The Girl Who Stutters and The Boy Who Mutters

Chapter One

"Alright hurry up and get your shit out of the trunk," my sister, Anna, says as she taps her foot impatiently.

I grab my bags from the trunk and we haul our stuff up towards wherever the office is. I really have no idea where we're supposed to be going, at this point I'm just following Anna. When she does finally stop walking though we aren't in any building or anything, we're standing in an enormous line that I'm sure will eventually lead us into a building. A line full of old and new college students, I of course belong to the latter category.

And if you're wondering, no, I am most certainly not looking forward to this new college experience.

I barely survived my high school experience and I honestly don't think college is going to be much better. I was always the weird girl with the stutter, when in fact it isn't a stutter. It's a speech deficiency, I'm not stupid or anything but I stutter when I talk. Point blank. But still I don't need to be known as the weird girl who stutters again.

I'm not like most people, I don't look at college as a new beginning or a place to party and make new friends. It's strictly education. There's no way around that. I don't need to humiliate myself anymore than I did in high school.

I was thinking about bailing on college. Even if I was valedictorian my senior year, my education is certainly not worth being called stutter girl again. The only reason I even agreed to go is wholly because Anna agreed to share a room with me.

"We're going to be here all day if this line doesn't fucking move," Anna says taking a seat on one of her suitcases.

"M-maybe we should just c-come back l-later," I suggest sitting on one of mine as well.

But we decide to persevere. We sit in line for hours. Okay maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, it was at least half an hour, but that's still a pretty long time.

By the time we get into the little office everyone is gone except fot the tired looking secretary. I feel bad for her, the first day of college must always be the worst for secretaries.

"Annabelle and Abigail Smith," Anna says dropping her bags to the floor a little too overdramatically.

The scretary swivels over to the computer. Soon enough two pieces of paper are being printed and she's handing us each a pair of room keys.

"Annabelle you'll be staying in the D dorms near the other side of campus," the secretary says handing Anna one of the two slips of paper, "you'll be in room 24. Abigail you'll be in Dorm B, room 69."

I'm not even going to attempt to make a dirty comment about that room number.

Wait a second...

"There must b-be s-some mistake," I begin to say but before I can finish anna snatches my key and the piece of paper, before promptly dragging me out of the office.

"What w-was that?" I hiss at her, "we have to go b-back and tell her t-there was a mistake."

"There was no mistake Abby."

"But we're supposed to be sharing-"

"Abby I lied," she says running a hand through her perfect hair, "you wouldn't have come had I told you otherwise. You've been bound at my hip since we even started school."

"You l-lied to me?"

"I want to meet new people Abs," Anna says squeezing her eyes shut, "Christ don't look at me like that Abby. You're acting like I just broke up with you or something."

"I-in a w-way you sort of are-"

"Well look at it this way," Anna says throwing her arm around my shoulders, "this is a place full of new beginnings. We can be whoever we want here, you could be an athlete, an author, a crazy guitar chick..."