Hello Everyone,

I thought...why not make a thread for us all to catch up on.

The world had changed forever and drastically since this sub was last active and we were all together here. I still cherish those memories, truly.

So I think about you guys now and then. I think of how I hope you are safe and happy in life. So if you are out there old friends...happy holidays!

OOC: been browsing this sub for a couple days, just going back to posts and exchanges with old, old pals and got the odd feeling of making a post. I miss yall, is all. Had a load of good times here. Hope yall are doing ok

We can take this as just a peek into the future for my lovely, lovely girls or something. Doesn’t matter. Just wanted to give them a sort of peaceful exit (if the sub is never gonna get revived, i mean.) Don’t know how time should work here (been years since the last activity) but here’s some post-uni snippet anyway

Love u all!!

***

You knock. Gently. Shyly. It’s the kind of knock that essentially means if you want me to go away it’s cool and it’s sort of what you’re getting ready to do when a couple seconds pass with no response, but, eventually:

“Come in.”

You do, albeit like a wobbling baby animal. The woman inside the office is standing behind her desk, glasses on, figure slim and tall and studious. She’s got photographs spread on her desk, eyes looking down. You hover like an idiot at the door. You clear your throat like hello.

She looks up. Gives you a look that’s part boring-into-your-soul, part surprise, and a whole lot of recognition. You wanna leave suddenly, never one for being analyzed (who wants to be, anyway, wants to be stripped down and be known) but she smiles, and graceful age deepens the crows feet at her eyes, well-earned laugh lines carved on her cheeks.

“Hey there,” she says, her voice light and familiar but husky, telling stories of cold, cold drinks and long pulls off a cigarette. Her office just smells like all faculty offices do, though, you suppose, the light tang of old papers and stale coffee. In here, there’s also a hint of printing chemicals. “Got a submission for me?”

“Um.” You shuffle. Look elsewhere before back at her, again. She’s just smiling there patiently. “Yes. Sorr… sorry it’s late.”

“Don’t sweat it. Sit. Come on.”

You do. She’s taking her glasses off, sharp eyes looking to you for a second before somewhere else. “Want some sweets?”

She’s handing you a Kiss without waiting for you to answer. You take it, look at it between your fingers like it’s something alien, or special, and you must do it long enough because she talks to you again.

“Did you know there are more sheep in New Zealand than there are people?”

That. Surprises you. Enough to look up from your lap, gripping the Kiss in a loose fist. Her smile is kind, eyes sharp and searching. Those are eyes that have won awards, you think idly. Eyes that have made and sold enough pieces to give her a good enough name to teach here, in Tisch, in a swanky office and a plush seat. Eyes that know color and shape like veins know a heartbeat, like the sky knows blue.

You feel even smaller suddenly. Why are you even in this school?

“More... sheep than people?” you ask quietly. She just smiles again, lowering herself to sit down. Photographs on her desk are filed away to the wayside of her mind. Now she’s just regarding you.

“I kinda think it’s nice. Like—you tend to get sick of people, y’know? I’d love to spend my days petting sheep.”

She smiles wider when you’re surprised out of a chuckle. Continues, “everything okay?”

Your chuckle dies choking. Dread crawls up your throat like puke. “I’m… yeah.”

“You weren’t in my class.”

It’s not an admonishment or anything. A statement, you decide. It still makes you reel back a little, all shifting eyes and fidgeting hands. You say nothing. She picks up the same thread at a different spot:

“Mm. I get it, you know. When I was your age, I’d rather be anywhere else but here.”

“Tisch?”

Her smile turns coy, but her eyes are still soft. “Here in general. Surrounded by… people, I guess. Who I feel are like… worth a whole lot more than me.”

Before you can stop yourself: “what changed?” inches out of you like a shy child, just a little thickly, just a little wobbly. She looks at you a little longer and shrugs, leaning forward to cup her chin in her hand. You feel like a strip of film off her camera this way, being looked at with this kind of attention. You try not to squeeze your fists too hard and wonder what eyes like hers can make of a person like you—you don’t wonder long, because she’s talking again.

“You’re gonna hate me for this,” she tells you, some teeth peeking out of her smile. “But things… did get better.” She pauses to maybe let you absorb that. Watches you shuffle on your seat like you're saying yeah right. “New York stopped being too loud. I could go home to my uncle without feeling like I’m jumping into a hole. Alcohol began to suck. Therapy started seeming like not such a bad idea…

“And I realized people who can bear the weight of you when you lean on them aren’t always gonna be your family.” She blinks at you in a quiet kind of knowing, voice soft like shifting sheets, crows feet stark in a kind smile. “Accepted that there’s nothing wrong with that.”

You can feel tears heating up the corners of your eyes. You’re looking elsewhere, fidgeting with the flimsy envelope of your submission on your thigh. It’s just a shot of a ladybug you saw on your window, once, backdropped by New York sky and mess. And Jesus, the other submissions on her desk are just…

“And I don’t know if your family are people you feel like you can lean on, or if your friends tell you stuff like this, but…” She shrugs, eyes still on you, staring and blinking and seeing, “You—belong here. You’re doing great. Just gotta start submitting your stuff on time.”

You laugh, clogged and a little self-deprecating, but she grins with you anyway and it’s like sunlight through a window, draping you with warmth. She’s pretty, wearing her age and wear and tear like a flower at her ear. Her and her sharp eyes, her laugh lines, the light touches of gray at the roots of her hairline, hand nimbly reaching out to gesture come on, hand it over, and you do so shyly, head ducked. She takes your submission like it’s precious, dainty and careful.

You avoid her gaze when she looks at you a little closer, then, hand on her chin again, understanding riding the sails of her smile. “Who you are is worth becoming. Just gotta step out into the world.”

You swallow around the lump threatening to pop in your throat. Look at her from beneath your lashes. “Okay.”

“For what it’s worth, you’re doing better than I was at your age.” Her eyes crinkle, one side deeper than the other as her smile turns crooked. “But… just know you can knock on my door if you need to talk. …When I’m here, anyway.”

Right. You remember vividly that she shot a cover for a magazine just recently. Whipped with colors and graced by a model with an intense expression, all elegant limbs and a long neck. When she’s not here, she’s out stepping into the world, telling it who she is. You clear your throat. Pass a hand down your face to smear away any tears sitting at the corners of your eyes and try for some bravery. “I… thanks.” You mean it. You look her in the eyes to show her that you do. “Thank you, Ms. Campbell.”

“Don’t mention it. You can call me Alec.”

You startle just a little. She keeps smiling until you do too, though. Until you can chuckle even as you rise from your seat. “Right… Alec.”

“M’I gonna see you in class?”

She laughs when you balk. And then you chuckle, too. “I… yes. Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“Mhm. Well, if that’s all, we can work on some feedback for this some other time.” She holds up your submission, wiggling it with meaning. “Right now I gotta get to my best friend’s thing and I’m gonna get an earful if I’m late.”

“Thing?”

“Science-y stuff.” She flaps her hand. “She’s got a brain as big as the universe. I’ll be there to hoot and holler and she’ll call me a loser without ever meaning it. You know.”

You hum. She’s packing up now, gingerly piling up photographs, chucking her stuff into her bag. You take a moment to look around the office. It feels like she does, like it’s an extension of herself: comfortable, love-worn, photographs of her life hanging on walls—shots of an elderly man with lips and skin like her, holding her by the shoulder or hand in her hair; some more of a smaller woman with black hair and small eyes, grinning in the tuck of her arm, in one frame the both of them backdropped by a wall of equations, constellations. She looks happy in every photo. Hard to believe that she ever thought of herself as less than what she was—less than what she was meant to become.

“So…” You falter. Until she looks at you with raised brows, one corner of her lip quirked. You try again. “So… it’s alright if… if I come by again, then?”

“Absolutely.” You nod. She must realize it’s all you’ll do, because she just smiles and grabs a handful of Kisses to give you. “Take these. My best friend goes for sweets when she feels bad. Maybe you do too.”

Yeah, actually. You scoop them up into your palm and watch her slip the rest into a pocket in her bag. She slings the bag onto her shoulder next. Looks at you with a sunspot grin. “Got time to walk with me to my car?”

You smile. Yeah, actually. You walk with her. You step out into the world.

***

I was trying to find my way
I was thinking my mind was made
But you were making my heart change shape
It's all that I could take

If others want to discuss or challenge the subreddit going private for two days. Thanks

Thanks for the memories.

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