Chasing You

1

LACEY

My room is a mess. I don't even know where to start with unboxing my things. My posters are strewn across my bed and I can hear my roommates voices from outside the room along with the boys. Rae and Carter have taken over the kitchen and living room decorations, while Tori, Julie, and I headed to our rooms. This year we got a five bedroom apartment with all our own bedrooms and I can't be more excited to live with my best friends.

We all became so close last year and since I didn't have the chance to live with them, I am super excited to do so. My roommate last year had her head in the books because she was a STEM major. Being a communications major like Carter, we really don't have much to worry about. At least not yet.

I pull out my pictures upon pictures we took from freshman year laying them across my unmade bed. Looking at each one they all have so many different memories to them and it makes me smile. I pull out a picture and freeze. This is definitely not suppose to be in this pile. Braden's huge smile stares back at me and my breath catches. I haven't seen Braden since last year, the only thing I've seen of him is my occasional stalk on Instagram or his snap stories.

It's a picture of the two of us from the night everything went south. We look so unbelievably happy to be with each other and I can literally hear the words he said to me ringing in my ears from that night.

Tears well up in my eyes but I blink them away. I can do this. We can coexist, it's not like we even dated in the first place. It's not like he's even here right now. I am well aware of the fact that there's no way of me avoiding him because Rae and Carter are dating his best friends. But Michael, I can definitely avoid Michael. Considering he is no longer at UNC. If I never kept him as an option maybe we'd be Carter and Asher right now.

"Lace! What are you doing in here?" Julie yells. I can hear her skipping into my room and I quickly wipe my eyes. I toss the picture anywhere else besides my bed and turn around. Julie's straight brown hair is tied up in a ponytail and she has a bright smile. Julie has been my best friend since high school and while we didn't get the chance to room last year, we definitely were living together this year.

"Sorry, I was looking at pictures from freshman year," I say smiling back at her. She walks over to my bed looking over the thousands of pictures I printed out. She picks up one of the two of us laying on a floor after we had one too many Long Island Ice Teas.

"Why did you print this!" she laughs shaking her head at the picture. I laugh too grabbing it from her hand before she does anything with it.

"Because it's hilarious, we were so drunk and stupid that night," I say shaking my head at her. We were careless and free, we didn't have anything to worry about then. I call that my before Braden and Michael period. That's what I call it

"Can you two please come help us!" I hear Tori's loud voice echo through our apartment. Julie sighs setting the picture back down onto the bed. I sigh too looking at my open door watching as Robbie passes by dragging a suitcase behind him while he carries a box.

"You girls have a lot of shit," he huffs loudly most likely walking to Rae's room. Carter and Rae forced Asher and Robbie to come and help us move in. They were here weeks before we were since they had camp so the girls wanted to make up for the lost time. AKA, 'you haven't seen me in a month you are helping me move in.' Carter's words, not mine.

Julie and I walk out of my room and towards my boxes in the living room while she goes to her own pile. I sigh grabbing another one of my suitcases and dragging it towards my room. Luckily, this is one of the last suite cases of mine. I watch as Sixer chases after Sabrina, Julie's cat. She's a grey cat that Julie rescued from the shelter much to Tori and Carters dismay.