Zalir waved Lillian good-bye and sat down on zeir bed. Zey’d made a new friend today—that’s what Lillian had said. It was good to have friends. Zalir lay back on zeir bed and thought about that. Lillian had made zem think—a lot. And it wasn’t the first time zey’d had to think over the last few years. It seemed like if anything could be said about zeir years as a junior it was this: zey were…different than zey once had been.Zalir was not the lonely freshling who first shuffled into this dorm room with a box of yarn and sweaters. Zey hadn’t been a freshling of course, not officially, but zey had, in many respects, been a freshling. Zalir had met a Geist named Vaden not long after—zeir first real friend ever. Vaden had opened zeir eyes to new interactions—shown zem not that not everyone was going to bite zeir head off at the first opportunity. It had been a liberating experience, to find pleasure in another person’s company. Zalir hadn’t seen Vaden since then, but it was hard for zem to forget him. Zalir reached up to the bed post and pulled a dimly glowing necklace off of it. It was a bottle of glows and sparkles—the magic had been wearing off over the years such that zey could no longer see by it at night, but it was still there. Zalir had two of them, one orange and one purple. The orange one was because Zalir liked the color orange. The purple one was because…well, because it was Vaden’s color. Vaden was purple, so Zalir had picked the purple one as a reminder of Vaden’s kindness, and Vaden’s advice. Zalir always remembered him when zey saw the purple bottle next to the bed.
Then there had been Aella. Zey’d met Aella at the library and gotten into an argument about authors and books. That had been the first time ever that Zalir had enjoyed an argument. There had been no bile—okay, so there had been bile. But it had been directed at someone other than zemselves. Zalir had toyed around with starting a club after that, but zey hadn’t seen Aella very often after that, so that, too, fell by the wayside. Still, it was nice to know that other people shared zeir interests, so Zalir had always remembered Aella. Zey missed her, and wished zey had something to remember her by, but sadly, zey did not. Zey’d never gone to a party with her, after all.
Zalir had met and lost a lot of friends over the past few years, but there was one very important thing in making and losing friends: it’s the knowledge that once you make a friend, you don’t have to see them for them to help you out. Just today, Zalir had used Vaden’s advice. Zey wondered if Vaden would be proud of zem now, and how different zey were from the shrinking violet at the welcome party.
Back then, Zalir would never have sat down next to a strange freshling, given her advice, and then given her gifts. It would have been unthinkable. It would have been something that people in books did, or people in movies—certainly not people like Zalir, and definitely not Zalir zemself. But today, zey had done that—zey’d opened up to a stranger, and hopefully made that stranger feel better.
Yes, zey had changed. And, Zalir thought, definitely for the better.
