It was the end of another school year, one like almost any other. There had been new students, new faces, new races (seemed like there was a new one every year, ever since she’d become a junior), and new classes, so she guessed it wasn’t entirely like every other year. She was packing up her dorm, her little home away from home, before moving back in with her parents full time this summer. This year they’d asked her a serious question: did she really intend to keep commuting back and forth every week? It was a tough question, one that Eidil kept pushing to the back of her mind. She didn’t want to think about it yet.Her roommate wasn’t packing up yet. Since he lived at the Academy full time, Anchriesel wouldn’t be moving to a new room until late in the summer, just before the new school year began. It gave their room a strangely lopsided appearance, since all of his belongings were still spread across the room in a smear, while her belongings were all neatly in boxes and a pair of suitcases. Okay, not all of her belongings, but some of them. In fact, at the moment, her half of the room looked even messier than his half. He was a messier person than her by nature, but Eidil had to de-organize before she could pack. That way, she’d know where everything was.
The end of the school year, she thought as she folded her clean clothes into her suitcase, was normally a time for reflection. Her girlfriend’s mother had her children write essays describing what they’d learned that year and how they’d grown as a person. Eidil hadn’t dared tell her own parents about this practice for fear that they’d think it was a good idea to levy on her. You had to do a certain amount of parent management. She wondered if her cache classmates knew that, or whether they’d just have to learn when they themselves became parents.
Eidil looked around her room for something else to pack. The litterbox for the bats, that’s what she needed to pack next. Her parents would be here in about an hour to pick her up. She had time to clean out the litterbox and pack it with the rest of the stuff. As she transferred the waste material into a plastic garbage bag, her mind strayed back to the subject of rooming at the school. I room at the Academy so that I can be here, where it all happens. I can be on site when stuff goes weird or exciting. I’ll know when all of the parties and festivals are—of course, I already know when those are because they advertise them outside of all of the classrooms. But still, I have to be here when things happen.
Besides, what would people think of me if they heard that I wasn’t here? People would think that I was snotty and that I thought I was better than everyone else because I wasn’t an orphan. I’m not an orphan, I mean. People would say bad things about me behind my back, they’d gossip about me. I’d lose my reputation.
That thought stood out to her. Her reputation for what? Being here? Being present? How many friends did she have, anyway? Close friends, that is. Not very many anymore, she admitted reluctantly to herself as she stripped the blankets from her bed. It’s mostly Cal and her family. She sighed out loud. “I need more friends,” she said out loud.
Okay, so the reputation argument was bad. But seriously, people….wouldn’t think well of me. If I lived at home. Eidil paused at folding the blankets. She was pretty good at reading people—better than Callessa, anyway. Not that that was saying much. But even she oculdn’t predict exactly what people would think of her. And even as she thought that, she had an epiphany—she’d started rooming on campus because she felt left out. She felt lonely, like she wasn’t in the thick of things. And to justify that, to hide the fact that loneliness was what she was hiding from, she pretended that it mattered what other people thought of her. She hadn’t, really—she’d never worried about what other people thought of her.
“I’m afraid that if I leave campus, I’ll be different from the other kids. I’m worried that if I live off campus, I won’t be a proper Academy student,” she said out loud. “But that’s ridiculous. I’m still here for all of the parties, and I’m still here for my friends.” She looked around the room. “And I’ll bet there’s someone out there who could use the room I’m always taking up.”
Eidil felt like a great weight had been lifted from her chest. She puffed out and picked up her bags. I’m ready to go, she thought.
