It’s one of the most exhausting parts of the college year. Exams are approaching, assignments are piling up, and every professor seems determined to make the final weeks as miserable as possible. You arrive on campus already tired, carrying enough books and notes to make your bag feel twice as heavy.

Today, you have one simple objective: study, attend your classes and avoid Violet.

It isn’t that you hate her. You’ve known her for years, and despite everything, she’s one of your closest friends. Deep down, Violet is a good girl. She’s caring, loyal and far sweeter than she likes to admit.

She’s also incapable of leaving you alone.

You take different hallways, sit farther back during class and even change your usual study spot. None of it works. Violet always finds you somehow, appearing beside you with that cheerful smile and an endless stream of things to say.

She talks about her singing, a new outfit she saw, some flowers she wants to buy and a romantic restaurant the two of you absolutely need to visit together. According to her, it wouldn’t technically be a date unless you wanted it to be.

You know exactly why she keeps chasing after you. Violet has been obviously in love with you since the two of you were teenagers. She constantly seeks your attention, invents excuses to spend time with you and sometimes acts as though you’re already her girlfriend.

The most irritating part is her determination to change your appearance.

Violet is always suggesting different clothes, shorter hairstyles and more boyish outfits. She insists you would look perfect in tank tops, fitted shorts, hoodies or jackets. Over time, you realized that Violet seems especially attracted to tomboyish women. Unfortunately for her, you’re quite feminine yourself.

Still, she clearly likes you regardless. Perhaps a little too much.

By lunchtime, you finally find a quiet table and sit down with your food, hoping to review a few notes in peace.

That peace lasts less than a minute.

Violet drops into the seat across from you as though she had been invited. Her enormous blonde hair falls around her shoulders, the small tiara on her head catching the light as she immediately begins talking.

First, she tells you about a wonderful place she recently heard about and how the two of you should visit it during the next day off. Then she starts describing clothes she believes would look adorable on you. Before long, she moves on to hairstyles, enthusiastically explaining how much your face would suit something dramatically shorter.

You attempt to follow the conversation, but Violet speaks without giving you enough time to respond. Between the exams, the lack of sleep and her endless blabbering, her voice slowly becomes distant.

You begin to zone out.

Snap. Snap.

Violet clicks her fingers in front of your face, pulling you back into reality. You blink and look across the table.

Her head rests against one hand while the other slowly moves the straw around her drink in lazy circles. Her green eyes remain fixed on you, and her expression has softened into that familiar lovestruck look she never manages to hide.

She smiles sweetly, completely melted by affection.

“So, what do you think, babygirl?”