“This code of ethics booklet is bigger than a Bible,” I mutter to Jeremiah.
“It probably has more rules than the Bible too,” he replies. “I bet we’ll break every one this year.”
Mom and Nick share another look. Ugh. Maybe I can’t wait for them to be gone.
My room is on the fourth floor. When I step off the elevator, I find a common room with a big screen TV and cushy sofas. A girl is arguing with her mother about who accidentally left one of her bags at home in Alabama. Two girls who seem to be new roommates are fighting over who gets the top bunk. They are so loud you could probably hear them on the other side of campus.
A guy wanders down the hall wearing only a white towel tied around his waist. Jeremiah doesn’t find this odd at all, but Nick looks like he might kill the guy, and Mom does a double-take, blushing. I pucker my lips and make a kissy noise, to tease her, and she scowls at me. When I see the monstrous safe sex bulletin board, Mom and I both start blushing. Is that a bucket of condoms hanging on the wall? A little sign announces, Take as many as you need!
Noted.
I stick my key in the lock to my room. This is where I’ll be living until next summer. Here goes. I push the door open and discover I’m the first person here. Nick and Mom come in and look around at the tiny kitchenette and bathroom that links my room to Kelsey’s.
She and Vanessa texted me earlier, saying they’d be arriving in the late afternoon. I’m glad I got here before Iggy. This is so overwhelming I need the time alone to adjust.
“Want me to start moving your stuff?” Jeremiah asks, and I nod. He and Nick disappear out the door and I try to decide which bed I should take. The one closest to the door? Vanessa would probably like the window. No reason to start the year off with a fight like those girls in the hall.
I set my backpack down on the bed by the door and check out my closet, desk, and dresser space.
Jeremiah, a guy I thought was the epitome of muscle, staggers through the door, weighed down by a box of my stuff. “Oh my God, Annie, what’s in here?”
“Books, I think.”
“Did you pack an entire library?” He lurches to my desk and sets the box down. On the next trip, he brings a heavy box of my clothes. Sweat gleams on his forehead. I give him a break after he hauls my printer upstairs.
While Mom sits on the floor refolding all my clothes that got jostled in the box, I’m busy working to fix a bulletin board to the wall. Jeremiah takes the hammer and nails from my hand and swiftly hangs it. Hooray for my own personal handyman!
“Thanks,” I say, sorting my small pile of pictures I’m planning to tack up.
Jeremiah lifts a worn picture of me, Mom, and Nick at the USS Alabama, the big World War II ship that’s docked in Mobile.
“Don’t ever go on a ship like that in July,” I say. “We boiled in there.”
He smiles and sets the photo down. He shuffles through the stack until he comes across a picture of me and Kyle from Thanksgiving the year we convinced our families to eat together. In the photo, I’m feeding Kyle a bite of pumpkin pie and he’s cringing.
“He hated pumpkin pie,” Mom says, refolding a tank top. “But he ate it that time because Annie tried to make it.”
My spine stiffens as I glance at Jeremiah’s expression: interested, but nervous.
“That was the worst pumpkin pie I’ve ever had,” Mom adds.
“Mommmm,” I whine.
Jeremiah makes a face. “Please don’t ever bake pumpkin pie for me, Annie.”
I shove his arm, making him laugh. Then he focuses on the picture again. “His name was Kyle, right?”
I nod and take the photo from his hand. I need to sniffle, but I don’t let myself. I should be able to look at a f**king picture without becoming a geyser. I slowly pick up a thumbtack and hang the photo. Let out a long breath.
Jeremiah grabs another picture and a thumbtack and pins it to the middle of the board, lopsided.
“No,” I say. “That looks terrible.”
“It looks fine,” he grumbles and hangs another picture in a not-pretty way.
“Ugh. Would you go get the rest of my heavy boxes already?”
Mom sniggers. Jeremiah and I both turn and give her a look. She clears her throat, then goes back to folding clothes.
It doesn’t take much longer to unpack the car and lock my bike up outside on the rack, and soon, it’s time for Nick to go meet his girlfriend. It’s time for Mom to head on back to the Quick Pick. And it’s time for me to start my new life.
Jeremiah must sense that I want to say good-bye to my family alone. “I’ll catch up with you later, okay? Text me if you want to hang out.”