Anchriesel had a lot to think about in the week before his senior years at the Academy were due to begin. For one thing, he had to think about packing. He would be moving out of his cozy junior dorm into a new one. He’d have a new roommate, too—he hadn’t bothered to request a solo. Other than one or two bad eggs as a freshling, his roommates had tended to be nice people. His last roommate, for example—sure, she was giggly and tended to stare at him, but she was pretty nice in spite of all that. She’d even stopped staring at him back around prom time, though naturally Anchriesel had been too busy to notice that. She’d moved out a couple months ago at the end of term. She’d shook his hand firmly, told him that he had been a good roommate (well, at least that was one social interaction he could do without messing up), and bade him farewell. She’d be back next year, but something told him that they wouldn’t be roommates again. It was probably the bouquet of flowers she carried with her everywhere, the one that she kept on her dresser but took home every week. She was in love. She had a special friend somewhere else on campus. In all liklihood, she’d be rooming with them next year. He in turn had wished Eidil luck and told her that she had also been a good roommate. With that, summer had officially begun, and it had finally really, truly settled on Anchriesel that he was no longer a junior.He’d spent most of the summer in the library, reading all of the books he could get his hands on. He took long walks outside and occasionally ran into that wonderful Litch, Zalir. It had been a good summer, but now summer was nearly over. It was time to pack up his years as a junior and move on.
Anchriesel started with the clothes, which he folded neatly into boxes provided by the school. He paused as he came across a purple tie. He’d worn this tie when he’d gone to Prom with Ganymede. He sighed. He’d been a junior for five years, and yet it was those few months in which he dated the Geist that stood out in his mind. He wrapped the tie around his paw and packed it away. Ganymede. Yes, he’d royally messed that one up. He’d been petty and childish, and refused to recognize another person for who he really was. He’d insisted on living in the past instead of accepting the present. Anchriesel had, that is. So far as he could tell, by then Ganymede had long since moved on to being a new person. Anchriesel was the one solely to blame for the whole debacle.
I was a horrible person to him, Anchriesel thought. I never want to do that to another person again. I never want to break another heart again. He packed the tie away in the box neatly, alongside his formal clothes. He’d worn those, too. Funny how the tie could trigger the memory, but not the rest.
I wasn’t better than I was as a freshling when I became a junior, he thought. But I know now that I’m a better person than I was a year ago. I’ve…changed. He’d learned to care more about how other people felt, and to care more about what was going on in someone else’s head. He’d learned now that he could affect people. I have the power. Everyone has the power. Anchriesel paused in the process of packing his shoes. I’ve changed, he said to himself again. It had become a mantra. I will be a better, more considerate person, now.
