Page 13

Next to her bed, she has her dresser. On top of it is a purple lamp and a purple alarm clock. I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say that her favorite color is purple.
My bed is along the wall with the windows, pushed up against it. Next to it is my dresser. A desk is set up next to my dresser decorated with purple pens and notebooks.
Across from that sits an empty desk, which I suppose is mine. One of the closet doors sits open, and I’m guessing that would be mine as well.
Taking a deep breath, I turn back to my boxes and start
the process of unpacking everything. Grabbing my black comforter and grey sheets, I throw them on the bed, making it up. I set up the pink and grey throw pillows at the top of the bed to pop some color.
“Oh, hey! You must be Aurora!” I turn to find a blonde, very cheery girl inside the room. She chimes, “I’m Addison! But you can call me Addy. It’s so nice to finally meet you.”
She walks over and gives me a hug.
With my hands at my sides, my eyes widen at the affection. “Uh, hi. And please call me Rory,” I say as she pulls back.
She flushes. “Sorry, I’m a hugger. Hope that’s okay. I mean, we will practically be sisters for the next several months, might as well start it with hugs!” She bops up and down.
“Totally okay, you just caught me off guard.” I smile at her. She is about as short as me, if not shorter.
I’m about five-foot-two, and she has to be at least five feet even. She pushes her purple-rimmed glasses up her nose and smiles at me.
“I’m so excited that I got paired with another architecture student. I was so scared it was going to be someone with like a music major or something. Someone who didn’t understand the hours it took for this major.” She turns and then plops down on her bed.
“Honestly, so am I. Are you from here?”
She shakes her head. “Nope. I’m from California.”
“Oh! This is a bit different than Cali.”
She laughs, “It is. But the cute cowboys are more my type than the surfer boys.” Addy waggles her eyebrows.
“Well, there are plenty of cowboys in Texas.”
“Where are you from?”
I pick up a box filled with a few of my snow globes and place them on my dresser next to the bed. “Las Vegas. Sin City.”
“Wow! That’s so cool! Both from the West Coast! But you know, I’ve never been to Sin City. It has to be amazing to live there!”
Shaking my head, I laugh. “It’s a great place to visit, but living there is entirely different.”
“What are those?” Addy points to the snow globes.
“Um, they were this thing my dad and I had. He would get me snow globes. I sometimes got him one, like on Father’s Day or Christmas.” Just the reminder is enough to somber me a bit.
She picks one up. It the one of the last ones he got me. A silver base with the words ‘My daughter, I love you to the moon and back’ inscribed on it. A crescent moon in the center with star shaped glitter surrounding it. I grimace at the sight.
“This is pretty. B-But you saidhad…” her voice trails off.
Pursing my lips, I look down at the snow globes with a frown. “He, um, died. When I was twelve.”
“Oh. Rory, I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s all right. It was a long time ago. But these kinda travel with me. It’s my way to keep him around. My connection to him.”
“That’s actually pretty cool. We need to get like a bookshelf at Walmart or something to put these on. Give them their own special space.” She instantly perks up.
“No, they are fine here.” I nod to the windowsill and nightstand. “Most of them are back with my mother at my stepdad’s house. I just brought a few that meant the most.”