AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I stared down at myself for a second and tried not to cringe. The diet that I said I would go on after my graduation, stopped and started on the same day. I was unfit and needed to cut down on the donuts, cakes and everything else coated in chocolate that I couldn’t resist. Maybe being around New Yorkers would do the trick for me.
Sometimes, when I look at mom and myself, it was as if I was adopted. She could easily be on the cover of a magazine and had natural blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. Well, I adopted those features just not the body on the cover of a magazine part. But when I thought about it, I realized that my mom walked so much at work that she probably did on average 20 miles per day just running around the diner and she ate like a bird. She said that eating felt like another task she had to complete at times, not like the pleasure it should be. I never understood how doing something so natural for me, felt the complete opposite for her, but I’d never worked in a diner, or as hard as she did.
“You be a good girl now,” Mom said as she gave me a big hug. I choked up a little as her thin arms went around me. I was off to my new life, there were so many mixed emotions, that I clung to her, too afraid to let go for a moment.
Then Nan popped up out of nowhere and scared us both. “Now, you just remember NOT to behave!”
She winked at me and I laughed as I always did. She’d always encouraged me to walk on the wild side of life, even though she knew I never had. I shook my head at her and returned her impish smile. “Nan, you’re always such a bad influence.”
Mom pushed her out of the way and hugged me again. It almost felt as if I was being sent off to war and they might never see me again. I had to blink away tears when a sniff from Mom made my eyes well up.
“I’ll be back.” I tried to put on a fake smile. The one that I always put on to pretend that everything was alright. Something that I’d adopted over the years which should have become natural by now but was still a struggle to do at the worst of times. I knew that I wouldn’t be coming back for a long time because it just wasn’t an option. We had one problem in our family, one that had been a constant in our lives.
A distinct lack of money.
I calculated that between the money my family raised for me to buy all the things that I couldn’t afford to buy even with financial aid, the job at the library that I would start next week and the savings that I know Mom had given to me that I wouldn’t have a lot of money for luxuries. The money I’d made over the summer working for the realtor wasn’t going to last that long. I had to be smart with my money from the start, so my Mom told me.
“New York ain’t cheap, Celia, and neither is a university education, so try to be really careful and don’t spend what you don’t have to. But have a good time,” she said it all in one breath and I remembered thinking that I’d done a very bad thing. I’d put pressure on myself, Mom, and even Nan. The poor old woman had got a part-time job cleaning despite her bad hip.
I had to go off to school with my one mission in mind; to get that degree. The one that Mom would say was worth all the sacrifices we’d all made, the one that I could use to pay them all back, over and over again.
I chose NYU for a reason. It had one of the best neuroscience programs in the country, and I wasn’t going to let them down. There would be heartache and it would be hard saying goodbye, but it would only be for a little while. Four years would come and go in the blink of an eye. I’d come back home for a little while and then head back, hopefully, to complete a master’s degree.
“Guys, stop it. You’re making me feel bad. I’m coming back and if it gets to be too much you can come to visit.” I smiled reassuringly at Mom knowing that it wasn’t an option for now. The hotel prices were through the roof and there was no way she could stay with me at the dorm. Unless my roommate was cool with it and I wouldn’t know that until I got there.
Too much was going through my mind. Last night, I was dreaming about my pretend boyfriend and all the naughty things he’d do to me. This was my reality. I was going off to school to help my family. Nothing more and certainly nothing less.
“I love you, Mom.” I squeezed her good and tight as the tears escaped from my eyes.
“I love you even more.” She hugged me even tighter. I broke from her embrace thinking that I needed to get in Nan’s car and get on that bus. Otherwise, there’d be no helping myself, let alone the rest of the family.
Chapter Three
Celia
I’d been on the bus for way too long, and I was exhausted. The trip had taken almost 30 hours because of storms in several states, and I’d had to change buses in Chicago. That had been an adventure all on its own. I climbed down off the local bus I’d picked up at the bus station around lunchtime and forgot all about how exhausted I was.
I wandered around like Alice in Wonderland for so long that by the time I did get to the dorm, I was barely able to make my feet move. I wanted nothing more than to make my bed, order a pizza, and pass out. But that would mean I’d continued my old habit of comfort eating.
I hated it. It was never about eating out of hunger, but more to make me feel good, or to quench that sudden urge. It never really made me feel good though, because not only would I regret it every time I put on my pants and found out they were a little bit tighter, but the guilt of eating so much garbage would always weigh heavily on my mind.
“Shit!” I yelped as I tried to open the door to my new room. I had too much in my hands and every bit of it fell as I reached to stick the key in the doorknob.
My purse was over my arm, my phone in one hand, and my rolling suitcase clutched between the two, while my other hand grasped the packet the guy at the front of the door had given me, along with my keys. I hadn’t even managed to get the door open, and I was already making a mess.
The door swung open, and a girl peered out at me. “Hey, you must be Celia. Let me help you.”
Great! My new roommate had caught me red-handed and now knew that I was a klutz as everything I held had dropped to the floor. I wasn’t that great at making first appearances, but I had wanted to today of all days.
“Rachel? Hey, I thought you were coming in after the first semester?” I said as I bent down to pick up the things I’d dropped.
We’d exchanged emails once we were assigned our rooms and I knew a little about her. Like me, she had financial aid and we seemed to share a lot of the same interests. Like me, she was studying so she could be the first one in her family to have a university education and she loved to eat. She claimed to love chocolate and by the look of her, I thought that she didn’t enjoy chocolate as much as I did. She was a perfect size 6, maybe an 8 at a push, with dark brown hair and matching eyes.
She was everything that I wasn’t, and my nerves started to kick in again.
“Yeah, I’m Rachel. I decided to go ahead and come early since the dorm room had to be paid for anyway. Let me help you.”
I nodded as we both bent down. I put my phone back together, grabbed my bag which revealed the extra fifty dollars that my mom gave me, and would have to last me until Monday. Everyone in our family had pulled together to help send me here but the thing is, we were all kind of forgetful and clumsy sometimes. My uncle was supposed to put money in my account before I left home, but he didn’t remember to, so I had to wait until Monday now.
I didn’t mind. I was grateful for everything that they’d done for me. I may not be rich like most of the kids in college in terms of money, but I sure as hell was rich in love.
“Sorry,” I whispered as I stood back up. My daydream wasn’t going to happen, I thought. The one that I’d been dreaming about as soon as I left home. My tearful departure and the idea of going to new pastures was exciting and frightening at the same time.
“Yeah. I’m not the best at organizing myself. I spend a little too much time with the books and not enough on me.” She winked and gave me a reassuring smile as she packed my bag and handed it to me. “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. You’re just nervous.
It took my mom an hour to leave. And even then, we’re meeting up tomorrow. I don’t know who’s more nervous about me being here, her or me?”
She laughed nervously as she stood up and walked away.
I was shocked at how open she was with me and we’d only just really met. Sure, we’d talked in emails, but I still wasn’t used to this openness. Back in high school, the kids either ignored me or constantly made fun of me. The idea of someone my age being kind to me, made me feel better. Made me feel like a person and not a thing. The only time kids did speak to me back then was to ask me to help them with their homework or exams. I did it thinking that in time, we could be friends, but it never failed. They were just using me.
“Yeah, my mom was the same, but New York’s so expensive…”
“She couldn’t afford to come.”
I nodded to let her know she was right and thought about what my Nan said before I left home.
“There’s no shame in being poor. The shame is in being ashamed of being poor.”
“Yeah, but once I get a job and things work their way out, she can come. Then, I’ll get her here in no time.”
She agreed as she started to excitedly go through her papers, “Don’t you worry, we’ll figure it out. There are lots of opportunities for us here. We just have to see where we fit in.”
I liked the idea of the word we.
“Here, I printed some of them off at the office I was working at before I came.”
I listened and read intensively as she guided me through them. I realized that I’d made the right choice. Rachel was turning out to be a friend, quicker than I could I have hoped for. I had nothing to be nervous about anymore, just someone to enjoy being with and that was my new roommate.
Chapter Four
Celia
We unpacked and shared our secrets. It started with Rachel when she turned to me with a shy smile.
“I didn’t look like this at high school. I shed fifty pounds to make sure that no one called me fatty when I got here.”
My eyes went wide and smiled. “Wow, that’s really great! I’m impressed!”
