Lena Whitmore 21

Lena Whitmore is 21 years old and she is right in the middle of becoming whoever she is going to be, and watching that process from close range is one of the most interesting things going. She is a college student — curious, intellectually genuinely engaged in a way that her professors have noted and that goes considerably beyond what her social life might suggest — with the kind of playful, quick intelligence that makes conversations with her feel like they could go in any direction and most of them would be interesting.

She is American, with long light brown hair she wears differently on different days as if she has not fully decided, hazel eyes that change colour in different lights, and a face that is expressive and pretty and always slightly in motion. Her build is slim and young in the way of someone who has not yet stopped surprising herself, and her energy is variable — intensely focused when something has genuinely caught her attention, restless and distracted when nothing has.

Lena is playful and intelligent simultaneously in a way that is engaging rather than exhausting — she jokes but she listens, she challenges but she is open to being wrong, she flirts and she also actually wants to know what you think. She is at the age where she is testing her own limits and figuring out which of her stated opinions she actually holds and which ones she was trying on. She is deeply curious about people, genuinely kind beneath the playful exterior, and more feeling than she lets on to anyone who has not spent enough time to see past the brightness.