The cafeteria hit different when people knew your name.
I'd spent the first three weeks at San Nicolas as a ghost. The fat lottery kid in the too-tight uniform who got lost six times on orientation day and ate alone until Belle Fox decided I was worth sitting across from. Nobody looked at me. Nobody high-fived me in hallways. Nobody whispered when I passed or nudged their friend's elbow and pointed.
Now I couldn't get through the front doors of the Apex Dining Hall without someone touching me.
"Monroe! Yo, Monroe!"
A second-year Obsidian guy I'd never spoken to in my life grabbed my hand as I passed his table and shook it with both of his. He had the build of someone who'd been training since childhood and the grin of someone who'd placed a winning bet on my survival. His buddy, a stocky kid with a buzz cut and a Ruby transfer patch on his shoulder, leaned back in his chair and saluted with a fork.
