champagne problems: short story [h.s.]

07 - i made a joke*

"this dorm was once a madhouse
i made a joke
well it's made for me"

January 2016

"I'm going to miss this place."

"No you're not. You get to go and live with your boyfriend."

The empty room stared back at the both of them. The beds stripped bare of sheets and blankets. The desks swiped clean of any school supplies and textbooks. The carpet vacuumed and the closets gutted of any articles of clothing.

The ending of first semester of their second year had come to a close in December, and the start of the new semester starting next week came with the question of what Hayden and Wisteria were going to do.

"Hey," Wisteria nudges her best friend with her shoulder. "This place holds a lot of good memories. Of course I'm going to miss this place."

Hayden and Wisteria may have only lived in this dorm room for a year, but this small four wall room holds a lot of good and bad memories, that this place has become like a second home to the both of them. They didn't really want to even think of a time when they would have to say goodbye to it.

"I'm still so mad at you for abandoning me to go live with Harold."

Wisteria rolls her eyes at her disgruntled best friend. Hayden spent the entire winter break home deciding on what the two of them should do. Should they stay in the dorm room for the rest of the year. Or should they maybe move in together in the city, close to campus.

Wisteria thought and spent the entire winter break coming up with the best way to let down her best friend and give her the news that Harry had already asked her to move in with him. He had basically asked her the week after her episode she had last year and when she finally told him about her mental health.

He didn't run from her. If anything it made him realize that he wanted to be with her forever. He wanted to be the person she came to when she was feeling low. Or the person who took the brunt of her outbursts. Most importantly, he wanted to be the one she came home to every night.

"Move in with me," he asked when they were laying in bed a week later. Wisteria curled up into him while some random movie played in the background.

"What?"

"Move in with my devotion," he asked again, the little term of endearment making Wisteria's heart flutter inside her chest cavity. He's never called her that name out loud before, only ever in his head. "I want to live in a place that's ours. I want to come home to you after classes. I want to lay in a bed that's ours. I want-"

"Yes," she cut him off, not needing him to go any further. She knew her answer the first time he asked the question. She wanted all the same things he did. She wanted a place to call theirs. And she wanted to come home to him every day. She wanted him.

"I'll move in with you." She lifted herself up and moved to straddle his waist. Harry's hands coming up to rest on her hips under the large shirt she was wearing.

He couldn't stop the toothy grin from appearing on his face. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," she smiled back.

It was an easy thing to agree on. The two of them both knew they wanted to do this. It was only later that night when Hayden came barreling into the dorm room, exclaiming that they were able to get the same room again for the fall semester for the new year.

Wisteria was then stuck sharing the dorm room with her best friend once more. But she wasn't disappointed to having to share the room with her best friend again. It was going to be their last hurrah in this crazy dorm room.