"Welcome to Marshall Hall! Do you need any help with your boxes?"

I can only see half the face of the girl in front of me, my view obscured by the teetering pile of textbooks stacked on top of the box I'm carrying, but it's enough. The ear-to-ear smile and overbearing enthusiasm—without even looking down to notice her lime-green T-shirt and badge, I know straight away what I'm dealing with.

Two trips up to third floor, and I've already run into about twelve of them. All-too enthusiastic 'student ambassadors', smiles kept wide by the promise of $14 an hour: there to reassure nervous freshmen and help carry boxes and, apparently, get in my way as much as possible.

"I'm good," I tell the girl. "But thanks."

As I shift the stack of books in my arms, her badge comes into view. It reads Hailey, although she's decorated it with so many glittery, smiley-face stickers that the name is barely visible. She doesn't seem to think this is excessive.

"No worries!" Hailey beams. "Welcome to the dorm! By the way, if you need help finding your way around, there are campus walking tours leaving from the front entrance every hour, on the hour. Then, the welcome party starts in the downstairs lounge at four. Everyone's welcome!"

I'm shaking my head before she's even finished her sentence. "Oh, no," I say. "This isn't my first year."

But Hailey isn't fazed. "That's okay. You can still come along if you want! I think there are a few other upperclassmen in the building, so it might be a good chance to meet them."

"I'll think about it," I say, with a weak smile, even though I have no intention of doing so.

Finally, she steps aside. "Well, let me know if you have any other questions, okay? Have a nice day!"

I breathe a sigh of relief as I move past, making my way down the rest of the hallway. It's the last door on the left that I'm heading for; although with no free hands, I have to shimmy the handle down with my butt and push backward through the door. For a moment, I think about how Hailey's helping hand would've actually come in useful right now—but then I'm inside, with the door clicking shut behind me, well and truly alone in an empty shell.

It hadn't been my intention to spend a second year living in a campus dorm. Like most people at Davidson, I'd expected to move into an apartment with friends once freshman year was over. Hanna and I had even started apartment hunting in the spring with a couple of girls from our floor. But then things changed. Josh died, and I disappeared from campus before the papers were signed. With no set date for my return, they had no choice but to go ahead without me.

Leaving me with no choice but to apply for on-campus housing, and simply hope for luck of the draw.

In this new bedroom, there are two beds. A suitcase and a couple of boxes sit unopened on one of them—the first bits of luggage my parents have carried upstairs, still to be added to when they get the rest from the car—but the other is just a bare mattress. The best bit of news I've heard all day is that it'll stay that way. By some stroke of a miracle, I haven't been assigned a roommate.

"What number did she say her room was? 325, right? I think it must be this one down here..."

My mom's voice, somewhere down the hall. It's followed by noisy footsteps, an upbeat "Excuse me!" as I guess she and my dad scoot past someone else, and then the rattling of the door handle. Once both of them barrel inside, the bedroom doesn't feel quite so empty.

"I think this is the last of it," Mom says, setting down a backpack and duffel bag at the foot of the bed. "And it only took two trips! Last year it seemed like we spent all day going back and forth to the car."

I manage a smile: one that lingers for a second or two, then drops when she turns away. "I learned what I need and don't need," I tell her. "There's no point in bringing a car full of stuff I won't use."

"You don't have anything to decorate your room, though," Dad says, his eyes darting from one bare wall to the next. "Won't it look a little empty in here? We can take a trip to Target, if you want."

"It's okay," I say. "Really."

What I don't say is that I don't want anything personal anywhere near this room, let alone pinned up all over the walls. That my brain provides enough gut-wrenching reminders of the last six months without any help whatsoever.

A blank canvas, a fresh start—it might be the only thing that does me some good.

"Well, we'll at least help you get settled in!" Mom says breezily. I can't tell if her enthusiastic smile comes easy, or whether she's feeling anything like I am: an actor in a poorly rehearsed play, under a spotlight but not having learned my lines. If so, she's doing a better job of improvising. "Once your bed's made up and your stuff's out of boxes it'll start to feel more like home. Remind me, Stuart, where did you put the mattress topper we bought? This bed feels hard as rocks..."

"Mom, you don't have to stay," I say. "I'm fine unpacking on my own. There's not much to do anyway, and I don't want you to hit traffic on the way home."

She waves a dismissive hand in my direction. "Oh, honey, don't worry about that. We can take as long as we need. Now, you know, it doesn't look like you've got much storage in here—maybe we should take that trip to Target and see if we can get you some crates."

"Honestly," I say, but it's the waver in my voice that causes them both to look at me, and undermines everything I'm trying to say, "I'm okay."

They know I'm not. They know I'm not blinking hard because of the dust in the room, or the rogue ray of sunlight peeking through a gap in the broken blinds. I've been questioning this decision ever since I formally enrolled for the fall semester, wondering if it's the right thing to do, telling myself things will fall into place by then and the thought of coming back won't feel so strange. But now I'm here, I know they can feel it too.

Mom steps forward first, touching my arm, like going in for a hug will set me off. It would be so easy to cry right now, but I'm determined not to.

"Are you sure?" she asks gently. "It's okay if you don't want to do this. You've only missed out on one semester. There's still time to change your mind, decide it's better to go somewhere else..."

Of course there's still time. But it wouldn't make sense. I've already done the research; my single semester's worth of credits barely count for anything. If I started anywhere else, it'd be from scratch—and by the time I got my application in, I wouldn't be able to start until well into next year. It would involve so much more waiting, sitting around with too much time to think, stuck in this weird in-between phase when all I want to do is move forward.

So I have to face it. And that's why I'm here.

"I'm sure," I tell her, more confidently now. "And I'm fine. I've done this all once before, haven't I? You don't need to stay. Plus, I need to stop by Hanna's apartment to pick up some stuff I left in our room last year."

She claps her hands together. "Well, that'll be nice! A chance for you two to catch up. This must be the longest you've gone without seeing each other since... well, the whole time you've been friends."

"Exactly," I say, forcing myself to nod. "And I probably should get there sooner rather than later. She likes to get her writing done in the evening, and once she's in the zone, I'm not sure I'll get anything out of her."

"That magazine, right?" Dad asks. "GLX, or something."

"GXRL," I correct him. "As in girl."

"I knew it was some American-sounding thing," he says: his usual excuse for anything he gets wrong. Never mind the fact that he moved to the US from Scotland almost twenty years ago, or that the word girl has absolutely no American connotations whatsoever—as always, his British roots are to blame. "Either way, she seems to write a lot for that thing."

"She doesn't just write for it; she runs it. But yeah. It's like her baby."

"Well, it certainly keeps her busy." He sneaks a sideways look at Mom, like he's checking whether to go ahead and say it. "Maybe you could ask her about writing a few articles? It might be nice to have something to focus on outside of your classes this year."

They both wait; I can almost hear their bated breath. But I shake my head. "It's not really my thing."

That, and I'm also not sure where I stand with Hanna anymore. Somehow, we've gone from being the best of friends to awkward acquaintances in the space of a few months. I can blame it partly on circumstance: she's been away all summer, on a two-month solo backpacking trip around Europe, so she hasn't been here to hang out anyway. But the rest of it lies with me. Leaving campus earlier this year without saying goodbye, the dozens of her messages I've left on read... I'd be lying to myself I said I hadn't pushed her away. But at the time, I couldn't help it. Even when I needed her most, being with Hanna felt like a constant reminder of everything I was trying to forget.

"So you're going to head over to her place now?" Mom asks.

"Yeah."

"And leave all this unpacking for later?"

"It'll take an hour, tops," I assure her. "Then I'll head for some dinner, and turn in early ready for a busy day tomorrow. Does that make you feel better?"

"It does," she says, moving closer so she can put her arms all the way around me. We're roughly the same height, so my head fits perfectly over her shoulder, my nose getting buried in her thick, bushy mane. There's never been any question where my curly hair came from. "And we're always just a phone call away, you hear me? Any time of the day or night. Your dad's got flexible hours at work, and you already know I'm the world's lightest sleeper. So don't hesitate, okay?"

She's trying so hard, it's almost enough to make me well up again. But I keep it together. "I won't. I promise."

Finally, she releases me, stepping back so there's room for Dad to have his turn. His hug is more gentle, letting me take the lead; he waits for me to wrap my arms around him before he squeezes reassuringly back. "What your maw said," he says, but it doesn't mean anything less. "We're proud of you, Morg."

Then, he moves away—and I'm standing there looking at both of them, our gazes flickering to the door and back, none of us wanting to make the first move. After all, it's one thing to say goodbye, but another entirely to turn your back and leave.

Mom reaches for the handle.

"Text me when you make it home," I tell them.

"We will," Dad says back.

Mom pulls the door open, slowly.

"I love you," I say.

"We love you too," they call back together.

From them both, I catch one last smile, which I know I'll need to hold onto. But the heavy, fire-regulation approved door shuts fast under its own weight, and soon the crack has narrowed and the hallway light has disappeared and I'm standing in the empty room, on my own, my heart pounding like a ticking time bomb.

Left alone with my thoughts for too long, I really think I mightexplode.

---------------------

So here we have it: our first glimpse of the AFTER timeline, and Morgan's returning to campus for the first time after Josh's death. I know it's light on details right now, but there's intent behind the slow reveal, I promise. You'll find out more soon.

As always, please let me know what you thought. I love reading and replying to your comments.

See you Monday!

- Leigh