Moving On

Thirty-one

Thirty-one / Sandra

Months later

"Are you sure you want to bring those with you?" I ask Austin as he loads his last box with stuff from our freshman year.

Summer's finally here, and Austin's going home to wherever he came from-unfortunately, for the summer only. My mom's wedding is today and she asked me to tell Austin to come, but I didn't because I knew he already was going home today.

"Yeah," he replied. "I want to burn them. I don't want to see them anymore."

I laughed. If I were to be completely honest, I'm going to miss him. He is literally the only person I could vent out to, and he almost knows all my dirty secrets-almost. I just wish we could be roommates again next year but, unfortunately, the university shuffles dorms every year to 'circulate the student body' or whatever. Sounds like bullshit, if you ask me.

"Are you sure you don't want me to drive you home?" He asked. "I'm going to pass through Columbus, anyway."

"No, I'm fine," I kindly declined his offer. "It's tempting, really, but I still have a lot to pack up. Plus, I'll have to take care of the room turnover to the registrar's office because I know you'll never bother to do that."

"Aw, you know me so well already," he cooed. "Okay, so I'm going to go now. See you next year, nerd."

"Bye. Have a nice summer," I smiled. And then he was gone.

Confession time: I lied about having a lot to pack up. Mom came here yesterday while Austin was doing a year-end project with his stupid club to help me get most of my stuff out, so all I had to do today was double-check if I left something. I didn't want to ride with Austin because I thought it would kind of make the parting hurt more, and it just felt right to say our goodbyes here in the place where we first saw each other.

Cheesy.

There was a knock on the door and at first Austin forgot something, but when I looked through the peep hole, it was the three girls that were my first friends when I came here: Art, Cara, and Jessica.

Jessica was graduating in a few weeks. She said she was going to move to California to find a filmmaking gig there. She also said she'll start small first, maybe taking jobs at small-town TV series or indie films; she didn't want to culture-shock herself. She promises she'll still visit.

Cara and Art are graduating next year, so I'll see them again next fall (although seasons really don't matter when you live in Ohio because it's always cold).

"Hey, girl," Jessica greeted me as they come in. "We were just talking in the commons and we saw Austin leave with this huge box, and we realized the freshmen are moving out today so we wanted to drop by."

"So, how'd you like your first year here at MU?" Cara asked me.

Honestly, my first year was a blur to me. I had so much going in my life for the past year and I hadn't thought of school that much, but I didn't want to say that to them because they'll ask why, and it would just turn into a really long conversation.

So, to save time, I just said, "It was okay. I had fun."

"You'll come back next year?" Art asked.

"Yeah, definitely," I replied. That was the truth. "But I think I'll miss Austin as my roommate."

"Dorm shuffles suck," Jessica agreed. "They only allow roommate requests when you're either a junior or senior. Just hang on for one more year and you and Austin can ask to be roommates again."

I didn't know that roommate requests existed, but I didn't say anything to avoid looking stupid.

I wondered if Austin knew about this, and if he wanted us to be roommates once again. But I don't want to be the one to ask him first because that would make me look desperate.