“She’s…sad.”
“How are you?”
“The same,” I sighed. My conclusive tone seemed to relax Beth, and while I changed into my pajamas I noticed her breathing even out.
I sat on my bed and pul ed myself against the pil ows. My thoughts effortlessly moved toward the last hour. Jared’s grin kept my mind occupied for awhile, but before long my thoughts brought me back to the funeral. I rol ed onto my side and curled into a bal , trying to cry quietly. Relief final y replaced the crushing grief as I slipped out of consciousness.
I turned to the side and blinked my eyes, noting the large, red numbers on the clock. Five A.M. had come quickly. My eyes felt swol en and scratchy.
It was then that I realized my dreams had been cruel. There would be no miracles, and my father was stil gone.
The finale of the worst experience of my life hadn’t ended with what was supposed to be my closure.
I clambered from my bed and opened my laptop, determined to finish my term paper by eight. The screen lit up, and I peered over at Beth, her head buried under her pil ow. My fingers tapped out the next cross-reference and soon began a muted symphony of clicking against the keyboard.
The paragraphs formed swiftly and I finished by a quarter after seven. With a click of the mouse, the printer lurched and buzzed with its new task. I looked over at Beth, knowing a newspaper press wouldn’t wake her. I gathered my toiletries to make my daily commute down the hal to the showers.
Red-faced and sufficiently exfoliated, I tightened my robe and walked down the hal . While brushing my teeth over the quaint sink in our room, Beth sat up in bed and stretched out her arms. Her chin-length auburn hair was smashed in some places, and stuck out in others.
“Good morning,” she chirped. Then reality set in. “Oh…I mean….”
“It’s okay, Beth. It is a nice morning.” Glancing out the window, I noticed the sky was looking bleaker from the onset, but I wasn’t going to mention that.
Beth smiled and began making her bed, setting her stuffed animals haphazardly in front of her fril y pil ow.
“Are you going to the game Saturday?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
She usual y invited me to go, and at times insisted I go, always in her cheery, pleasant voice. Beth hailed from the south. She worked hard and had been awarded numerous scholarships to make her escape from the smal Oklahoma town she cal ed home. Her side of the room was covered in trophies, sashes and crowns from the numerous pageants she’d entered and won. She wasn’t the typical beauty queen. Although beautiful, she seemed very introverted—a trait she was trying desperately to break away from. She explained to me the day we moved in that the pageants were a necessary evil for tuition.
“Wel , I’l give you a break this week if you decide to opt out. I’d understand with finals and…everything else,” she conceded without looking in my direction.
“I appreciate it.”
I pul ed my hair back into a smal burst of ponytail at the nape of my neck, looking like a bouquet of wheat shooting out from the back of my head. I sighed at my closet and gave myself a pep talk before dressing in the inevitable layers: one after another; bra, tank top, undershirt, sweater, socks, jeans, boots, coat—and not always in that order.
With my backpack bursting at the seams, I pul ed up the handle and angled the bag onto its wheels.
“I’m going early for coffee.”
Beth smiled as she booted up her laptop. “Good luck getting that thing across the ice.”
I stepped out of the elevator into the hal way wondering if Beth was right about the weather. I held my breath and pushed the door open, waiting for the freezing temperature to sting my face. The wind blew the heavy glass door against me, working against the already pitiful pressure I had managed with one hand. Using my arm and shoulder, I forced the door open and gasped at the frigid burst of air burning my face.
I stumbled into the dining hal the student populace affectionately and appropriately dubbed “The Ratty”, and brushed off my coat. Shuffling across the muted tile floor, I made a bee-line for the coffee pot. Dark, brown liquid created the steam that would help me function that early in the morning.
Out of habit, I reached for my favorite hazelnut creamer and two packets of Splenda.
“That stuff is death in a package, you know,” Kim said from behind me.
“You sound like my mother,” I grumbled.
“I’m surprised you came today. Sucks that your dad died during finals.”
Kim was never one for holding back or mincing words. I usual y found it very refreshing, but I hadn’t had time to brace myself before the words left her lips, and my ribs wrenched in response.
“Yeah.”
Kim watched me for a moment, and then shoved a blueberry corn muffin at my face.
“Breakfast?”
I shook my head, uncrossing my eyes from looking at the muffin. “No, thanks. I need to get to class.”
“I’l walk with you,” she said, pul ing the muffin back.
Kim pul ed a faded, red plaid hunter’s cap complete with ear covers over her short brown hair. If I thought I could laugh, I would have.
“Oh, Kim,” I said, attempting to make my voice sound cautious.
“What?” she asked, stopping in her tracks.
“Nothing,” I shook my head, deciding to leave it alone.
If any hat could be made for Kim, it was the ridiculous atrocity she’d placed on her head. Kim was above average in height, a head tal er than my five feet, seven inches. Her short, caramel- colored hair framed her face in care free waves. Crazy and unpredictable as she was, people were drawn to her. I knew we would be friends the moment I met her in the hal way of Andrews; I couldn’t fathom having someone more interesting in my life.
Kim walked with me across campus to class, keeping my mind from more somber thoughts by regaling me with her most recent week of fantastic mishaps and blunders. She never failed to entertain me with her unbridled honesty and lack of brain-to-mouth filter.
Once in class, Kim leaned toward me and kept her voice low. “So, the funeral….”
I squirmed in my seat. “I...don’t real y want to….”
“Oh, right. Yeah. So…it was yesterday?” Unlike Beth, Kim didn’t avoid unpleasantness. At times she seemed to slam face first into it with a smile on her face.
“Yes,” I sighed. “It was very nice.”
“Very nice,” Kim echoed, nodding. “I tried to cal you last night. You didn’t answer.”
“I didn’t get in until late. I missed the last bus and ended up taking a cab.”
Kim eyed me with disbelief. “The last bus? I didn’t know public transportation had a curfew.” I considered that for a moment before she continued.
“Why didn’t you drive? Your mother picked you up, didn’t she?”
“I ended up sharing a cab.”
“With your mom?”