𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐁𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄, 𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐇 𝐁𝐘 𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐇, their interaction is increasingly sounding like the ones they had during Speech and Debate — and if Rion knows anything, it’s that he hated being in that club. Perfectly reinforced little points, said with a dramatic, impassioned flair, it’s virtually the opposite of how Rion feels at all times. It’s nice, seeing someone so… taken by a cause, but he’d draw the line at getting pulled into it.
It’s only natural that she cites a study in casual conversation, and if he hadn’t committed to his stoic vibe, he would’ve laughed. Exhaling, he finally returns his gaze back onto Yana, forehead wrinkling in exaggerated confusion. “You do know we’re not in Debate right now, right? Just talk to me like… like, I don’t know, a normal person?” It isn’t meant to be rude, though he hastily attempts to correct himself, not wanting the girl to be even more upset at him than she already seems to be. “Just - I don’t know. Is this how you argue with people all the time?” Rion looks away, staring off into the thick brush just behind the infamous cabins. “You’re asking a lot of questions right now,” he continues, a purposeful deflection off his own psyche.
He half-rolls his eyes, tapping his feet on the picnic bench. “You want me to edit and post stuff on Instagram,” he repeats. It’s only after he says it out loud that Yana’s really not asking him to do much at all — and frankly, he could use another distraction other than his books. Even the sixth re-read of The Shining had lost it’s proverbial shine ( no pun intended ), and he supposes that hanging out with Yana beat hanging out with some other people on campus.
Ultimately, she’s right. But Rion is too full of pride to admit it right away, especially since he’s sure that she’s not above being all smug about it. “All right, Let’s say I agree with you. You write some shit to the administration, we get some of our great classmates on board… and then what?”
“I totally talk like a normal person,” Yana immediately replied, rapid and flat, though her brow had furrowed in that determined, wrinkled way that it always managed to do during Speech and Debate. “And this is not arguing. We’re not arguing.” At least she hadn’t meant to make it seem like they were, or like she was gearing to start an actual fight. Sure, his ambivalence had annoyed her but she liked discussions, and she liked planning things out—and sometimes that could take a certain intense direction, but. Her goal wasn’t genuine contention, especially not when she wanted people on her side. Sometimes that got lost in translation.
“I don’t want to argue. I just want to... help you see things from a certain angle. From my angle. I hate sitting around and doing nothing.” And feeling useless. Yana slumped down even further, shifting her elbows onto her knees as she leaned forward. She rested her head in her palms and stared down at the trodden grass, crushing a dead leaf with her shoe. She huffed a little and looked back over at Rion. “And not to blow your mind but talking like a normal person includes answering questions too. You’re not exactly the pinnacle of normalcy here either.”
Okay, reductive, she wanted to say, but she bit it back. That might have been a little too argumentative-like. “Yeah, that’s sort of the gist. I’d like it if you looked over the letter, primarily, and—helped me brainstorm a social media strategy. My online presence is pretty low-key, and all of my profiles are private. You’re a second pair of eyes, and a different point of view.” As she spoke, her fingers unthinkingly pushed at her cheeks and smooshed her face a little. It was a mindless move, and a likely unflattering one. “Something that would draw me in might not necessarily catch your attention. And what I choose to say might be how you’d choose to say it. You know what I mean? We need a happy middle. Something that caters to our very varied audience.”
She tapped her fingers and sighed with a halfhearted shrug. That’s where things always got bogged down: bureaucracy. “Obviously it would be easy for them to just ignore us or whatever, so relentlessness is important, but the first key steps are listing our demands and opening up a conversation.” That’s what television and movies taught her, after all. At seventeen Yana had fantasized about spearheading more change than she managed to make actual changes just yet. “Hopefully it would only have to go that far and we can come to an easy, temporary agreement until we can get back into the dorms. A few of those portable pop-up showers and a mobile hot spot for each cabin, at least. They can definitely afford those things easy.”
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