Firework

Round 16: March 2026

Aaron Hayes, Emily Midlock and Frieda Robinson are 18.

(Tina is 38.)

Narrated by Emily.

Aaron, Frieda and I managed to get into the same dorm and Frieda and I even share a room. It makes it easier to live with a bunch of strangers when there's two people I've known since I was a kid.

The good thing about strangers is that they don't know everything about what has happened in my life before. They don't know my boyfriend died and I had some sort of a mental breakdown after that. It's quite easy to just forget about it when I study with people who don't look at me with concern all the time.

Frieda grew up on a farm so she was thrilled when she learned that the dorm has a few orchard trees and even some garden plots. She enjoys outdoors so much which is a good thing because it means our little garden is taken care of without me having to lift a finger.

She hit it off immediately with this Isaac guy who lives in our dorm. They both play for the university sports teams so they have a plenty of stuff to talk about even though she plays soccer and he plays basketball. She also thinks he's really cute and from what I've seen I think the feeling is very much mutual.

Aaron and I study together a lot. The freshmen have some basic classes together no matter what your major is so it's nice to be able to study with him. Frieda's usually at soccer practice in the afternoons so she studies late at night when she comes home.

Lately I've been having these feelings for Aaron that go beyond just being friendly. I never felt this way about him when I was with Ethan but now I just know that I want to be more than friends. We've been flirting quite a lot and I feel like maybe he's interested too. Sometimes I just feel really weird about it because Ethan was his brother and I feel guilty like I'm cheating on my boyfriend even though he's been dead for 2,5 years now. Every time Aaron and I hang out together I open my mouth to ask how he's feeling about all of this but I always lose my courage before I get a word out.

I'm still seeing a therapist although not as often as I did before. We don't talk so much about Ethan anymore, just about everything that's going on in my life especially now that I've moved to college. She says is natural to move on and continue living my life. The feelings of guilt are also natural according to her. She says I should talk to Aaron about this because he might be confused as well. I know she's right but I just don't know if I'm brave enough.

Frieda and I have become friends and I've talked about this with her too. She says that I should go for it. She says that her dad closed off for years after her mom died and it seemed like he would just fade away.

"Just go for it! It's so obvious that he likes you too" she says and every bone in my body wants to believe her. I'll just have to work up my courage and talk to him.


Grades, spring semester 2026
- Aaron: Political Science, A+, GPA 4.0
- Emily: Architecture (Mathematics), B+, GPA 3.3
- Frieda: Undeclared, B+, GPA 3.3


Notes:

• Title reference: Firework by Katy Perry.
• Oh man, it's taken me so long to finish this update! It took me forever to play and when I was finally done I realized I had only a few pictures I could use. I hope I can pick up the pace again and update more frequently.
• Emily and Aaron are definitely interested in each other but I thought it'd be more realistic to write in some conflicting emotions. You'll hear Aaron's POV in future updates.
• Frieda hasn't declared a major yet but I have an idea about her future career and what she could study so she'll register for one eventually.
• I tweeted about not getting my existing dormies to claim rooms in the dorm. I got lots of help from Carla and Maisie but unfortunately nothing worked. So I let the game generate new ones and I just love them. I recently changed my default face templates and this new ones are super cute. Isaac's one of the new dormies and I think he's very pretty LOL. Hopefully from now on the game will use existing dormies though.