She dressed up the dark-colored walls and industrial-quality carpet with bright posters of famous artwork and crazy rugs. Tiny, intricately folded origami swans hung and spun from the ceiling fan. What looked to be a secondhand sofa was embellished with a hand-knitted blanket in every color of the rainbow. The coffee table in front of the sofa was covered in medical books and study guides. The tiny television perched on top of a small bookcase had a piece of paper taped over the screen. “You can start watching again once you become a nurse,” the note read. “You can take that down anytime you want to watch,” Casey had said after I pointed it out. “But I adore TV. It’s a problem around midterms.” The kitchen was cozy but functional. Casey kept it free from clutter even as her refrigerator exploded in color. There were sticky notes in every shade imaginable touting reminders about test dates, quizzes, shopping lists, to-do lists, phone numbers, and other square-shaped bits of information.
