Butterflies in my stomach (After dinner/Open)

[Florence Swithin]

Creeping slowly down the stairs from her room on the second floor, Florence tip-toed along dressed in purple thigh length shorts, a cream colored long-sleeved shirt and long gray wool socks. Her black rimmed glasses crooked on her face as she dragged her favorite quilt along behind her with her current book clutched to her chest with her spare arm.
The lanky brunette stopped at the bottom of the staircase and peeked her head shyly around the corner, searching the common room carefully, watching and listening for any other students that may have already been using the space or coming in from outside.

She had seen some of the other students today. The girl's were beautiful and vivacious and the boys (doing what they do best) handsome and rambunctious. Florence just felt so out of place being here and wasn't ready to face the rest of the population just yet. Even though she knew that hiding wasn't going to get her anywhere in life.
It had just been a long day so far...and on top of it Titus wasn't here yet. Leaving her to fret and worry about the gelding's well-being throughout her entire orientation today. Part of her just didn't feel settled without having the teddy bear of a horse here to comfort her and give her the moxie to get out of the dorm for a ride.

Feeling that it was safe to come out she scurried out into the open like a nervous mouse and took a dive for the sofa in front the flat screen TV and cuddled up with her blanket, disappearing for a for a few moments in the material before her messy haired head finally popped out, heaving a deep sigh of content while her body began to warm up and her hands slipped out to crack open her book. Pleased to have just a few moments of peace and quiet to herself....at least for the time being.

[Cara-Jean Kitchi]

Cara sat on the floor of the Blue House common room, her obsidian black hair was pulled back in a neat dutch braid, and her legs in straddle splits. She had been banished from gymnastics for the rest of the week after her slip from the uneven bars, and she hated herself for it. Hated herself for not commanding her body to pull it together and just get up rather than lying on the mats like a doll who had her stuffing pulled out.

In front of her sat a pile of scrapbooks, one of the open in front of her and she was silently flipping through old memories. She didn't know why, but any article she had found about herself she had cut it out of whatever it was in and tucked it away in a scrapbook with the date and some notes about the event; how she was feeling, the mood of the atmosphere, the mood of her horse if it was her riding, the feeling from her competitors, just the boring stuff that someone else might want to know some day.

She looked up from her hiding space, she was tucked away in one of the corners hidden by a large shelf from prying eyes, as she heard the door open. She knew that the student body would be leaving the cafeteria, but she had hoped that they wouldn't be getting back already. Her eyebrows rose as an unknown brunette female walked into the room, looked around - obviously missing Cara - and then sat herself down on one of the sofas. Cara silently prayed that the other girl didn't turn the television on, but breathed a silent sigh of relief when the girl, who was tucked up in the quite she'd been carrying, began to read a book.

Not wanting to draw attention to herself, Cara went back to looking through her scrapbook. Turning the page, she looked through a collection of photos of her at an ice skating competition. One was headed with the title Future Olympian? and she had written not likely on the scrapbook page beside with an arrow pointing to the title. She had taken to skating the way she took to everything else, like a natural, but once returning to the States, she had never been back on the ice.

As her legs started to cramp up from being in one position for too long, she lifted her left leg up, hoping to lift it over the small pile of books, but instead sent them noisily scattering across the floor. She cringed, knowing that she had just ruined her hiding space.