Brennan shook her head. “I’ll unpack later. It’ll help distract me and give me something to focus on. Right now, I just want to get out of here.”
“Okay,” said her mom, giving her a side hug, squeezing her arm gently. “Let’s go get dinner.”
Brennan didn’t know how she was going to survive a year here, let alone her first night. I mean, God. I can’t even hug my mom without getting teary eyed.
JONAS
Jonas sat in his desk chair and watched his mom bustle about the room, putting away clothes, making the bed, dusting the desk (not that it needed it), and, in general, making sure the room was up to her standards. (Spick and span—she proclaimed when they had gotten there—by the time I’m through with it!)
Jonas would have protested, except he knew how worried his mom was about him going away to college, so he let her have her way with everything. It wasn’t that he really cared how the room looked or how things were put away. If he needed to move something later, he could.
“Man, you got lucky,” said Rhys, flopping down on the bed admiringly (and jealously, Jonas thought). Since Jonas had gotten a private bedroom, it had come with two of everything—two beds, two desks, two dressers. It was really just a shared bedroom called a single, with no one bothering to remove the extra furniture.
Jonas’s mom had pushed the two beds together and made them into one big bed, which Rhys was currently stretched across.
“Rhys! Get up!”
Jonas rolled his eyes as his mom shooed his older brother off the freshly made bed, smoothing the comforter and the sheets until they were flat again. Rhys grabbed a pillow and tossed it at Jonas, gaining him an angry glare from both Jonas and their mother, who immediately snatched the pillow back and returned it to the bed. “Take your shoes off in the room!” she admonished Rhys, smacking him with a duster.
Now she was stacking Jonas’s textbooks on the shelf above his desk.
“Man, you’re certainly getting the royal treatment, Jonas,” grumbled Rhys as he bent to take his shoes off and add them to the line of the rest of the family’s shoes next to the door. “When I moved in, mom and dad helped me unpack a few things and were out the door.” Jonas wondered if being away at college had rubbed off on Rhys (more and more, his brother forgot to take his shoes off at the door even though it had been a long-time house rule), and he wondered if it would rub off on him too. He decided it wouldn’t. He would get a shoe rack or something for inside the door. It would make his mom happy.
He thought about what Rhys had said. His brother sort of had a point. His mom, especially, was making a huge deal of this. A huge deal that wouldn’t have been a huge deal if Jonas had had two good legs.
“Mom,” he said. “Don’t you want to go out to dinner or something before you guys head home?”
“Yes,” she said. “I just want to make sure everything is nice for you.”
Rhys rolled his eyes. Jonas glared at him. “It’s okay, Mom,” he said, turning to her. “I’ll be okay. Everything looks great now.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure, Mom. It’s really okay.” He smiled at her reassuringly. “Let’s find somewhere to eat.”
She grudgingly gave in and, sighing, picked up her purse, stepping back to survey the room. “All right,” she said, finally giving it her seal of approval. “Let’s go.”
They each put on their shoes and filed out of the room one by one, Rhys and Jonas coming last. “Spoiled,” muttered Rhys, under his breath.
“What was that, Rhys?” asked Jonas, knowing full well what that was.
“Nothing,” huffed Rhys.
As he hunched over his crutches in the elevator, Jonas wondered if Rhys had a right to be angry with him. For a while, Jonas had blamed Rhys for what happened, even though it was in no way his brother’s fault. He’d just happened to be driving. He’d been the easy scapegoat for Jonas’s blame. Now Jonas was mostly mad that his brother thought he was milking it—getting as much mileage out of it as possible. He clenched his fists, his left palm stinging where his fingers pressed against his still-healing cut. I’d like to see him lose a leg, thought Jonas. See how he likes it. He immediately felt bad for the thought.
He wondered how it would be, being down at school with Rhys. He knew it made his mom feel better having Jonas be near someone who could help him if he needed it, but Jonas almost wished it was anyone else in the family but Rhys.
He thought about texting Brennan, telling her he’d gotten all moved in. Asking if she had.
He almost did. He got his phone out and opened the conversation between the two of them. He still hadn’t deleted it, like having the messages was proof that the last month had happened after all.
He stared at his phone for a moment before shaking his head and putting it back into his pocket.
20
brennan
She was alone now.
Finally.
Brennan took a deep breath and looked around the small, cramped room. It was smaller than her room at home, and yet it was supposed to hold two people. Brennan felt claustrophobic. She busied herself with unpacking in order to distract herself from the tight feeling in her chest and what felt like an extra heart in her throat.
She made her bed and methodically hung up her photos and posters. She set her books up on the shelf above her desk, starting with her Harry Potter books and finishing with the numerous other books she’d brought with her. You won’t have time to read! her dad had said. She knew that, but something about seeing them lined up on the shelf over her desk was reassuring. She stacked her textbooks on her desk and filled her desk drawers with supplies.
Suddenly, everything was done. Brennan no longer had anything to distract herself with. She was hit by how isolated she felt. Her parents were on their way home now, already a couple of hours away from her. The distance seemed huge.
She pictured them getting home, going inside their home-smelling house without her.
She felt a little bit like crying. Suck it up, she told herself. You’re gonna be okay. It’s just for a semester. Take it week by week. One day at a time.
She felt like hiding under her blankets. She didn’t know when her roommate was coming back, and she was on edge, waiting for the door to open, ready to switch on performance mode.
Brennan grabbed her pajamas and her towel and crossed the hall to their bathroom, shutting the door behind her and locking it.
Safe in the shower, encircled by steam and hot water, Brennan did cry. As the choking tears flowed down her cheeks with the water cascading from the showerhead, the knot in her stomach gradually loosened itself, and her heart returned to its normal anatomy in her chest, where it thudded a little faster than normal, but was otherwise fine.
By the time she was finished with her shower, she felt a little more confident about meeting her roommate for the first time.
She got out and dressed in her pajamas before standing in front of the mirror and looking herself in the eye. Okay, Brennan, she told herself. Get out there and get ready to meet people. You’re going to make friends. You’re going to be normal. College will be fun.
She grinned at herself in the mirror, like she was practicing. Cheesy, too much teeth.