Little Bits of Positivity
_______
Cherrie Ma ’28
The fortune cookie split open in her hands with a soft, fragile snap. It was so light it barely sounded like anything, yet it somehow echoed louder than the conversations buzzing around the dining hall. She slipped the thin paper out.
It felt ridiculous that a mass-produced message could sting more than any real conversation lately. Maybe it was because she hadn’t expected comfort—not after weeks of walking past her old friends like they were strangers wearing familiar faces—not after pretending the silence didn’t hurt. She folded the fortune between her fingers, letting the worlds settle into the cracks she’d been trying to hide.
Another cookie waited in the pile at the table. She reached for it, half daring fate to mock her again. This time, the slip read,
She almost laughed—almost. She didn’t need luck; she needed answers... Closure... Something. Yet the tiny sentence felt like a hand on her shoulder, gentle and calming, saying, “You’re not as alone as you think.”
Outside, the sky was dimming, the wind blowing, the window catching the last orange night of the evening. She looked around the dining hall—friends sharing the same icecream, teammates collapsing.
Maybe healing didn’t arrive in big revelations or perfect apologies. Maybe it came hidden inside the flimsy cookies, and printed words that didn’t know her but somehow understood her anyway. Sometimes, she realized the smallest messages are the only ones loud enough to reach a tired heart.
She found it after practice, still catching her breath, sweat cooling on her temples. The note was folded into a tight square, tucked under her water bottle like a secret someone couldn’t quite say out loud. The ink bled a little at the corner: “To you.” There was no name.
She unfolded it with the same cautious hope she used on bad days–slowly, as if the words inside might break if she rushed.
“You don’t see it, but the whole team breathes easier when you’re here.” Her chest tightened. It was stupid how badly she needed something like that—stupider still that it came from an unknown who probably sat next to her in the locker room every day. Secret Seeker. That’s what the captains called it. A tradition. A way to remind each player they mattered, even when the scoreboard didn’t.
She read the line again. It landed in the soft place she didn’t show anyone, the place holding every missed shot, every quiet fear that she was falling behind.
She slipped the note into her bag, but her eyes drifted toward her teammates: someone tying up their laces, someone laughing with their head thrown back, someone staring at their phone like the world inside it mattered more. These were ordinary moments, but tonight they felt completely different. They felt warmer, threaded together by invisible strings of care no one ever talked about.
The hallway lights in the dorm never slept. They hummed softly overhead, too bright for night, too dull for day, the kind of constant glow that made time feel blurry around the edges. But somehow, in that artificial light, the dorm grew its own kind of warmth.
She was brushing her teeth when she heard it–someone calling down the hall, “good night!” A door clicked shut. Then, another voice chimed in, and another, a little echo of softness weaving its way past the corridors and half-open doors.
No one had planned it. No RL had suggested it. But every night, like clockwork, the dorm traded good nights the way families do—quiet, casual, but full of something real. The kind of gesture that slipped past her guard without asking permission.
She padded back to her room in socks, the floor cold under the thin fabric. Inside, her roommate was already cocooned under a blanket, the lamp casting a warm pool of light against the wall. “Good night,” she murmured sleepily.
