The first week without Jake had been hard; chocolate wrappers and liquor bottles littered my bedroom floor, and a few of my sorority sisters had threatened to throw me in the water themselves if I didn’t shower soon. But after that I got my shit together. I went to the on-campus doctor and got an STD test. Luckily I had been in the clear. I would never really know if Jake had been with other girls, and a part of me still thought that I probably couldn’t handle the truth.
I looked into the mirror again, applying mascara on my heavily shadowed lid. My long dark hair framed my face with its natural curls flowing down to the middle of my back. This was going to be my last semester of college. I was graduating, and I had absolutely no plans. Everything had hinged on Jake and what his career would do for us. He wanted to be involved in politics, and I’d always liked the sound of being a first lady. Preparing functions and dressing well were things that I was good at. I’d been raised in that way. My father had become governor of the state of New York when I was only twelve; for a while I thought the presidency might be in our future. But after his accident, things had changed. Now we were just a typical well-off family with a lake house and nice cars, and no real friends. That was the only thing that worried me about the political life: I would never really know who was in it for me. I hadn’t even known my boyfriend well enough to know that he wasn’t.
I rubbed blush on the tops of my cheeks and grabbed my light pink lipstick. Getting ready for class was harder these days, as I was always trying to impress the other senior guys, or even a graduate student. I had to find a new boyfriend at some point, and three months had been a long enough time for me to be celibate. I was just about to rush out the door to my first class of the semester when my roommate, Naomi, walked in.
“Damn! You look good for 9 AM.”
She tossed her messenger bag on her bed and lay back, allowing the soft sheets to absorb her. She never made her bed; it was just one of those things you had to accept about her.
“And you look exhausted. Another late night out, with… What’s his name?”
She sat up with a broad smile on her face. I was still getting used her new haircut, a fierce, dark purple pixie cut, but it fit her personality well. It would’ve been easier to accept, except that she’d been blonde with shoulder length hair for the past three and a half years. Something changed her over Christmas break, but she hadn’t talk about it yet, and I wasn’t one to pry.
“I think his name is Elliott, or maybe Eli? God, you know I’m terrible with names!”
I laughed at her, “No, I kn
ow you’re terrible with boys. So I guess it’s not that serious yet? How are your mom and dad going to feel about that?”
“You know sometimes I think all that they want is for me to get married. But then I do get serious with some guy, like remember that one guy, Dean? I really liked him. But when I brought him home they got all weird. ‘You’re too young to get married. Don’t settle for anyone. Make something of your career first.’ I don’t get it. It’s like I hear from my mom that my internal clock is ticking and my dad on the other hand wants me to have this long fabulous career before I make any real decisions.”
I shrugged and took a look at the time on my phone. Jake’s face was still in the background. I sighed heavily. “As much as I would love to discuss your early life crisis right now, I have to get to class.”
“I’ll walk downstairs with you. I didn’t get anything for breakfast before my first class. And if you think I didn’t notice the sad, sappy eyes about your phone, you’re wrong. You’ve got to get rid of Jake as your background.” She stood up and crossed the room, quickly snatching the phone from my hands. She took a quick selfie of her making a duck face. “Here. Now when you look at your phone, you’ll see fabulous me. And you’ll laugh every time.”
I looked to see that she had set herself as the background, and she was right, that would put a smile on my face.
She opened the door and I followed her out into the main hallway of our sorority. The first day of classes and for some reason it was eerily quiet. “Do you think people missed their first class?”
Naomi shrugged as she quickly descended the stairs. “I mean, all of our freshmen are in their second semester now. Besides them, most people don’t have early classes like you and I.”
That was true. And the only reason that she and I had early classes was because we had a few classes to take to meet graduation requirements. Things that we had missed our freshmen and sophomore years because we had been more focused on our majors. Naomi was in graphic design and photography, while I was a business major. How we got along so well always seemed to surprise people. But we were best friends, having rushed together freshman year, entering the sorority in the same pledge class. We just knew that we needed one another for survival. Sororities on our campus were cutthroat to say the least, even though hazing was no longer an option. Bad things could still happen to girls. I was glad that I had nothing to do with the rushing anymore, not since I’d been a pledge myself. I attended the ceremony each year when we invited new pledges to become full-fledged sisters, but besides that, I just liked living in the house with the girls. It had been my home away from home since I had come to BU.
“Well I’ll see you around lunchtime. I want to try to get into that English literature class. I have the space in my schedule, so I figure why not?”
She gave me a look. “Because maybe it’s your last semester and you should finally slow down.”
I shrugged as I walked out the door, “I’ve got to fill my time with something!”
“I can think of something,” I heard her mutter as I shut the door.
Naomi totally thought I should start screwing any guy with two legs. Anyone with a penis was on the shortlist for her. But she had a reason. Her parents had been stuck on this “you need to have children before you’re twenty five” for years. Her Jewish, New Yorker mother, who was completely hilarious and the best cook, was a bit overbearing. But I got that she got on Naomi’s case a lot of times. It made her crazy. And her dad, he was the complete opposite. All he wanted her to do was have a strong career and forget about men. Honestly sometimes I wondered if he thought it would be easier if she was a lesbian. It was something our fathers had in common.
My dad had always been on the career track. Honestly, I don’t even think he thought I would go to college. By this time we were supposed to be living in the White House. But there was an assassination attempt on my father’s life when I was sixteen. He was running for president and was shot on the campaign trail. Everyone just refers to it as “his accident,” but it was a life-changing event. The bullet had just nipped part of his spine, but it had left him paralyzed from the waist down, and our lives hadn’t been the same since. He had to give up his campaign, and soon after he couldn’t handle being governor anymore either. It was just too much stress, and it wasn’t good for his health. My mother had been the glue that had kept the family together—she stood by his side through all of it. Not that I would’ve expected any less of her. But now our Christmas cards looked a little bit different, my father in a wheelchair my mother standing with her hand on his shoulder. It was a complete role reversal for them, but they seem to be making it work, and for that I was truly happy. My younger brother I think had secretly never wanted to move to the White House, so he was glad to just be running around and drinking and partying as much as he could before he graduated high school next year. I was supposed to be an only child, hence the age gap.
As I settled into my seat in my first class of my last semester of college, I thought about the fact that I still didn’t have a plan. There were tons of sophomores and juniors filtering in around me who still had a year or two to make some decisions. I had less than four months to completely get my life back on track. I opened my laptop and sent Naomi an email.
We need to work on my résumé tonight. I’ll grab a bottle of wine after dinner.
She sent me a message back just a couple minutes later, which surprised me. I figured she’d already laid down for a nap after breakfast.
No bueno. That guy I’m seeing? Apparently he’s really into MMA fighting and got some tickets for a fight tonight. We are going out.
I pulled out my cell phone as a professor was droning on about the syllabus for the semester and sent her a text.
We? As in the two of you? Or the two of us?
We as in Elliott and me, his friend Josh, and you. It is time to get back on the horse.