It didn’t change the fact that it was frustrating, though. It wasn’t really what I’d pictured when I’d graduated high school. I’d always imagined I’d fall into a job I loved, a field I loved. Though I should’ve known better, because the things I loved didn’t really make good money.
I’d always been naturally creative at heart. While I’d always been able to make myself more organized and focused for school, it wasn’t my natural tendency. I’d always liked to do things like draw and, even more so, sing. Music had always been a passion of mine, though I hadn’t learned any instruments, since it hadn’t been something I had time to truly explore.
Music among many other things. Because of the push of my parents, I’d always been very driven in school and had done anything I could to find educational success. That was the only reason I’d even been able to end up at an Ivy League school like Beasley. If it hadn’t been for my impeccable grades in high school, I likely would never have gotten in.
Because of this, I hadn’t had many friendships either. And forget about relationships, I wouldn’t even have known where to begin. My only real friend in college was my roommate, Abby.
She was my complete opposite, but she was an absolute doll to me. She didn’t have the same focus for school that I had. She enjoyed going out, partying, living life to the fullest, while I stayed in and studied. But she had never made me feel weird about it. Unlike with other people, I’d never felt insecure about who I was around her.
I heard the front door bang shut, and I knew what that meant. Abby must have gotten home. Very likely by the sound of the door, she was drunk again, too.
I decided this was the perfect time to force myself to brush my teeth and go to bed. That way, I could check on Abby at the same time and kill two birds with one stone.
As I opened up my bedroom door, I glanced down our narrow apartment hallway and called her name. “Abby?”
“I’m home!” she said excitedly, as if I hadn’t figured that out on my own.
“You don’t say,” I said. “How was your night?”
She came stumbling down the hallway, kicking off her high heels and grinning at me.
“Oh my god, it was so fun! I wish you’d come out. We monopolized the karaoke machine all night!”
She knew I didn’t like to go out, but she always pressured me to go with her whenever King’s Tooth, our campus pub, had karaoke. I had gone with her and her friends once, and she had never let up since then.
I rolled my eyes. “You know singing in front of people really isn’t my thing.”
“Unless you’re wasted,” she reminded me, “and it should be your thing! You’re so damn good. Like, you’re literally the only one of us that can sing, and you’re the most embarrassed. I sound like a dying cat, but I still go up there.”
“No, you don’t…” I said unconvincingly. And we both started laughing, because, yeah, she really was a very bad singer.
“It wouldn’t hurt you to loosen up every once in awhile,” she told me. “And, hey, maybe if you went out with us, you’d find a cute girl and—”
“Stop,” I cut her off. “You know I can’t date right now.” And even though I’d never dated, I had told Abby that I had no interest in men. Unlike some people, she didn’t come back at me with some stupid shit, asking ‘how I knew I liked women if I’d never dated one.’ Uh, it could have something to do with the fact that I felt it in my bones. That no guy had ever caught so much as a two second glance from me, yet I had to force myself to stop staring at the cute girl in my calculus class.
“At some point, you’re going to have to actually live life, you know!” she reminded me. “School is going to end, life is going to begin, and you’re going to have little to no real world experiences.”
I wished she hadn’t said that, because she was compounding my worst fears right now. I was so good at school, but I was terrified I was going to be so bad at real life.
“Come on, let’s brush our teeth,” I said, changing the subject. I knew when she was drunk she often forgot about basic things like brushing her teeth before bed.
“Good idea!” she said. “ I’m probably about to crash at any moment.”
Which I knew. She rarely lasted fifteen minutes before falling asleep when she came home from a night of drinking.
I stared in our white-framed bathroom mirror, looking at my tired eyes from over-studying once again, and I tried to avoid thinking about what Abby had just said. I couldn’t obsess over it tonight. I couldn’t have another late night when I spent too much time thinking about my future.
For now, I had to put it out of my mind and focus on the important things: getting through this last year with a good enough GPA to land me a decent job.
3
Kaitlyn
I’d been to Rosebridge before to visit my friend, but I saw it in a whole new light now that I knew I’d be living here. A much better light, I might have added.
It had a completely different feel compared to the town I’d lived in with Julia. It didn’t feel as stuffy and as corporate as Englewood had. The buildings were more unique; the town seemed to be alive with college students walking around and laughing. And on just the walk from the train station to my friend’s apartment, I ran into a quirky-looking art studio called the Shadetree Collective. Yep, this was my kind of town.
My friend, Ryan, seemed excited to have me. I’d thought he would be. It was another one of the reasons I’d reached out to him instead of anyone else. He had recently broken up with his live-in girlfriend and was living alone. I’d thought with him, my presence would be less of a burden and more of a comfort.