Attleboro University

Attleboro University Part 1

Amy Cahill arrived at Attleboro University with a duffle bag, just enough money to buy her textbooks, and the worst move-in helpers she could imagine.

Not that she didn't love her little brother Dan, and not that it wasn't great to see their old au pair, Nellie Gomez. It was just that Dan was not the first impression she wanted to be making on her future classmates, and that even though Amy was the one going off to college, Nellie had refused to let her touch the playlist, which meant Amy had just sat through two hours of early 2000s punk-rock.

"Paramore is an essential part of American culture," Nellie was known to insist very adamantly, the phrase accompanied by her jagged dyed hair and dark makeup.

"You're such a millennial," Dan was fond of responding, which wasn't even true, but which Nellie never refuted because one of her deepest regrets was missing the nineties, for some reason.

Amy could understand the desire to return to a more vintage aesthetic- it wasn't like she was caught up on any modern trends herself (t-shirts and jeans would stand the test of time, she always said, and it was only mostly an excuse). She just didn't really get why Nellie was so caught up on that decade, specifically.

"Alright, kiddos!" Nellie announced. "We're here!"

When Amy was fourteen and Dan was eleven, Nellie had become the last in a long string of au pairs hired by their Aunt Beatrice to take care of them so she didn't have to. Amy had detested being called 'kiddo', because she'd been fourteen, but she'd grown to accept it, and then miss it once Amy and Dan got 'too old' for an au pair and Nellie had been summarily fired.

She'd made sure to stay in touch, which was way more than any of their other au pairs had ever done- but Nellie had been with them the longest. Now that Amy was eighteen and Aunt Beatrice was even less interested in being involved with her life than before, Nellie was the one dropping her off at college, and Nellie would be the one making sure Dan's life didn't crash and burn completely once she was gone.

"Thanks for driving, Nellie," she made sure to say.

"Yeah, no problem, kiddo," Nellie shrugged, even with all the complaining she'd done when Amy had told her Attleboro was two hours away from Boston. "When I come pick you up for fall break, it'll be a girls-only trip, 'kay?"

"Says who?" Dan protested, grabbing her purse- the lightest item- so he wouldn't have to carry the duffel bag.

"Says your attendance record, dude." Nellie took the duffel before she could and slung it over her shoulder, leaving Amy with her backpack. The same one from high school- it still worked fine, so she hadn't bothered buying a new one. "Don't think you'll get away with skipping school just 'cause Amy's not there to bug you about it."

"You used to be cool," Dan sighed with all the melancholy his fifteen-year old self possessed, which was a lot. "Hey, nice dorm! What floor are you on?"

Amy had spent plenty of time browsing for pictures online, but she'd never actually seen the college, or her dorm building, in person. She'd known it was one of the nicer ones, but as she understood it, this was much nicer than the average college dorm.

"I'm in 212," she recalled.

"Honestly, it's a good thing you pack light," Nellie commented as they made their way inside. "Only one trip- though I guess this place has an elevator."

The dorm lobby was spacious and well-light, with clean tiled floors- "Trust me, it won't look this clean in a week or two," Nellie warned- and a collection of pool tables off to one side. Amy didn't know the first thing about pool, so she was more interested in what she knew lay behind one of the side doors- a beautiful library (if the pictures were to be believed) that she could imagine herself holing up in to study on a cold day. Or any day, really. Amy had always felt most at home in a library.