I'm laying in bed, computer perched on my lap clicking through pictures I've taken this week. Cal's apartment building one day before it stormed, the sky dark and angry in the background. A skyscape of the sunset over the stadium, a few other buildings on campus and then Cal and his roommate Dylan hanging in a tree after they both asked who I thought could climb it faster. I didn't even argue either way, but their male testosterone wouldn't let them rest until they showed me.

My phone begins ringing next to me. I press the green button to accept, but before I can even speak a noise at my door fills the room. The moving of the handle tells me someone is obviously trying to get in, but my roommate isn't scheduled to move in until tomorrow so I freeze.

I hear Gabi ask what is going on. I look back to the screen and see her face two inches from the screen as if getting closer to the screen will help her hear what is going on more clearly from my side of the conversation.

Just as I begin to answer, the door swings open and a girl walks in.

"Wow, that's a lot of neutral," The girl says inspecting my open closet. Obviously she doesn't see me because she continues to make her way further into the (our?) room inspecting all of my things.

"Wow and a lot of pictures of..... things? Literally like no people in any of them. Who doesn't hang pictures of themselves? Their family?" She says to no one in particular.

I contemplate staying up here until she has to eventually exit the room. If I lay still enough, I bet she would never even notice me. "Fill a girl in! Come on C, I'm dying over here!" Gabi screeches through the phone, her face somehow even closer to the screen now.

I begin to shush Gabi, but it only breaks the cover I was so desperately trying to have.

"Oh hi there!" She says a little too bubbly for someone who was just talking shit about my stuff.

"Uh, hi?" I can't help the inflation in my voice as it comes out. I may be trying to play it cool in college, but I've had to many years of trepidation towards new people to allow myself to remain calm.

 I exhale deeply and try my best to calculate my next response to sound a little less annoyed by her unexpected presence.

"I mean...you must be Alyssa." I don't bother to climb down from my bed. Instead I lean over the railing and offer her a hand. "Nice to meet you." 

She quickly uses the futon as a step stool to allow her petite frame to reach me and grabs my hand. With a firm grip she shakes vigorously.

"You must be Camryn!" She squeals. 

"Yeah... Uhm I didn't think you would be here so soon," I say removing my hand and leaning back in my bed.

"I paid the extra money to move in early so I could avoid the cluster that tomorrow's move in day will be." She says as she gracefully jumps off the futon and onto the floor. "I assume this is my side?" Alyssa moves to the second lofted bed and climbs the ladder and adjusts herself onto the mattress until her body is a reflection of mine.

"Uhm, yeah...I hope it's okay that I took this side and put the futon under my bed." My voice comes out shaky.

 Why do I keep saying uhm? Why am I suddenly unable to stand firm in my choices? It's like I'm on a blind date and am desperate for her to like me. I need to get a grip.

"Of course! My Shaman actually told me that right is always best for a Capricorn anyway."

"Ah yeah I've heard that," I lie."So uh—" Alyssa cuts me off before I can attempt to make any more small talk.

"Well, I left my parents downstairs so I better go get them and grab my stuff!"

Before she climbs down, Alyssa plants both hands on the railing and leans over the edge of her bed. We're still a few feet apart, but now face to face. "My Shaman also said that I'm going to meet someone that I spiritually align with this year. I think it could be you Camryn. I can feel it. There is an air in this room, ya know? Good things are coming."

With that, Alyssa climbs down and leaves the room, letting the door slam shut behind her. Seemingly unbothered by the fact that I'm pretty sure she just cursed me, or at least cast some prophecy that is destined to fail.

I blink a few times while watching the door just to make sure she actually left, and to give her spirit time to leave with her. I raise my phone screen to bring Gabi back into view. She's of course still there, but sitting patiently like a golden retriever I've commanded to stay. I turn the volume back up, which she takes her signal to speak.

"What does she look like? Did you know she was coming? What the hell is a Shaman? You're not going to become one of these girls that gets all new friends on their journey to start fresh are you?"

"Gabi, my fresh start journey wouldn't even be a thing if it wasn't for you helping me convince my dad to give me this year. If he had it his way, I would be locked in a convent converting to Catholicism just to make sure I abstain from anything that even remotely resembles a sin. Besides, she has that bubbly Elle Woods thing going on. You know that I only take that from you."

"But—" Gabi pleads, needing me to reassure her.

"But even if by some miracle I find a way to tolerate her in any capacity she will never take your place, no one could." It comes out almost somber, but Gabi knows it's true. "Besides I have to keep you close to me. You have too much shit on me not to."

"I love you C. This is going to be good for you, I can feel it," she say with a tight lipped smile that fills the screen.

"Back at you Gabs," I manage croak out through the emotion that surges through me. Change makes me emotional apparently. Or the curse Alyssa put on me is already seeping in and I'm deteriorating at a rapid pace.

Gabi doesn't say anything in return, but I don't dare hang up the phone. We sit in comfortable silence and continue about what we were doing prior to the call. Me watching TV and her eating dinner. It's the most normal things have felt since I moved in. It kills us almost equally to not be able to move into this next step together like we had planned. 

But Gabi has always possessed certain qualities that I lack. I've never envied her shiny pin straight blonde hair or her ridiculously long ways the way I probably should, but I am sometimes jealous of her ability to find the positive in every situation. No matter how hard she has to finesse the angle, she will find the one that sheds the most beneficial light on the scenario.

Her positivity sometimes makes me want to punch her in the throat, but she always means well. Her soul is one of the ones that is made of gold. The old saying that little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice was created the day Gabi was born.

Since the day we moved back to Ohio and our families were reunited, Gabi has been that constant ray of sunshine. Even when I pretended to hate her because she already had tons of friends and a popularity that I could never live up to. She did everything in her power to pull me into her group. Not because she felt an obligation to help her mom's best friends daughter adjust to seventh grade, but because she wanted me to be her friend too. 

Our fate was sealed the day she stood up for me Shepard Grant told everyone that I let him feel me up under the bleachers at the football game. It totally wasn't true, but I no one believed me because middle schoolers are vicious and lack empathy. Gabi kicked him in the shin in front of the entire cafeteria at lunch and made him cry. From then on I knew I was better off having her at my side. Gabi would do anything for the people she loves, it's both a blessing and a curse.

No matter what she says though, there is no positive way to look at this situation. I'm stranded on an island made completely out of concrete and turf with a few too many sororities and street food carts thrown in. My new fate has me destined to live with a person who lives a life on a delusional spiritual quest, while still constantly looking over my shoulder for the family that claims to care about me, but would rather banish me to my own personal hell than actually let me be happy. 

I climb down from my bed without saying anything and Gabi doesn't question me. Not as I gather my camera and bag, or as I walk out of my room. She even remains silent as I walk down the streets of the campus to avoid having to talk to my new roommate or about any reminder that out of all the shit things I've dealt with over the last few years, the hardest one might be yet to come. And just like she promised she would be, I keep Gabi on the phone to bring her along. Even she doesn't try to make light of the situation as it hits us both for the first time. No matter what, or how much we talk about it, or try to plan it out, everything is about to change.