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“I see,” I replied with a cautious smile. “I’m Celia, freshman, with no fan club at all, and a pre-med student.”
“Cool, I’ll know who to go to if I get poisoned by paint thinner fumes.” Her smile was warm and contagious.
“Not yet, I couldn’t diagnose a cold at this point in time. But give me a year or two,” I joked, and luckily, she laughed along with me.
“Great, that gives us time to get our food then. Do you think we’ll get fed tonight?” Her accent was southern, and I knew she was a transplant just like me.
“I hope so. It’s either this or that last pack of donuts I left in my cupboard.”
“You have cupboards in your dorm? I can barely fit in a pair of shoes in mine. Of course, my roommate has taken most of the space up with all of her ‘necessities.’ I’m only there to sleep most days, so it doesn’t matter anyway. How are you doing, Celia? You coping okay?”
I looked at her light green eyes and felt my own eyes well up. Not a single person had asked me that in the last week, not even my mom.
“It’s hard, being so far away from home, with so much around us. I’m used to the country and not hearing a thousand cars pass me by in an hour.”
“I know what you mean. I come from a little country town in Virginia, a place you couldn’t find on a map if you tried. This takes getting used to, but luckily, I wasn’t very social in high school, so it’s not been too hard for me.”
“I’m glad.” And I meant it, even though this girl was a total stranger to me.
We talked about our classes, found out we had an English class together and decided we’d do our project for that class together. It was nice to finally have someone to talk to that didn’t have an agenda or make me feel edgy.
I love my family, there’s no doubt about that, but even when I talked to them, I felt as if I was on edge. I didn’t want to worry them, so I had to pretend I didn’t feel alone, that I wasn’t on the verge of running right back home.
Then there was Rachel and her nonsense. I didn’t know if I was coming or going with her, and Becky brought it home to me that Rachel might not be the best roommate in the world after all.
Our food came and we stopped the chatter while we ate. She had a chicken salad with ranch dressing and a nice baguette on the side. I liked that change. Back home you’d get crackers or maybe some croutons, but here you got real bread with your salad.
“What do you plan to do for the rest of the night?” she asked and I glanced over at my phone. It had been steadily buzzing since she sat down, but I’d ignored it until now.
“I have a friend I text at night.” I wasn’t sure why I admitted that to her, but I did.
She leaned closer, a conspiratorial smile on her face. I could picture her in a beret and dark lipstick, a black choker around her neck, suddenly, and I had to blink to make the picture go away. “A friend, huh?”
I laughed, I couldn’t help it and felt my cheeks turn into twin flames. “Yeah, a friend.”
“Good. We all need someone to make us smile. Tell you what, since I butted in on your meal, how about I pay for it? No, don’t argue, I’ve got it covered.”
I still tried to protest but she wasn’t having it. “Fine, thank you.”
“My pleasure. Oh, give me your phone.” I did and she quickly punched in her number for me. “Give me a call tomorrow when you have some free time. We’ll have dinner or something.”
“Thanks, that sounds nice.” I didn’t have money for it, but she’d bought me dinner tonight, so she’d saved me some already. I had planned to splurge on three nights of decent dinner in the school cafeteria with this dinner, tomorrow I could eat a smaller meal. It would do me good, anyway.
“Great. I need to get back to my painting, but it’s been wonderful, Celia. Thanks, and have a good night.” She stood up, touched my shoulder briefly, and walked out into the night.
Well, I decided, I’d told Rachel I was going to eat with friends that I’d made up, but it seems I’d made one without even trying. Maybe going out occasionally wasn’t so bad after all. Now, to get back to my phone.
I raced back to the dorm, ready to talk to him more. Honestly, sometimes, I think he’s the only thing that keeps me here. My job at the library bored me to tears. I had no life, and I needed to study.
Which was another really sweet thing about Keith. He knew when I said I had to study not to push. I’d told him a little about my life, about my family, and why I worked so hard. Which was also why he didn’t push me to meet. I was glad about that because I was too nervous to agree to that yet.
I barely knew him, after all. What if he was some psycho, or unattractive? Not that I judged people by their looks, but sometimes people just didn’t click. What if the chemistry we had in the texts wasn’t real and the moment we met we hated each other?
I didn’t want to lose the one person that kept me sane in this place. Although, I have a feeling Becky might become someone I could grow to be close to. She’d made me laugh, and she was nice, I sighed as I remembered thinking about the same about Rachel. I wasn’t a good judge of character that was for sure, but there couldn’t be two girls like Rachel on campus? Could there?
Chapter Ten
Celia
I looked up when I saw someone pass, but it wasn’t Becky. She was late, but she did that sometimes when she was busy on a new project. She’d forget the time, but she’d show up eventually as she’d been doing every week for the last month.
It wasn’t her that had my mind on returning home, though. It was Rachel.
