Accepted by Coleen Lahr

Author:Coleen Lahr [Lahr, Coleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Astraea Press, LLC
Published: 2014-12-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

By the time Thanksgiving break rolled around, I was actually looking forward to spending the long weekend by myself. Well, not so much by myself, but minus Amber and Randi and, even a little, Becca. It was just that I’d had so much — too much — solitude in my nineteen years. In the last three months, I’d soaked up all the companionship I could handle, and while I didn’t think there could ever be too much companionship, I was ready for a little break.

I planned to spend the holiday studying, running, relaxing, and catching up on some non-academic reading. And while I knew there were bound to be other students staying on campus over Thanksgiving, I rarely spoke to—let alone hung out with—anyone but the students I lived with on this floor. I had no advance knowledge of any of them staying here over break, so I assumed it would be a very quiet weekend.

Amber left for home right after lunch on Wednesday, and she was one of the last to leave. Randi and Becca had both left the night before. Most professors had cancelled Wednesday classes assuming, rightly, that many students would cut class to travel home early.

After my last class of the day — none of my classes had been cancelled — I stopped at the nearly-empty dining hall for my last free meal of the weekend. Once the clock hit five, everything on campus would close until Sunday afternoon and leave me to fend for myself.

Janie, my resident assistant, had drilled this concept into my head when I handed in my request to stay in my dorm on campus over the holiday break.

"Are you sure you don’t want to go home?" She made a face and swept her arms around the room as if to illustrate that the dorm wasn’t the ideal place to spend a holiday.

"Everything…and I mean everything, is closed." She over-exaggerated the second everything, then lowering her voice to a whisper, said, "There won’t even be RA’s."

Considering I hadn’t actually seen Janie since my first week here, I didn’t really think the lack of resident assistants would be a problem.

"Yeah, I know, but I really want to stay. It’s just too much trouble for me to go home." More like it’s too much trouble for me to find a home to go to, but that wasn’t Janie’s business.

"But what about turkey?" Janie asked, and as she did, she looked at me with wide, intensely sad eyes, and I had no idea why she was suddenly so heartbroken.

"What about it?" I didn’t even try to keep the confusion out of my voice.

She sighed and solemnly said, "I look forward to turkey all year."

This girl was seriously suffering for me, and I had no idea how to make her feel better, so I just sighed with her and agreed. "Yeah, me too."

And Janie reached out and hugged me as I tried desperately not to giggle.

This girl seriously loved her turkey.

"Well, maybe you can cook something downstairs in the kitchen.

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