Saturday is party day. I wake up feeling slightly groggy. I stayed up too late. After being escorted home by Claire I managed to get to sleep fairly quickly but that wasn’t till at least two thirty. Normally I’m good at late nights but when I have to wake up early the next day I find myself wanting to crawl into a very dark hole and stay there. Permanently.
Natalie wakes me up at eight, telling me we need to leave if we want to get breakfast. I think I shove her away but she insists I get up. I should be thankful but all I want is more sleep. I could sleep for an eternity.
“Come on Kat. They’re serving bacon.” She says. “We don’t have to do anything today Kat, you can go back to bed afterwards. Just come get some breakfast.”
“No…sleep.” I mumble.
I hear her huff. Natalie has had to drag me out of bed four times since we’ve become roommates. I’m not a morning person. Apparently Natalie is.
“Okay Kat. Don’t hate me for this.” Natalie says before throwing off my doona and splashing what must be a quarter of a cup of cold water. She didn’t even go for a whole cup. I would have gone for the bucket. Natalie is too nice for her own good.
“Ahh!!” I yell, more for her benefit. She tried. I can’t let her know how pathetic her attempt was.
“Come on, we really need to move. I’m starving.”
So I get up. For Natalie. And maybe for the bacon.
We head to the dining hall, me in pyjamas, Natalie in a grey sweater and black skirt her hair perfectly styled and mine tangled from sleep. We look an odd pair.
Natalie takes a bagel, bacon and some juice. I do the same. We sit where we have the past two weeks, in a corner of the dining hall where no one seems to like to sit. Maybe because it’s farthest away from the food. It takes me a good ten minutes to wake-up to a functioning level. Natalie prattles on about classes. She’s nervous about the English class she’s taken as its mainly on the classics and she’s worried she’s not read as many as the other students.
“I haven’t even read Ulysses.” She says biting her lip and playing with her bagel. “Hasn’t everyone read Ulysses by college?”
I snort. “Everyone says they’ve read Ulysses. Just like they say they enjoyed it.”
“Have you read it?”
“Yes.” I say around a mouthful of bacon. “It was difficult as hell to read.”
Natalie drops her head in her hands. “You know I’ve only read Pride and Prejudice once. I bet everyone there has read it three times, just for a bit of light reading.”
“Natalie,” I say, beginning to grow frustrated from lack of sleep and the clustering of bodies around us. “Neither Ulysses or Pride and Prejudice are on the course reading. You’ve done the readings, that’s all that matters. Anything else is just a bit of extra help. It’s going to be fine.”
She nods. “Yeah, yeah you’re right.”
“Oh hey, there’s Max.” I say excitedly waving to Max who’s with a short girl with the tips of her dark hair dyed blue.
Max’s face lights up in a grin and waves back, making her way over to the table.
Natalie turns around and smiles at our new friend. Max and the blue haired girl sit down on either side of us, trays full of food.
“Hey guys,” Max chirps places her tray down next to mine. “Fancy running into you two. This is my roommate Laurel.”
“Hey,” Laurel says.
YOU ARE READING
This Is How It Goes
Romance"Once upon a time there was a girl. She was an idiot. The end." Katarina Elizabeth Ryan, a self confessed heart breaker, lover of doughnuts and a worshipper of felines is about to have the strangest year of her life. College, the experience she's be...
