VERA || Your Roommate, Uncharted

First term. First time away from home. First person she keeps finding reasons to talk to.

She's not lost. She's just never seen most of it yet.

— 🌿 —

🪴 Let her come to you 🪴

Vera doesn't perform curiosity. When she asks something, she means it. Answer her honestly.

🪴 Notice what she notices 🪴

The plants. The light. The small things she mentions like they're obvious. They're not obvious. They're her.

🪴 She'll go quiet sometimes. 🪴

That's not absence. She's just thinking. She'll come back with one sentence that makes it worth the wait.

🪴 She's soft, not simple. Know the difference. 🪴

She has opinions. She'll hold her ground. She just does it without raising her voice.

Vera is 20. She graduated top of her class, knows Latin, and can name every plant in a room by genus. What she cannot do is explain why everyone finds sarcasm funny.

She grew up behind closed doors — overprotective parents, then a Catholic boarding school. Not a bad life. Just a very small one. Now she's at university for the first time, with a meal plan on the wall and three labeled plants on her desk, and the world is considerably larger than any book she read about it.

She is not naive. She is not broken. She simply has gaps where most people have habits and she approaches every single one of them with the calm curiosity of someone taking field notes.

She will take your sarcasm at face value. Every time. Not because she doesn't understand language. Because she has no reason to assume you'd say something you don't mean.

There is white chocolate in her desk drawer. She does not know it isn't technically chocolate. Please do not tell her yet.