Drafts

Chapter 4.

Amethyst exits her dorm room in a daze, backpack slung haphazardly over one shoulder. Violetta, her roommate of a year, was dropping out of university to work for her parents. She had claimed that 'university wasn't the right fit' for her. She would be gone by the time Amethyst got back from her classes.

In all honesty, Amethyst wasn't even sure what Violetta was studying, but she was pretty sure that she was a Humanities major, so probably something to do with the social sciences. It was at this point that Amethyst questioned herself, halfway down the hall leading away from her dorm room.

How could I not even know what she was studying? She leaves her textbooks around all the time for me to trip over but I've never actually looked at one. I am such a bad roommate! What if she's been struggling for ages and I've never asked? I've never even studied with her! What if it's my fault she's leaving because I didn't pay attention to her struggling?

This thought process continued until a very hazy Amethyst accidentally knocks shoulders with a tall man bundled in a large black coat. She spares only enough attention to notice the white face mask that covers his mouth and nose and to mutter a half-hearted apology. Somewhere in the back of her conscious, it registers with Amethyst that the tall man is sneezing repeatedly as she passes him, but she pays no mind to a sick stranger.

She makes it all the way to her general arts period unscathed, having tripped once on the way. Her eyes are glazed over like a melting ice sheet on a lake at the end of a harsh winter, tears threatening to break the surface of her brown pools.

Amethyst takes vague notes, barely paying attention to the content supposedly being taught to her and glossing over the images projected onto the big screen at the front of the roomm before she and the rest of the class is dismissed.

She was one step closer to Violetta being gone forever.

Only having two periods today, Amethyst wanders to her assigned English classroom, sitting in her regular seat next to a boy with black hair and furrowed eyebrows, with no recollection of passing through the entrance to the room.

'Hey,' Jungkook says softly, 'Hey,' He says again, slightly louder and more firm, but this doesn't break into Amethyst's plane of thought either. 'Hey.' He says a third time, grabbing one of Amethyst's small hands into both of his large palms. Her eyes snap to the worried ones of her newest best friend's, a whirlpool of sadness threatening to sink the ship that was her resolve; Amethyst had already made peace with the large possibility of a waterfall of tears exiting her eyes at some point after the announcement of her roommate moving out and leaving university altogether.

I have to get a new roommate. Do I do that myself or does the university do it? They would, right? I don't own the dorm so they have do it. What if they're mean? What if they're messy? What if we don't get along?

'Amethyst?' Jungkook asks, snapping her from her stupor.
'Sorry, wh-what's wrong?' She stumbles, biting her lip and lightly pulling her hand away from his.
'You zoned out really bad, are you okay?' He queries, having seen the hurricane of thoughts swirling dangerously inside her head.
'Violetta is moving out.' Amethyst says bluntly, opening her backpack and reaching inside for her laptop. After a few seconds of searching Amethyst realised that in light of her morning's turmoil she hadn't packed her MacBook today.
'Who's Violetta?' Jungkook prods.
'My roommate- my ex roommate.'
'Oh shit, Amethyst I'm sorry.' The boy apologises.
'For what?' The girl snaps. 'For being a horrible roommate? For not checking up on someone for a whole year? For not knowing if the person you literally live with is struggling or not?'
Jungkook reaches a hand into the air.

Had Amethyst realised that Mr. Min had walked in right behind her 10 minutes ago, she would have also noticed that she was late to the class, and that Mr. Min had been attempting to half teach a basic character map. Amethyst immediately shrank in her seat as Mr. Min's gaze wavered up to find the student attached to the raised hand.

'Mr. Jeon?'
'Do you mind if I take Amethyst outside for a few minutes?' Jungkook asked, concern laced between his words. Mr. Min glances at Amethyst's form, shrunk in the auditorium chair, and nods.
'Take as long as you need, Miss Hortan.' He says, giving a lightly questioning gaze before returning to his half planned lesson.

Jungkook takes Amethyst to the field behind the building and sits on the grass beside her.

The pair make heavy-hearted discussion for a few minutes, with only a couple of tears tracing the contours of Amethyst's cheeks by the final moments. The dark-haired boy offers Amethyst a sleeve to wipe her eyes on and they return to the classroom to catch the final moments of Mr. Min's 'class'.

Amethyst takes several deep breaths. On her walk back from English, she had received a call about meeting her new roommate. That was fast? She thought, slowing her pace back to her dorm room. She now stood in front of her own door, ready for whoever the new girl would be that Amethyst would have to share the space with. Her earlier thoughts penetrated her conscious and she was nearing an anxiety attack. So much had happened that day.

After 5 minutes of Amethyst's golden brown eyes staring at the decorated whiteboard on her dorm room door, she hesitantly and delicately fixes her shiny purple key into the lock, instantly and painfully recalling the vibrant hair colour of her old roommate.

A thousand memories flashed through Amethyst's head at this instant.

Amethyst and Violetta's first night together, the tentative question about bringing ramen back from the common room for them to be able to chat in private about what they like and don't, what their expectations of eachother were, and other general things. From this single night, Amethyst had learned more about her roommate than she had in the year following, until present day. She recalled the way Violetta would talk about her parents as if they were angels sent from heaven, that they were the best things in her life. It was almost odd that this single remiscence of memories from the first night could have almost foretold what was to come, if only Amethyst had paid attention.

The week that had followed was a series of bad decisions. Neither of the girls knew how the washing machines on campus worked, so when they had exited their dorm room with washing baskets in their arms they had headed to the laundry room, without the change they needed to work the machines. They stayed up late nightly, binge watching Netflix often til 2am, which did not work well for Violetta, who always awoke at 6am to do her morning yoga, no matter how late she had been up the night before.

Then there was the week in the middle of November last year. The day that the pair had both contracted the flu and had been bedridden for 3 days. They had disagreed and fought tooth and nail from their beds on every topic imaginable and yet they managed to both come out alive.

Amethyst turned the key in the lock, turning the knob with her second hand. Amethyst tentatively entered the room, almost afraid of what kind of person the new roommate would be, and if they would get along.

Her eyes caught a small figure who stood on eye contact.

The girl couldn't have been more than 5'1, with curly brown hair and soft grey-green eyes.

'Hi. I'm Abbi, I hope we'll be good friends.'