236B.

I stare at the numbers for what feels like forever. It took me 20 minutes to even find the apartment building in this maze of a campus. But now that I have finally found it, I'm not sure that I want to even go in.

Transferring schools was such a bad idea. Who transfers their junior year anyway? A psychopath, that's who. I want to knock on the door, but a thousand doubts plague my mind. What if my roommates hate me? What if the classes are harder here than they were at Wheaton?  Making friends there was hard for me, my ex made sure of that. But what if it's the same way here? At least before I could blame it on Tristan, but what if I'm the problem?

Classes don't start for a couple days anyways so I could definitely just turn back now...You know what I think that's what I will do. I will just turn back around- this was a dumb idea anyways.

Then that irritating voice in my head pops in to say hi. 

So pathetic. You can't even knock on a door. I'm not sure whether that voice is Tristan's or my own, but it never really goes away. And right now, it is reminding me that I am too much of a coward to knock on the door. Just do it, Harper. Get it over with. I raise my hand to knock, and then the door opens?

"Hi? Can we help you?" I turn around and a girl with bright blonde hair is standing in the, now open, door. Behind her is a brunette, with bright blue eyes. They look nice enough. Maybe they won't be the monsters I made up in my head the whole ride here.

"Hi.. I'm Harper? I think I'm your new roommate? That is what the leasing office told me when I got here..." I trailed off, unsure of what else to say. I knew getting random roommates was risky, but I didn't exactly have any other choice.

The girls immediately break out into smiles and pull me in for a hug.

"Oh! We heard we were getting a new roommate! Sorry, we heard shuffling outside our door... sorry if we scared you." The blonde gushes.

They open the door and let me walk in, my backpack and duffle bag swinging from my shoulders as I walk in. The kitchen and living room is spacious. At least the space is worth my money. I decided I wanted to stay in an apartment close to my classes, but of course those were more expensive. Seems like it was the right call though because the main living area could probably hold eight or nine people with no problem. I look at the girls, not knowing what to say.

"Oh sorry! I'm Morgan, and this is Kaitlyn." Morgan gestures to the brunette.

"Here let me show you around." Kaitlyn puts a hand on my shoulder and guides me to a small hallway, where there is a white door at the end. "So, this is your room, and Morgan's is right there." She points the door directly next to mine. "I'm on the other side. We flipped for it last year and I got the bigger room.. hope you don't mind."

"Which was so rigged by the way, don't let her fool you." Morgan sarcastically spats at Kaitlyn.

Kaitlyn rolls her eyes. "Right- I used 'the force' to make it land on heads." The two laugh and grin at each other. I can tell these two are really good friends.

"This room is great, I don't need much space." I smile at them. My smile gets even wider when a fluffy Goldendoodle runs into the living room from Kaitlyn's bedroom. It immediately jumps up on me, causing me to stumble a little, but I regain my balance.

"Shit, sorry I thought I shut the door." Kaitlyn grabs the dog by the color, getting him off me. "This is Bean, my dog. We got him last semester and he is a total cuddle bug, I promise." He wags his tail. I lean down and start to pet him, scratching behind his ear, which he likes. 

"Yeah and batshit crazy" Morgan snorts, making me laugh.

"He is so cute!" I reply.

They grin at me. "You might change your mind once he shits in your bed." Morgan jokes. My eyes widen a bit.

"Hey! He is potty trained now! Will you let that go?!" Kaitlyn defends Bean. 

"Easy for you to say, it wasn't your bed!" Morgan laughs. She looks at me. "Can we help you at all with moving in?"

I laugh a little, "Yes actually, I have so much stuff packed into my car you have no idea".

We start walking to my car. I lean into Morgan's ear. "Did he really shit on your bed?" 

She laughs. "I love Bean, but he has an evil side, trust me."

**********

After many, many hours, I am drenched in sweat, but my room is finally done. My bed has a white comforter, pink fluffy pillows, and a sage green throw blanket. A few of my paintings lined the walls, and my desk was in the corner by the window. I had my own small bathroom, where I set up all my products and shower curtain before finishing it all off with a nice rug. It's honestly the perfect size. Cozy.

I'm one of those people that loves when a room shows character. If your room doesn't reflect who you are, then what's the point. That is why mine looks like a craft bomb went off. My major may be in photography, but I love any kind of projects I can do with my hands. I have always been a creative kind of girl. 

I hear a knock on my door before turning around to see Morgan. "Hey! Kaitlyn had to go to her volleyball practice, but I am starving. I don't feel like making anything, so do you wanna go on campus for dinner? There's a food truck nearby, which sounds so shady but I swear they have the BEST tacos."

"Yeah sure! Tacos sound great." I smile back.

Morgan and I walk for about 20 minutes before we get to the middle of campus. She leads me to an patio like area with grass around it. Picnic tables are placed in the center, and there food trucks lining the edges of the area. Morgan told me they call this The Court. 

Apparently, the university partners with a lot of food trucks throughout the year for students to grab something quick in-between classes. Besides the taco truck, I see about ten other trucks around the edges of the court, but the one that catches my eye is the ice-cream stand. Morgan must see my mouth watering at the sight of it, because she grins before throwing her arm over my shoulder. "Food first, dessert second, girl." she laughs, causing me to laugh with her. We grab our tacos, and she was right. They were delicious.

"So why did you pick PHU?" I ask.

"My brother Josh, well he's actually my twin, he plays football here so when we found out he got a full ride, I just kind of followed him. I mean- we literally shared a womb so separating for college just...didn't make sense to me. But honestly, I am glad I came here, the fashion program is amazing. I couldn't imagine myself anywhere else."

I perk up a little at that. "Oh, you're a fashion major? That is so cool... I'm a photography major."

"No way!"

"Well, there's no math or science involved so honestly that was a driving factor of going into photography."

She grins. "I knew I liked you for a reason." We laugh and continue to talk about classes and before her phone starts to ring.

"Crap, it's Josh. Mind if I go take this?" She asks. "Sure go ahead!" I nod my head. I finish my taco as she walks away. I still really want a milkshake, so I decided to just go up and order mine now.

I go up to the truck and the man smiles at me behind the counter. Mikey's Milkshakes. 

"You must be Mike." I grin gesturing to the truck.

"That would be me! What can I do for you...." He trails off because he doesn't know my name. "Harper." 

"What can I get for you Harper?" He seems really nice. I like him. "Could I get a strawberry milkshake please?" I smile at him.

"Sure thing! Coming right up." He gets to work on making it, and when I try to pay for it, he slaps the money away. "This ones on me kid, enjoy the milkshake."

"Are you sure?" I can't believe he won't take my money. 

"Yeah. First one's always on me." He laughs.

"How do you know this is my first time here?"

"I try to remember everyone that I serve, and I don't think I have seen you in the Court before. Freshman?" He asks

"No. Junior." He looks shocked. "Transfer." I add, taking a sip of the shake... and it's delicious. It is actually probably the best strawberry milkshake I have ever had.

"Did you put drugs in this? How did you get it to taste like this?" I exclaim. 

He smiles at me. "A magician never reveals his secrets, but I can assure you there are no drugs of any kind in my milkshakes." 

I thank him again and start to walk back to the table.  I take a few more sips of the shake and I make a mental note to sneak some money into Mike's tip jar next time as a thank you. All of a sudden, my body collides with somebody else, causing the milkshake to go on both of us.

"You have got to be kidding me" A deep voice growls.

"Shit, I am so sorry." I look up and see a gorgeous man with dark brown hair, and brown eyes looking down at me, with a very... angry look.

The boy takes the napkins I had in my hand and starts to wipe it off his hoodie as best he can. "I really did not need this today." He grunts under his breath. "I have somewhere to be, and now- ugh" He gets frustrated and decides to just take the whole hoodie off- leaving him in a dark black tee-shirt. Which I must say, if he weren't being so rude,  would make him look very good. But I'm not going to say that.

"I said I'm sorry, okay? I didn't do it on purpose."

"Yeah, but you coulda watched where the fuck you are going." The stranger spits back. 

"Excuse me? I apologized. It was an accident."

"Sure it was."

 You clearly weren't watching where you were going either or this never would have happened" I spit back, mustering as much venom as I could. 

I scoff and start to brush off the milkshake off my white shirt, because of course I am wearing a white shirt. If he can see through my shirt, he doesn't say anything.

I can see his jaw tick. He looks at me for a second, before looking to the side. "Whatever, I don't have time for this, next time pay attention to your goddamn surroundings" he replies, walking away.

Prick

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FIRST CHAPTER DONE!

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