Half Full

Chapter 3

"I will miss you so much honey. If you need anything, and I mean anything just give me a call and I will be here" My mother is looking around the tiny dorm room that is going to be my home for the next two years.

"Mom, I'm going to be fine. Promise. It's not like this is my first day in college or something. And yes I will call if I need anything but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be just fine."

"I know you will, I know it's just... I hope you are strong enough to-"

"I will be just fine Mom. We talked about this a million times." I know she is concerned and to be honest, so am I, but I will never let her know that. I thought long enough about changing colleges or to go back to college at all, that I will not give her any reasons to doubt my decision.

"Yeah," she smiles softly and brings me super close for a hug. "Are you sure you don't need my help settling in?"

"No, mom, I'm sure, just go, Dad is probably going crazy over whether you make it or not." She tries to smile at this but she fails. And I know why. We both know that she is nothing but an accessory in my father's political life. And we both also know that she deserves much more than this. I talked to her once about it, and she cut the conversation short, so I had no choice but keep my mouth shut as well. The divorce that was supposed to happen a year ago was put aside once my father was elected to the higher chair. 'The image is what makes me successful', he once said.

"You're right, ok, I'm going." She takes my face in her hands and brushes big waves of my hair from my left side to behind my ear. " You're beautiful, remember that, don't let anybody tell you otherwise."

"Thank you, mom." I bring her in for a hug and loosen my hair, letting it fall over my face before anybody can see my face. The truth is, I'm a hell of a good actress. In the past year while I was seeing my shrink I made her believe that my scar, my looks are not an issue for me even though the truth is far from it. I just want to deal with it on my own terms and in my own way.

I did one thing that the shrink asked me, though. I accepted it. I accept that this is the way I look and nothing is going to change that. I accept that people will turn their faces from me and exchange weird looks, maybe even smiles, after looking at me. I accept all that. But there is much more to this than just acceptance and I need to do it on my own when I feel like it, not when I'm told.

We exchange few goodbyes and when she is finally out of the door I sit on my bed and take in my living space for the next two years. Honestly it's nothing much. Two beds across from each other, two little desks that can almost fit my laptop and maybe some papers, and that's it. That's definitely much, much less, in comparison to my own room that I have at home, with walk in closet and a huge bathroom, but this will have to do.

I walk to my suitcase and unpack my stuff, putting my clothes on the right side of the tiny closet, taking out the sheets and throwing them on my bed, taking out a few pairs of my shoes and putting them underneath my clothes. I hear the door open and someone laughing uncontrollably.

"Babe, I will be out in a few, just let me drop my shit and I will meet you downstairs. Oh hell no, let me call you back." I turn slowly; making sure that my hair is covering the left side of my face and smile at my new roommate.

"I need that bed." She points to the side of the room that I have already occupied. No hello, no how are you. She barely stepped into the room and just like that she demands something I claim as my own, first. "There is no way I'm sleeping on the left side of the room." I take a better look at her and think that this must be a joke, that I've been paired with a real life Barbie. Long, blonde hair that is sleek and not one is out of place, long legs that are on full display thanks to her super short pink skirt, breasts, that are in no way real, are peeking from her skimpy top.

I thought they would be doing some kind of pairing process more carefully, like going over the personalities and people's interests. I guess I was wrong.

"I already put away all of my stuff." I gesture to the closet and the bed.

"I see that, you should have waited for me then we could decide who takes which side." She drops her bag on the floor and heads over to my bed and throws the sheets on the opposite bed. "There, I am taking this bed and you can make yourself comfortable over there." She gestures the bed across with her chin.

There is a big part of me that wants to say fuck you and throw the sheets back on the bed I owned just a second ago, but that would mean attention and unnecessary conflict so I just shrug, even though the left side of the room is going to be painful to adjust to.

I don't do left. I do everything in my power to forget that left exists. I want to scream that to her face and put my sheets back where they were, but instead, I keep the words in and turn around to make the bed. My new bed. My new bed on the left side of the room. The side that simply doesn't exist to me.

"See, we are already great roommates." She smiles like nothing happened and that her sabotage of my bed was nothing.

"Super great."

"Do you mind making my bed as well? I need to head out." She is out of the door before I have a chance to refuse. Is she out of her goddamn mind?

I finish making my bed and stand next to her bed trying to figure out if I should be naive enough and make her bed, or should I be who I am and say screw you, make your own bed, you already kicked me out of my favorite side.

I go and grab the basket with my toiletries and head to the showers, another great challenge I will have to get used to. Community showers. Gross.

The last thing I think about when I fall asleep is how I might look broken on the outside but I will never be broke inside.

Somewhere in the middle of the night, I hear 'you gotta be kidding me' when Barbie comes back to the room and I smile. Not because I'm proud of the unmade bed, but because for the first time in a long time I didn't do what was expected of me. I hear my roommate, who's name I didn't learn yet, trying to fight with the bundle of sheets as she tries to put them on the bed, and all I have is a smile on my face.

"Life is a bitch," I mumble to myself.

"Tell me about it." She answers me back and I cover myself with my sheets pretending I never said anything.