There have been many residents of Tawnly Hall over the years. Tawnly Hall is a stout, brick building belonging to the well-known Solaris-Dannes Institute. The university was named after its founders, Alexander Solaris and Maria Dannes. Magic seeps through every crack and crevice of the ever-aging buildings. They’ll take Regulars, sure, but SDI was built from the hands of the Different. There’s several regular dorm building on the west side of campus, but the eastern side is purely for the Different.

The east dorms house Vampires, Werewolves, Ghosts, Witches, Changelings, Gargoyles. The west dorms are just for the Regulars, and don’t have extra precautions such as Lupine Cages for raging Werewolves or fireproof drapery for the Pyros. I only know any of this shit because I’m trying to impress her. I’m a Werewolf, she is… not. She’s a Ghost- which is a bad idea all in itself.

She’s solid most of the time, but at least once a month she’s all translucent and floaty. On those nights she does seances and if I try to hold her hand I go right through it. Instinctually, she confuses. She’s technically dead, and always so cold. I’m too hot, all the time. She’s the only person who still hangs out with me when I’m in heat or during a full moon- I can’t do anything to her. She’s beautiful, and so smart. I got into this place on a soccer scholarship.

She’s on the Cheer team too- total type A. She puts my practices and games on her calendar, makes sure I get there on time. She dances, too, and I slip into the studio to watch her practicing when she’s not busy with her own. Sometimes I take her out. She looks so perfect, sounds so real, but when I lean in for a kiss I’m reminded she’s not. She’s tangible sometimes, and we spend those days in her bed, touching and feeling and pretending it’s always like this.

She doesn’t need to eat, or drink, or sleep. She says food makes her ill, but she likes going out with me and that she doesn’t mind. In the moments where she’s tangible, it’s so easy to forget she’s not always like this. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve gone to hold her hand or her waist just for my hand to go through her stomach. Usually, she feels awful the next day, because it takes so much effort to keep her particles together enough for me to touch.

I come into our dorm- which is spilt down the middle, her pastel and neatly-organized belongings on one side, and my messy, barely-decorated space on the other. It was raining, and I shake myself off like a dog. She’s talking with her mother on a crystal ball, but she turns to smile on me. She stands up, her mouth forming a pretty ‘O’ when she sees the Calla Lily bouquet I hold. She comes over to take them from me, and I wonder if I can touch her today.