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Chapter One

All I remembered was pain, god awful pain the center of my chest. Seven months ago, I never knew what this pain was. It's confusing and makes sense at the same time; it's cognitive dissonance at its finest. Seven months ago, I never knew the kind of feelings and emotions I experienced even existed. Seven months ago, I was playing tetris with boxes filled with things I don't need in the trunk of my car. 

"I. Know. This. Will. All... Fit!" I say out loud as I shove my last moving box in the trunk. I'm proud of myself. I managed to pack up my whole life in boxes and put it all in my tiny 2003 Ford Focus. Will I be able to see through the rear-view mirror? Probably not, but risks have to be made. I WILL be getting all my shit in that dorm room in one trip. I get into my car, ready to leave. Where are my parents, you ask? Well, they're in the other car waiting for my sorry ass to get moving because we're apparently an hour behind schedule. Yes, we were supposed to be on the road by 7 am, but I'm a last minute girl, okay? I stayed up all night finishing up packing. I start driving and they follow behind. Here comes a close-to three hour road trip ahead of me. My hometown is in Seattle but I decided to go down to Pullman and attend Washington State University. Not many of my friends are going to WSU as most are staying close to home and going to the University of Washington in Seattle. Honestly, I just wanted to get out of Seattle. I was tired of the people there; everyone I knew was fake. I don't think I made a single valuable friendship there. 

Like most people, I didn't have a very fun high school experience. All I wanted to do was graduate and get out, so I did. I applied to three schools, WSU, UW, and one of the UC schools. I got into all of them, but decided it'd be best to choose my cheapest route, which was WSU who gave me scholarship money. I didn't want to burden my parents since they were struggling already. I was so excited when choosing my dorm room. I got to choose my own roommate but decided to do the random route. Maybe she'll be my best friend! I also have very high expectations for my side of the room because I have been looking at all kind of dorm room tour videos on youtube and have been searching DIY's on Pinterest. You know, the usual.

I made a road trip playlist to play on the way to WSU, a combination of top 40 songs, alternative, sad songs, and some ballads. While jamming out, I started to think about what my life has become. Everything is changing right in front of my eyes and I'm slightly freaking out. Only slightly, though. Who will I meet? What kind of classes will I take? Will I meet the love of my life? Are the parties going to be as hype as everyone says they are? How do you even get into parties? I never really partied in high school so it's not like I have any connections or anything. It seemed like a hundred questions were running through my head, I didn't even realize I've driven most of the way already. I would have just kept driving into Oregon had Siri not told me to take my exit. 

My move in time is at 10:30 am, so we arrived at the school pretty much in time. It was 10 am now as we went through the process to move in. At last, my dorm hall where I'm going to live for the next nine months. I went and got my keys from the front desk and went to find room 252. All I see are excited new faces. I find my room and open it to see another family in there. Oh yeah, I almost forgot I had a roommate.

"HI! I'm Juliana, but you can call me Jules," she says as she makes her way towards me, almost tripping over her boxes. She hugs me immediately and I give her a hesitant hug back. 

"Hey, my name's Leanna. Looks like we're roommates, huh?" I say, pulling away from the hug. I take a second look at her and realize she's really pretty. Like, she doesn't even have to try, pretty. Awesome. 

"Yeah! I have a whole bunch of ideas for the room. I'm planning to hang up some lights and attach my photos to them. Oh let me introduce you to my parents." She is definitely a talker. I shake their hands, and at that moment I realize I still need to say goodbye to my parents. 

"Awesome! I'll actually be back, I need to go get my stuff and say bye to my parents," I say. 

"Okay, I think we're about done here so I'll give you some room to move in. I'll see you later though! Oh, here's my phone number," She says as she hands me a paper. "Alright we'll get out of your way, see you later!" She says as she leads her parents out the door. I wave bye to them. 

I have time to soak in the room. It's not huge, as expected. Livable. Completely livable. I leave to meet up with my parents and say bye to them. I decide to bring my stuff up by myself. I wave bye as a couple tears escape from my eyes while my parents drive away. This is it. My new life begins.

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Hey guys! I just started this story and I would love some feedback about whether I should keep going with it! So if you stumble upon this story please let me know if I should keep writing!! Thanks :)