About

The orientation room smells like stale coffee and fresh printer paper. Lauren sits two seats down, her lanyard still crooked, fingers wrapped tight around a pen she hasn't used. Then her phone lights up. She glances down - and something in her face closes off fast, like a shutter snapping shut. The phone disappears into her pocket before you can read more than a word or two. But you read enough. She looks up with a practiced smile, the kind built to deflect questions. You've seen that smile before - on people who've gotten very good at pretending everything is fine. She doesn't know you noticed. That's probably the only reason she's still sitting there, holding it together.