.
“You, you don’t need to say anything, okay?” Dana drew in a shaky breath that gave way to a cough that sounded suspiciously like a sob, and Max’s heart clenched at the sound. “This is enough. Being here with you is enough, because you’re all I need right now.”
The silence between them wasn’t tense, it was just a comforting lull in conversation. Dana focused on the sound of Max’s breathing, trying to match its tempo and get herself to calm down, but it didn’t work. She knew she wouldn’t be calm until she said what was on her mind.
When Dana spoke again, her voice was low, and she still refused to meet Max’s eye despite their proximity. “There’s a reason I’m sad, but I don’t want to tell you about it because I’ll sound like an asshole.”
“There’s no way you could ever sound like an asshole to me.” Dana noted how much conviction there was in Max’s voice and glanced up at her, taking in the furrowed eyebrows and those searching blue eyes that wanted to understand her plight. “Tell me what’s up.”
Dana leaned away from Max and turned to face her, drawing in a breath and exhaling shakily. “I think I’m just… tired of helping people?”
A pang of dread twisted in her belly like a knife as Max looked at her with a confused face, but she forced herself to continue. “Every time there’s drama here in the dorms, I’m always getting involved, acting as the mediator, trying to stop people saying things they’ll regret. I’m the person who people go to when they need someone to listen.
“But it’s exhausting. I’m always worrying, checking in with people, having to put out fires before they’ve even started. I can’t even focus on things I want to do sometimes because I’m just carrying all this weight.”
Max closed the distance between them and placed a hand on Dana’s thigh. “You’re allowed to be tired. You’ve got a lot on your plate.”
Dana’s voice was frayed as she spoke again, tears finally flowing freely. “But I’m the one who did this to myself! I’m acting like I have any right to be sad when it’s me who tells people to come to me if something’s bothering them!” She let out a groan of frustration as her hands pressed to her eyes. “Like I told you, I’m some asshole who’s upset for a stupid, selfish reason! Oh, I can’t deal with people relying on me, boo-fucking-hoo.”
When she felt Max’s arms wrapped around her, she all but melted into her girlfriend’s touch, letting herself bask in the affection despite how disgusted at herself she felt. It was a small comfort. A few angry sobs escaped her mouth, muffled by Max’s shirt.
It was Max who broke the silence a minute or so later, talking in a low voice, as if speaking any louder might scare her away. “Please, cut yourself some slack, Dana. You’re the resident superhero here. Nobody is going to hate you for being tired every once in a while, so you shouldn’t either.”
“Sometimes I think that’s all people like me for, though. It’s like if I stop trying to help everyone, what do I even have to offer them? I’ll just be the cheerleader who was too selfish to be anything else,” Dana mused.
“Okay, first of all, you don’t need something to offer. You don’t owe anyone anything, that’s something you always tell me. Second of all, what do you mean?” Max’s voice slipped into a tone that just radiated admiration as she continued to hammer away at her self-doubts. “You’re amazing, Dana! Everyone around here loves you, you’re like some bright ray of sun, so funny and kind that it’s impossible to feel down.”
Dana smiled into Max’s shirt. “God, when did you get so good at this?”
“I can’t really take any credit. I learned all of this from you.” She couldn’t see Max’s face, but she was certain that she could hear that familiar and bashful little grin.
When she pulled away from Max to look at her, the sight of those upturned, freckled dimples proved her theory right. “I love you, you dork.”
“I love you too, but you have to apologise to my amazing girlfriend later.” Dana groaned and buried her face into Max’s shirt, hiding her burning cheeks. “You’ve said a lot of mean stuff about her tonight.”
“Don’t make me call you a dork again, I will do it.”