Paper Rings - HS

01

I'd finally made it to my last small box of belongings, this one just holding trinkets and pictures for decor around my flat. I was luckier than most first year students. My parents had rented a flat for me for the year because they wanted me to have my own space instead of having roommates. This way I'd also have the perfect place to study, which is what my dad really wanted for me.

I began to pull the decor wrapped in bubble wrap from the box, a few candles that my mom had insisted I bring because they're the same ones she uses back home, that way I wouldn't feel "completely alone" as she so kindly put it. Next were a few family photos and fake potted plants that I thought would help bring the place to life.

There was one picture frame in the bottom of the box left by the time I had unwrapped everything else, and found it a home in the single bedroom flat that I'd be calling my home for a while.

I reached in to grab the wrapped up frame, realizing this hadn't been one I packed myself and my mother more than likely slipped it into the box when I wasn't looking. I slowly peeled the bubble wrap off the white frame, flipping it around to view the picture it held.

My eyes brimming with hot tears almost instantly as I studied the image in the frame. It was a picture of Harry and I side by side as our feet dangled into the blue water of my swimming pool back home. We both held ice cream cones, his being vanilla and mine being strawberry. We were laughing as we looked ahead at the camera.

I never expected this picture to surface at any point in my life. Hell, I even forgot it had been taken; we were only six at the time.

I hugged the frame close to my chest as a few tears slid down my face. I thought of Harry and I's friendship daily, I missed him all the time and I always wondered what he was up to; if he ever pursued his football dreams or not. By football I mean soccer, Harry was English so he always said different things, but I got used to it as a child so he always called soccer, "football" which we regularly argued over.

After standing in the middle of my living room that was dim due to the grey skies of London, I made my way into my bedroom still clutching the picture frame that held a treasured memory of my childhood.

I stepped into the room, the white and grey decor looking clean and sleek just the way I wanted it, hints of pink really bringing the entire room together. I propped the photo up on the white nightstand beside my bed that only held a lamp and my journal.

I smiled at the photo again, rubbing my face where the tear stains were. I quietly sat on the edge of the queen sized bed, starring out the window as cars drove by. Everyone seemingly having a place to be except me. I was just sitting in my flat in a foreign country, not knowing a single soul.

Before I knew it, I was waking up laying across my still made bed. Searching for my phone, I finally found it laying face down beside me. I picked it up, squinting at the bright light it emitted, shooting up straight as I was coming to terms with the fact that it was nearly six in the evening and I had slept the entire day away without meaning to.

My phone pang, a reminder showing up on my lock screen reminding me that I had an orientation in thirty minutes and I looked like a complete mess in my sweatpants and hoodie that I had been living in for the last two days.

I finally willed myself to stand up, stretching to prolong the getting ready process. I was never one for large crowds, especially alone. They made me anxious and I always end up overthinking, assuming everyone is staring at me and judging every little move I make but I promised my parents that would be something I worked on while studying abroad.

I walked over to the closet in the far corner of my room that I had organized the day I moved in, sifting through the many many options I had but settling on a casual pair of distressed blue denim and a cream cable knit sweater as it was fall and London is a lot colder than California is.