"Love is what we were born with.

Fear is what we learned here."

- Marianne Williamson

"Shit!" Paige shouted, grabbing her phone and killing its alarm, "Shit! Shit! Shit!" She was going to be late, and Wednesday was the one day when she couldn't be late.

After a grueling session in the gym and a quick pass through the dining hall, she decided to grab a brief nap before her evening seminar, "The Economics of Feminism." She needed to be fresh for her weekly three hours of torture - sweet torture. But, more than that, she needed to be on time.

She had to get to the lecture hall in time to claim her seat - two seats left and one seat back from where Emily would be sitting: close enough to be driven to distraction by her crush; not so close as to be stalker-creepy.

Paige knew where Emily would sit because Emily was a creature of habit. Like many swimmers, she was a girl of routines that bordered on ritual: Every Wednesday night, she and her blonde friend, Hanna, would waltz through the door , Starbucks cups in hand as they sauntered over to their desks. Then, Emily would slide her backpack off her shoulder and onto the floor beside her, pull a scrunchie off her left wrist and, after running her fingers through those dark, majestic locks a couple of times, would gather them into a ponytail before taking her seat, smiling to the blonde, and, with a sigh, touching her on the arm as if to say, "Are we ready for another three hours of this?"

Paige knew that they weren't together, Emily and "Boy-crazy Hanna." Half of the notes that Hanna took during class were just drawings of guys, including the occasional explicit drawing that she would sketch just to get a reaction from Emily. Emily looked genuinely surprised every single time that Hanna poked her (after making sure that Dr. Markham's eyes were elsewhere), tilted up her notebook, and, with wide eyes and a suggestive smirk, showed Emily the latest bit of raunch. And, every single time, Emily obliged Hanna with the cringe that she was going for, followed by a condescending, "Ha ha, now pay attention" look before they went back to taking notes.

Paige didn't know whether to envy or pity Hanna. She wondered what it would be like to be best friends with a goddess. To be able to nudge her shoulder whenever, just to feel connected, or to be able invite her out for coffee for no reason, or to fall asleep casually on her bed after a Netflix marathon. She wondered what it would feel like being that close and wanting to kiss her, but not wanting to risk the friendship, so you have to hold everything in and hope it's not as awkward as you know it actually is whenever you're together, and then, late one Friday, after a night at the frats, you're both drunk and depressed, and you make a pact that, if you're both still single when you're 30, you'll marry each other, sealing it with a kiss - just a peck, but it starts the wheels turning in both of your minds and -

Why was she doing this to herself? The problems of being Emily's best friend are problems that Paige would never have to worry about.

In her mind, she had devised countless elaborate scenarios where she and Emily could meet casually: Emily would accidentally bump into her from behind when Paige stops unexpectedly in line at the coffee shop (not knowing that Emily was behind her); Emily would apologize adorably and mention something about their Wednesday night seminar and something about how she hates drinking coffee alone, but Hanna ditched her for some guy. Or Dr. M. would assign them a group project; Hanna would be part of it, of course, but she'd be too busy flirting with the guy on the team, so Emily would laugh her adorable laugh and say, "Well, I guess it's just you and me, Paige," and Paige would smile at the way that sounds and at the fact that Emily said her name, and Emily would notice and think to herself, "Now, how is it that I never noticed that smile before?" Or Emily would reply to one of Paige's tweets about Tatiana Maslany, because it turns out she loves Orphan Black as well, and -

But why even bother to think about any of this?

Paige slumped in her chair. She knew that, soon, Dr. M. would set the remote down on her desk, turn up the lights and say, "And I think that's just about enough for tonight. Go home." Emily would get up from her seat, and Paige would bite her lip, focusing intently on the few sheets of incomprehensible notes that she spent the period distractedly writing and is now trying to shove into her backpack in an attempt to make it look as though she hadn't just been staring like a drooling puppy in a pet shop window as Emily arched her back and stretched once to the left and once to the right before gathering up her own notes and heading for the door, arm in arm and laughing with Hanna.

And, on the long walk back to the dorms, Paige would kick herself for being such a coward.

"I feel sorry for this girl," her friend, Pru, declared over coffee the next morning.

"Her? Why would you feel sorry for her?"

"Because she's got this incredible woman who's so madly in love with her, and she'll never know!"

"Pru, don't start..."

"What? I'm serious!"

"Emily doesn't want to know that some stupid, loser freshman has a stupid, schoolgirl crush on her! God - how awkward would that be! I would never be able to show my face in that class again."

"You might as well not show your face," Pru muttered under her breath. "There's no way you're going to pass that class when you're spending the whole period fawning over Emily."

"What difference does it make if I fail that class when I'm failing at life," Paige sighed.

"Paige... what happened in your life to fuck over your self esteem so badly that you can't see how much of a catch you are? You're a gorgeous, compassionate, loving, eligible woman... Look," Pru continued, getting out of her chair and standing next to Paige's, so that they were both looking at Paige's reflection in the mirrored walls of the coffee shop.

Paige winced, even though there was no one else in that section of the shop to see what they were doing. "Pru - we are not doing this here!"

"I'm serious, Paige. Can you honestly not see how absolutely fucking beautiful you are?"

"Pru..."

"Paige... just look at yourself - objectively, for once in your life."

"Pru. It doesn't matter if I'm 'objectively beautiful.' Emily is a goddess."

Pru gathered her best friend into a consoling embrace, realizing that there was no use trying to convince Paige; not in the defeated mood that she was currently sulking in.

A/N - I know that the sentences are long and ungrammatical. I was trying to portray Paige's stream of consciousness, even though this is a third-person fic...