The Life You Deserve

Chapter 42: The College Years

AN: This chapter is a beast! 18 thousand words people! I hope it's not too much and that you enjoy the college years :-)

Warning: Smut, Angst and ridiculous amounts of Fluff.

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Summer 1989

It was three days before the party were going to be separating for college, and most of them were dealing with it by pretending it was no big deal. As if they weren't going to be thousands of miles away from one another.

El was the first to crack.

She was packing up the contents of her bedroom into boxes, only taking what was necessary to college but every item in her room had a memory attached to it. She wiped at her tears and smiled through watery eyes as she looked down at the Michael Jackson concert ticket, remembering how fun that night had been with the party.

El took a deep breath and put it in the pile of things to stay home. She picked up her teddys, Love Bug from Mike, Eggo from her dad and Terry that she was given for her fifteen birthday from her mama and Becky. It was meant to have been for El when she was a baby.

El smiled sadly down at Terry and stroked the soft fur of the bear. Her chest always felt tight when she thought about mama. She wondered if she was proud of her, if she was happy with the life that El had experienced now and whether she would have agreed with the choices that her daughter had made so far.

Smiling down at her teddys, she scooped them up and placed them in one of the boxes named 'college'. El got up from the bedroom floor and went over to her wardrobe, rifling through the different clothes options, making sure to leave her real winter clothes at home where she would need them. Max had already told her that whilst California in winter was rainy, it wasn't exactly cold in San Francisco.

Once El had gone through the majority of her clothes, she went over to her dresser intending to sort through her underwear when the collage that hung above it caught her eye. She initially smiled looking at the photographs that she had swapped and changed over the years.

Some of the originals from Mike's gift to her still had their place. Like their Snow Ball photo, their first Halloween and the party all being silly and pulling faces at the young age of fourteen. But now it had photos from her parents wedding, one with the track girls, Homecoming, Prom, the party's trips to California and London, their graduation and Mike and El's romantic time in Paris. El wondered what other memories she would be adding to it during her four-year degree to become a Registered Nurse.

El's hazel eyes moved over the images, looking closely at Will and Dustin. She sniffled, feeling more warm tears rush down her face when she realised how much she was going to miss them. She was hoping to see Max and Lucas at least once a week in San Francisco and her and Mike had already promised to spend every weekend together when El wasn't on elective placement. But Dustin and Will were going to be over 3000 miles away and the reality was really starting to hit.

Dustin was always and forever going to be one of El's best friends and Will had become her brother. How could she possibly be that far away from them? She breathed shakily through her tears and reached out at their photos, stroking Will's cheek on the glossy photo.

"Hey El, can I borrow your walk – " Will had walked into his sister's room and froze when he spotted her staring at her collage board. His eyes followed her finger to the photograph and he couldn't help but snort. "El why are you stroking my cheek?" He asked playfully.

El turned to look at him, her eyes were red, and her cheeks soaked. Will's eyes widened, and he felt his chest constrict painfully. They stared at each other for a moment before El was sobbing and Will rushed to his sister, engulfing her in a hug.