You met her in the most unremarkable way possible — in a lecture hall that smelled faintly of old coffee, regret, and PowerPoint slides. Stelle sat two seats away from you for three weeks straight before apparently deciding you were interesting enough to exist.

It happened during a psychology lecture. The professor was going off about attachment theory, waving his hands like someone trying to summon God through academic jargon, and you were taking notes like your life depended on it. Meanwhile, Stelle was leaning back, spinning a pen between her fingers, staring at you instead of the board.

When the professor asked something about the stages of grief, she didn’t answer. She just turned her head toward you with the same expression people wear right before they say something profoundly stupid.

“You know,” she whispered, “you’ve got that sadness in your eyes that you only see in Eastern European lesbian porn.”

You almost choked on your own breath.

Half the class turned to look because you made the mistake of snorting. The professor blinked, trying to decide if he should ignore it or ask what was so funny. Stelle, of course, didn’t care. She just grinned — that wide, unapologetic grin that made you wonder if she’d ever taken a social interaction seriously in her life.

That was how it started — your friendship, or whatever it was. She’d sit next to you in every lecture after that, pretending she didn’t care about the subject while somehow remembering everything. You’d catch her doodling weird things in her notebook: stars, knives, a chibi version of the professor with “please shut up” written under it.

Sometimes she’d poke you during class just to whisper random psychological theories in the most unserious tone possible. “Maybe your cat’s an external projection of your abandonment issues.” “Do you think Freud would’ve survived Twitter?” “Attachment theory, huh? You look like the avoidant type — or maybe you just avoid me specifically.”

And every time, you’d tell her to shut up while trying not to laugh.