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Emptying my backpack and throwing my dirty clothes into the large cotton laundry bag in my closet, I flopped onto my bed. Placing one hand on my chest and the other behind my head, I gazed up at the boring ceiling above me, wishing I was still at Tilly’s apartment—the stars, the lingering smell of vanilla on her sheets, everything about that place welcomed me in. I couldn’t say the same about my dorm room, but Jeremy wasn’t the sole reason. The rooms in Langford were tiny, about 80 square feet, with cinder block walls painted a creamy pale yellow. The tile floors were ice cold in the winter, and the tiny area rug could only cover so much of it. Whenever the heat went on, our radiator made a clanging sound, and even though temperatures were warming up in Illinois, the heat continued to pump through the giant contraption that took up an entire wall of our room. Currently, Jeremy had all the windows cracked just to save himself from sweating.
Gotta love the dorms.
“All of your mail is on your desk.”
“Oh, right. Thanks for checking the mailbox. Anything interesting?”
He looked at me like I had three heads as I climbed out of bed.
“What?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“I don’t go through your mail, Wyatt.”
“I didn’t mean that, I just…never mind,” I said with a sigh, picking up the pile on my desk. There were bills, credit card offers, and other junk mail. But then, I saw it: an envelope from Professor Cohen sent through the campus mail system. Ripping it open, I found a brochure for the animation program she’d told me about. Dropping everything else onto my disorganized, messy desk, I flopped back onto my bed and opened the brochure.
Paging through it with a giant smile on my face, I couldn’t help but get excited about the potential of honing my skills at UCLA for an entire month. Professor Cohen was right, it was expensive, but I knew my parents would be ecstatic for me if I managed to get into the program.
The only problem was my apprehensive heart. Could I leave Tilly? I’d waited years to get her back. Was I ready to walk away from her all over again, even if only for a month?
The feeling overwhelmed me, so I tossed the brochure to the end of the bed and rolled to my side, staring at the cold wall. It was ironic that just an hour ago, I’d been teasing Tilly about her troubles with sleep, and here I was, staring at the wall of my dorm room to escape my thoughts and drift into a peaceful sleep.
But that didn’t happen.
And, unfortunately, it was way too early to turn on Nick at Nite.
I couldn’t get over how crowded Spotlight Video was on a Saturday afternoon. The moment I walked into the store, I almost bumped into one of the many people that were hovering near the returns box. The Slurpee killer was checking in videos and yelling at people to back off. And the guy with the ponytail who called Tilly “Weezer” was yelling at him to be civil to the customers.
Other employees were ringing customers up at every available register. I spotted Tilly across the store. She was carrying a huge stack of VHS tapes under her chin. “Hey!” she said, lighting up as we made eye contact. “The store is crazy today, and we have no idea why.”
“Did something major come out or something?’
“Nope, but they’re warning we may get a snowstorm tonight.”
“But, it’s April.”
“Sometimes it snows in April,” Tilly said, raising an eyebrow.
“That’s a Prince song, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “You remembered.”
Pressing my lips together in concentration, I tried to remember which album it was on. “It’s a black and white cover, right? The one with Kiss.”
“Wow, now I’m really impressed. What did you do, run out and buy all the Prince albums you could?” she asked. And I tilted my head to the side in confusion.
Didn’t she know I owned them all?
Hadn’t I put that in my letters?
“Sorry, I need to get these back on the shelf so I can get another stack and start over again. Not sure I’ll be able to leave for a bit. Can you, um, look around? Maybe find something you’d like to watch?”
“Sure. Take your time. Want me to help you put those back?”
“Seriously? That would be so awesome, but you don’t have to. I mean, you’re not getting paid, so I would totally get it if you didn’t—”
Laughing, I stretched out my arms. “Give me the tapes, Till.”
“You’re a life saver. Fifteen minutes, okay? I promise.”
