Dorm Room Confessions

The arts center was supposed to be empty at 2 AM. That was the whole point of Jordan Kim's nocturnal painting sessions—no one around to watch her struggle, no helpful suggestions from classmates, no professors dropping by to check on her "progress." Just Jordan, her canvases, and the brutal honesty that only came in the small hours when her defenses were too tired to maintain themselves.

She'd been staring at the same painting for three hours, brush loaded with ultramarine blue, paralyzed by the gap between what she could see in her mind and what appeared on the canvas. The piece was supposed to capture the feeling of displacement—the way her Korean grandmother's stories felt both familiar and foreign, the way she felt caught between cultures without fully belonging to either. Instead, it looked like an undergraduate's clumsy attempt at emotional abstraction.

"You're a fraud," she whispered to her reflection in the darkened windows. "A twenty-year-old fraud with delusions of artistic grandeur."

The harsh fluorescent lights made everything look sickly and artificial, including her own face staring back from the glass. She'd been at Riverside for over a year now, and she still felt like she was playing dress-up as an art student. Everyone else seemed so confident in their vision, so certain that their creative impulses were worth pursuing. Jordan felt like she was constantly grasping for something just out of reach.

The sound of the studio door opening made her jump, nearly dropping her brush.

"Oh! Sorry, I didn't think anyone would be here this late."

Jordan turned to see a girl about her own age hovering in the doorway, arms full of textbooks and looking genuinely apologetic for the interruption. She was pretty in an understated way—auburn hair pulled back in a practical ponytail, wearing jeans and a Riverside Engineering hoodie, with the kind of steady presence that suggested she rarely second-guessed herself.

"It's okay," Jordan said, quickly turning her easel away from the newcomer's view. "I was just... working on something. You need the space?"

"Only if you don't mind sharing. I'm Casey Walsh—I've got a thermodynamics problem set that's kicking my ass, and the library's too noisy even with headphones." She gestured toward the corner where a few tables were set up for non-painting activities. "I can be very quiet."

Jordan studied the girl—Casey—for a moment. She seemed genuine, not like she was trying to intrude on Jordan's solitary creative process. And honestly, the company might be welcome after three hours of brutal self-criticism.

"Sure," Jordan said. "I'm Jordan. And fair warning, I tend to mutter to myself when I'm frustrated."

"Perfect match then, because I definitely swear at my calculator when it's not cooperating." Casey smiled, and Jordan felt some of the tension in her shoulders ease. "Mind if I ask what you're working on? I promise I won't offer unsolicited artistic criticism."

Jordan hesitated. She'd gotten used to deflecting questions about her work, especially from non-art majors who didn't understand the difference between technical skill and creative vision. But there was something about Casey's manner—curious but respectful—that made her consider actually answering honestly.

"It's... complicated," she said finally. "I'm trying to paint something about cultural identity, but it's not coming together the way I imagined."

"Can I see? I mean, only if you want to show it. I know art can be personal."

Jordan looked at Casey's face, searching for signs of polite interest or academic obligation. Instead, she found what looked like genuine curiosity. Before she could second-guess herself, she turned the easel back around.

Casey approached the painting slowly, her engineering textbooks forgotten on the table. She studied the canvas for a long moment, taking in the swirling blues and grays, the way Jordan had tried to layer transparent and opaque elements to create depth.

"It feels like water," Casey said finally. "Like looking down into deep water where you can almost see the bottom but not quite. There's something beautiful and unsettling about not being able to touch what you're reaching for."

Jordan stared at her. In one sentence, this engineering student had articulated what Jordan had been struggling to express for weeks.

"That's... exactly what I was trying to do," she said, voice barely above a whisper. "How did you see that?"

Casey shrugged, looking slightly embarrassed by her own insight. "I spend a lot of time thinking about fluid dynamics and light refraction. Maybe that helps me see the technical aspects? But honestly, it just feels like something I recognize. The longing for something you can't quite grasp."

"You get that feeling too?"

"Different context, probably, but yeah. The sense of being caught between two worlds, never fully belonging to either one."

Jordan felt something shift in her chest—recognition, relief, and a warm flutter of connection. "What's your context?"

Casey settled into one of the plastic chairs near Jordan's easel, her textbooks clearly forgotten. "First-generation college student from a working-class family in South Boston. My parents are proud of me, but they don't understand why I chose environmental engineering over something more practical like mechanical or electrical. And my classmates all seem to come from families where college and professional careers are just expected, not fought for."

"That sounds lonely."

"Sometimes. What about you?"

Jordan set down her brush and really looked at Casey—the way she sat forward slightly, engaged and present, the way she'd approached Jordan's painting with respect rather than judgment. When was the last time someone had asked about her experience without immediately offering solutions or comparisons?

"Korean-American, but third generation," Jordan said. "My grandparents came here with nothing, my parents became successful in business, and now they think art is a luxury we can't afford. They want me to double-major in something 'practical' like business or computer science."

"Do you want to?"

"God, no. But they're not wrong about art being financially unstable. I look at my work and wonder if I'm being selfish, pursuing something so impractical when my family sacrificed so much for stability."

Casey was quiet for a moment, considering. "Can I ask you something that might sound weird?"

"Sure."

"What if the impracticality is part of the point? I mean, in engineering, we're always trying to solve problems efficiently, to find the most direct path from point A to point B. But maybe art is valuable precisely because it's not trying to optimize anything. Maybe it's trying to help us understand the feelings we have about the problems, not just solve them."

Jordan felt her breath catch. "That's... not weird at all. That's actually really insightful."

"I've been thinking about it lately because of my environmental work. We can engineer solutions for carbon capture and renewable energy, but if people don't feel emotionally connected to environmental protection, the technical solutions won't matter. Maybe artists like you help create that emotional connection."

"Artists like me," Jordan repeated softly. "You said that like you actually think I'm an artist."

Casey looked genuinely confused. "Aren't you? I mean, you're here at 2 AM working on a painting that made me understand something about longing and displacement that I'd never been able to articulate. That seems pretty artist-like to me."

Jordan turned back to her canvas, seeing it through Casey's eyes. The blues and grays that had looked muddy and confused an hour ago now seemed more intentional, more purposeful. Not perfect, not finished, but genuine in their exploration of complex emotions.

"I've been struggling with self-doubt," she admitted. "Wondering if I have any real talent or if I'm just fooling myself."

"Can I offer an engineering perspective on that?"

"Please."

Casey stood up and moved closer to the painting, gesturing toward the layered brushstrokes. "See how you've built up these transparent layers? That's not accidental. You're creating depth through light interaction, which means you understand how visual perception works. And the way you've balanced the composition—the weight distribution across the canvas—that shows spatial awareness."

Jordan followed Casey's pointing finger, starting to see her own work through this analytical lens.

"But more than that," Casey continued, "you've created an emotional response. I looked at this and felt something specific, something I could relate to my own experience. That's not technical skill—that's artistic vision."

"You really think so?"

"I know so. And Jordan? The fact that you're here at 2 AM wrestling with these big questions about culture and identity and what art is supposed to do—that's not what fraud do. That's what serious artists do."

Jordan felt tears prick at her eyes, surprising herself with the intensity of her emotional response. When was the last time someone had taken her artistic struggles seriously, had engaged with her work as legitimate rather than as a phase she'd eventually outgrow?

"Thank you," she said quietly. "I needed to hear that."

"Thank you for letting me see your work. And for listening to me ramble about engineering philosophy. It's nice to meet someone who doesn't think technical and creative thinking are mutually exclusive."

They settled into comfortable parallel work—Jordan returning to her painting with renewed focus while Casey spread out her thermodynamics problems. The studio felt different now, less like a place of isolated struggle and more like a shared workspace where different kinds of problem-solving could coexist.

Jordan found herself sneaking glances at Casey as she worked, noting the way she approached her engineering calculations with the same methodical care Jordan used for color mixing, the way she occasionally muttered encouragement to herself when a solution started coming together.

"Casey?" Jordan said around 3 AM, when they'd both been working in focused silence for nearly an hour.

"Mm?"

"Why environmental engineering? What drew you to that specifically?"

Casey looked up from her calculations, her face lit by the combination of fluorescent overheads and the desk lamp she'd borrowed. "Climate change, mostly. I grew up in a city where you could see the effects of pollution on the harbor, the way development affected local ecosystems. I wanted to do something that could actually make a difference."

"That's really admirable."

"It's also really overwhelming sometimes. The scale of environmental problems can feel impossible to address, even with the best technical solutions."

Jordan set down her brush and turned to face Casey fully. "Is that your version of my artistic self-doubt? Wondering if your work can actually make the difference you want it to make?"

Casey's smile was rueful. "Pretty much exactly that, yeah."

"Well, from an artist's perspective," Jordan said, echoing Casey's earlier phrasing, "the fact that you're here at 2 AM working on problems that could help save the planet suggests you're exactly the kind of engineer the world needs."

"Touché."

They looked at each other across the studio space, and Jordan felt that warm flutter of connection again, stronger this time. Casey wasn't just being polite about her art—she genuinely understood both the creative process and the self-doubt that came with pursuing meaningful but uncertain work.

Around 4 AM, Casey's head began to nod over her textbook. Jordan watched her fight against exhaustion for a few minutes before she finally gave up and rested her head on her arms.

Jordan continued painting quietly, hyperaware of Casey's presence, the soft sound of her breathing, the way the studio felt less lonely with another person sharing the space. When Casey began to shiver slightly in the air-conditioned room, Jordan didn't think twice about draping her paint-stained denim jacket over Casey's shoulders.

Casey stirred slightly at the touch, murmuring a sleepy "thank you" before settling back into sleep.

Jordan returned to her painting, but her focus was different now—less desperate, more exploratory. The blues seemed richer, the composition more balanced. Casey's presence hadn't been a distraction from her work; it had somehow made the work itself more possible.

"When Casey smiled sleepily and murmured 'thank you' before drifting off again, something warm and unfamiliar bloomed in my chest. I'd never felt protective of anyone before, never wanted to take care of someone like this. As I returned to my painting, I realized Casey's peaceful presence made the colors seem brighter, the composition more balanced. Maybe we made each other better."

As the first hints of dawn began to creep through the studio windows, Jordan stepped back from her canvas. The painting wasn't finished, might not ever be finished in any traditional sense, but it was honest now in a way it hadn't been before. The longing was still there, the sense of reaching for something just out of grasp, but there was also something new—the possibility of connection, of finding understanding in unexpected places.

She looked over at Casey, still sleeping peacefully under Jordan's jacket, and felt a smile tug at her lips. Tomorrow—today, technically—she'd probably second-guess this entire interaction, wonder if she'd been too open about her artistic struggles, too quick to trust a stranger with her vulnerabilities.

But right now, in the quiet pre-dawn studio with her painting finally beginning to say what she'd been trying to express, Jordan felt something she hadn't experienced in months: hope that maybe she wasn't as alone in her creative journey as she'd thought.