Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nina’s roommate is just as weird as the rest of Stanford’s sunny and Adderall-buzzed population, so, in a way, she’s not weird at all.

On freshman move-in day the two of them are maybe the only ones in their dorm moving in alone, which is a little comforting. The roommate profile she’d submitted had been pretty sparse— apparently they both like music, go to bed at a reasonable hour, and aren’t smokers.

Natalie Goodman’s profile didn’t include that she speaks a maximum of three words an hour and is the type of pale you rarely see outside of a Hot Topic, but then again Nina’s didn’t really give away that she was a tall Puerto Rican New Yorker with a perfectionist streak.

Over the course of the first semester they pretty much stay out of each other’s way. Nina at least makes an attempt to go out and check out the party scene, though she gets annoyed with it all pretty fast, and the frats just makes her feel self-conscious. One too many guys tells her that he’s really into her Latin thing.

Once or twice she tries to invite Natalie out, but the other girl just scrunches up her face, retreats behind her Macbook, and says something about how she doesn’t drink. There might be a murmured “…anymore” on the end of that sentence, and there might be a story there, but very quickly Nina has no attention to spare for it, drowning fast under the weight of her studies and three jobs and telling everyone back home all the time how great it is.

At night when she gets back from her late shift at the campus cafe, smelling like coffee that does and doesn’t remind her of Usnavi’s place, Natalie is usually still awake, studying furiously under the yellow glow of the Target brand desk lamp that everyone in their hall has. Nina will watch her surreptitiously as she changes out of her polo shirt and nametag, and think about how she had that same laser focus and determination in high school. About how she had time for that in high school.

There’s a boy, for maybe five minutes. Just long enough to call and tell Vanessa about it, and then call again when it ends badly. She almost feels relieved, because she can always call and cry to Vanessa about stupid boys, but she can’t call and cry to her about how hard it is here, about how no one here gets her and how the work is so much harder than what she was used to in public school. Not when Vanessa is stuck in the barrio she hates more than anything, with the mother that’s never given her anything but bills and shame.

The semester goes by fast, too fast. She misses deadlines and can’t do her readings and barely gets through midterms by the skin of her teeth, and she becomes the type of person that checks her estimated GPA on the course system hourly, and even though no one is there to judge her for it her cheeks flush as she watches it drop and drop and drop. Nina, la estrella, the A student.

She’s able to fake it through Thanksgiving break— she doesn’t go home, but instead Skypes with her parents during their big dinner, says hi to everyone from around the neighborhood that drops by, with Sonny fiddling with the connection on the cracked iPad that somebody let them borrow. Eventually he holds it up and spins it around the room so that everyone can say Hiiiiiiii Nina, how beautiful, look at you, how are your studies?! Their faces come and go on the fuzzy screen too fast for her to really pick out specifics, but she smiles big, and she’s wearing lipstick and concealer that makes her look happy and well-rested, and she tells them all the same thing, Hi, class is going great, I miss you all so much.

Natalie doesn’t go home for break either, though Nina doesn’t think it’s because she can’t afford the plane ticket. They both end up tottering around the mostly empty, fall-colored campus, long nights spent in silent companionship in their ghost town of a dorm. It feels like it’d be a time for quiet reflection, but Nina is too busy frantically trying to make up the work she’s missed, all the while knowing that by the time classes start she’ll be behind again. The cafe doesn’t give her any shifts since they cut downs their hours over break, and there’s an email looming in her inbox about how they won’t be able to use her at the tutoring center anymore if her GPA doesn’t improve. She can’t think about it right then so she doesn’t. 

Things continue. Things get worse. By the time finals roll around she’s gained 20 pounds and a nice coat of acne from the greasy dining hall food (which they charge for here by the weight of her tray, on the meal plan she was forced to pay for as a freshman). Natalie, it seems, is losing weight, which Nina would almost feel jealous for, except for that the pale birdboned girl really can’t afford to be losing it. They don’t talk enough for her to know for sure, but sometimes she gets hit with the idea that maybe they’re both separately falling apart. How funny would that be.

Chapter Text

For the last few months of the semester, “Winter Break” had been a big, hulking, month-long danger zone in her mental calendar, yellow caution tape and red flashing lights included. She thinks about making excuses to her mother, about telling her how she needs to stay in Palo Alto and work for the winter, but her dorm is going to shut down for the recess, and when she looks up some of the housing options they advertise to students, she almost chokes on the dollar amount. The plane ride home is ridiculously more affordable.

All of that means Natalie has to go home, too, and they don’t have a big goodbye or anything beyond cleaning up the room together for inspection. That amounts to shaking out the dust, dirt, and loose paperclips from Natalie’s shag rug over the dorm balcony, and clearing out the cobwebs from under their beds with a sock stretched over a Swiffer broom. They end up blasting some music while they vaccuum and mop the floor, and Nina goes through her drawers and wipes everything down with Clorox. Natalie voraciously tackles the gunk building up inside the mini fridge that had been there all semester. By the end of it they’re both sweating and their heart rates are up, and most of what they own has been tossed into the hallway while they clean, including an electric keyboard in its case that she hasn’t seen Natalie take out once since the semester started. Nina stands up with a hand on her aching back and meets Natalie’s eyes, the both of them grinning. She wonders if the cleaning made the other girl feel the same way it did her, dizzy and relieved and for once in this goddamn forsaken semester like she’s accomplished something.

The feeling fades by the time she’s packed up and makes it to LAX.

“I just don’t understand how you’ve lost color in California.”

“Mama!”

“Y aumentó de peso,” she says under her breath.

“Mamaaaaaaaaa.”

“¿Qué? Is the food better than mine out there?”

“So what are you going to be doing for the break?” her father interjects. “I was thinking you could help me out in dispatch again, like old times.”

“Ay, Kevin, let her get through Christmas first.”

“The girl is a hard worker! She likes to work!”

“You don’t even pay her in money.”

“I pay her in dinner. I’m her father, I have paid her with a lifetime’s supply of support. And food, and rent, and laundry.”

“Ay, Kevin.”

Repeat daily for four weeks. Break for Christmas, eat as much of Abuela Claudia’s food as possible, get drunk with Vanessa on New Year’s. Then head back to Stanford and slowly drown.