"Cassidy?" I knocked again lightly on her bedroom door. "Cassidy, are you okay?"

The whimpering came to an abrupt stop. I heard a bit of sniffling. "I'm fine," Cassidy called out.

I knew that wasn't true.

"Are you sure? What happened?"

There was a moment of silence and then a bit more sniffling. Then, the doorknob turned and Cassidy faced me in the doorway. Her eyes were puffed and red, her nose still leaking a little bit of snot, and her hair had clearly not been combed through in at least a day.

"How long have you been in here?" I asked.

"I don't know. All day. I skipped class," she mumbled then immediately flopped back onto her bed, curled in a fetal position and hugging her stuffed panda bear.

Warily, I stepped into her room, concerned by the mess. Cassidy wasn't the type to leave things out or not have her room pristine. Now, her clothes were on the floor, a few coats were hanging out of the closet, half off their hangers, and the bathroom sink was covered in various creams, ointments, and little things of makeup.

Gently, I sat on her bed next to her, making myself comfortable in a few of her pillows. Then, I held out a hand to her. She took it and squeezed. I didn't know what she needed. "Did something happen?" I asked, quietly.

She nodded. "A lot happened."

I waited for her to go on.

"I skipped all my classes today. I missed one of my midterms. For econ."

Yikes. That sucked. The school wasn't really that forgiving when it came to mental health and for most of my classes, if I missed a midterm, I just got a zero. It always led to an insane amount of anxiety in the night leading up to the test where I would make sure to set fifteen alarms so that I wouldn't sleep through my exam. It had worked for me so far; I had never missed one.

"Have you emailed the professor?" I desperately tried to remember if I knew the econ professor. I didn't think I did. I'd taken one econ course my freshman year, but I wasn't sure if it was the same one that Cassidy was taking now.

"Yeah. He didn't respond." I doubted it. Most of the professors took forever to get back to my emails, too. "But...I don't think I'm going to do painting anymore."

Oh. Hm. That came from nowhere. I knew that Cassidy had started getting into painting again recently. She'd done it her whole life, had even taken a few classes in high school and earlier. She was naturally gifted with it. Even just looking at her walls now, I could see the many paintings she had created over the years. One directly across from us depicted a snowy forest with a small log cabin a bit in the distance. Next to it, a sunny afternoon under a canopy of leaves. Then, an ocean. A river. An indefinite number of landscapes, all blending together and  creating a collage, a master piece.

The last thing I'd remembered her telling me was that she'd been accepted into this prestigious group, an online cohort of other painters that had a joint Etsy account or something similar to  sell their work. She'd been so excited about it, talking about how it would give her so much more of a market to sell to.

And it would. She was amazing at painting and had a good following, but it wasn't like she was making millions. It was hard to get anywhere with any type of art.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Well... two reasons." She sniffled heavily again and wiped at her eyes. There were small black smudges at corners of her eyes from the smeaered mascara. "The first is because, I know this is going to sound stupid, but..."

"I'm sure it's not stupid," I countered.

"I mean, okay. Sure," she corrected. "But you know Leo, right?"

I squinted, trying to remember where I recognized the name. Leo. Leo... who had come to one of the parties with us one time. Right. That Leo. He'd been pretty cute: a great smile, olive skin, and shockingly perfect eyebrows. Cassidy had been staring at him for most of the night. I remembered noticing that specifically.

"I think so," I replied.

"Well, I hung out with him recently. On a date."

I raised my eyebrows. I hadn't even realized Cassidy had been going on dates, still. She usually told me before she went out and asked for outfit advice. "Oh?" I asked.

Cassidy nodded vigorously. "Yeah, yeah. He's really hot. Really funny and jokes around a lot. It's cute and he has these little dimples and his eyes light up when he speaks and..." Cassidy trailed off into another sniffle. "Anyway. That doesn't matter. What matters is we came back to my place last night, right? And it was going well, and I think I was almost falling way too hard for him. It was like our third or fourth date, okay? I didn't tell you because I didn't want to jinx it."

I could understand that. When I'd gone on dates in the past, I usually didn't talk about it to too many people. It added so much unnecessary pressure to the situation. And then, when it didn't work out for some reason,  people would bring it up and I'd have to relive the struggle all over again. It was unpleasant.

"So, we came back to my place last night and it was his first time being in my room. By the way, he also paints. I'd briefly told him about my painting thing, you know. And we start getting onto the topic of painting and it gets a bit weird and it feels like he's all bragging and then all of a sudden he's saying I'm still an amateur and..."

"Excuse me, what?" I interrupted.

Cassidy's face went bright red. "Yeah, he said I was amateur." She waved a hand toward the paintings on the side of her wall, staring down at the bed's comforter.

I felt angry rear up inside of me. "What a dick," I announced.

Cassidy let out a sudden guffaw that turned into a hiccup. "That and he said that my paintings could use more color. That they were dull." She made a face at the word "dull" mimicking how Leo sounded.

"Cassidy, trust me when I say this. You are not an amateur. And Leo sounds like a pretentious prick."

She let out another soft laugh, sniffling at the end. "I know. I know. I mean, I don't really know. It's just that I've been feeling like shit about my painting, you know? Like it's what I really want to do, but then there's this and then even the painting group I joined, you know, Paint the Stars? It's kind of been sucky."

"Why? Did they do something, too? If they called you an amateur then they are also dicks," I stated, confidently.

"No. It's just that they haven't paid me."

"Cassidy, are you serious? Isn't that illegal?"

"They said it's in the contract. That I have to like sell a certain number of paintings before getting paid. I just didn't realize how extreme it was... so now it's just me not getting paid because I'm not good enough and nobody likes me or my paintings and I suck," she rambled.

I squeezed Cassidy's hand tightly, trying to think of how to word what I wanted to say. "Cassidy, seriously, I think you are an amazing painter. I could never make something even half as good as yours look. And you've won awards and stuff for your paintings, haven't you?" She'd gotten something in high school. I knew that much.

She shrugged. "I guess."

"And honestly, it just sounds like Paint the Stars is sort of taking advantage of you, just a tad."

She winced. "I've been worried about that. Since the beginning."

"I can tell." I let out a heavy sigh. "Do you want solutions or just to sort of chill here together and relax?"

Cassidy thought about it for a moment, brushing her hair over her shoulder. She looked around the room at the mess that she had created. "Solutions and then we clean my room."

"Okay," I replied. "At least, this is what I would do. It doesn't mean it's right or anything. But I feel like you shouldn't see Leo again. No offense."

"Oh god, yeah. I mean no. Whatever. I am not seeing him. He is kind of a jerk. I kind of kicked him out of my room at the end of our date anyway."

"Okay, sweet. And then, I think you should actually look at the contract in depth and check if what they are doing is legal because it feels really shitty."

"Hmm. I can try. I suppose." She stared at the ceiling, lost in thought. "First step, though, is to clean my room."

"Yes, definitely. And then ice cream?"

"Oh my god, yes. Please. Can we go to the cookie place? Pretty pretty please." Cassidy gave me puppy dog eyes made even sadder because of her tear-stricken face.

I laughed. "Yes. I would love that. And I'll pay for you."

Cassidy broke out into a wide grin. "You are amazing," she said, excitedly. "I seriously love you."

"I love you, too, Cas."