Chapter Text
Always late, why did I always have to be late. My thumbs strummed the wheel in the rhythm of the song that was playing on the radio and I focused my attention to the lyrics, hoping it would get my mind off my being late. It didn’t work, my eyes kept straying to the digital clock on my dashboard. Half an hour wasn’t so bad, I’d arrived later than that on numerous accounts, still, not on a day like this and besides, I still had to drive at least fifteen minutes, or so my GPS told me. Arrival time 7:46 pm. Not that it would really matter if I was late, what would I miss, dinner? My new roommates surely would be all right with me being a little bit late wouldn’t they? I shrugged, as long as I would be on time Monday.
When I thought about Monday, I realized I was nervous, University life would officially start on Monday, surprisingly I realized that despite my nerves, I was really looking forward to starting, moving to New York was a new beginning and I could be whomever I wanted to be. I was looking forward to meeting new people, hanging out with my new roommates, my teachers and classmates, even doing homework. Though I knew that University life could be really wild, especially in New York, I didn’t plan on partying too much, taking on a double major was already going to be a big enough challenge as it was, still I did not regret it, not for one second.
When people from Hunter University had come to my high school to recruit me, I had never thought they would actually offer me a full scholarship, one to cover both majors, but they had and that had been exceptional, the spokesperson of the University had said so, but so had my teachers and my dad. My dad, who was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and had some experience with scholarships, he told me we had been lucky and that I indeed had to be an extremely promising and talented student for the University to do that. I had tried to ignore the fact him saying I ‘indeed had to be extremely promising and talented’ because I knew for a fact that I was exactly that. My future looked brighter than it ever had and no matter what my dad thought of my ‘little hobby’. I knew for a fact that I would become one of the greatest writers-slash-artists in the world.
And those were my majors, English-Creative-Writing and Art. Since I hadn’t been able to pick either one of them, I’d applied to both and had written a motivation letter of exactly one sentence: ‘Once you’ve seen some of my work, you will see why there’s no possible way for me to choose between my two biggest passions’. Apparently, I had been right, a teacher at Hunter called one of my teachers who invited her to our next art fair. She didn’t come alone, she came with one of her colleagues who, like her, had been intrigued by my work. A week later they asked me to apply with a full scholarship.
I don’t think I’ve ever been happier in my entire life than in that exact moment, finally there was acknowledgement from someone other than my friends and my art teacher, these were two people who were experts on writing and art and they both wanted to have me on their ‘team’.
Shortly after applying I’d gone on an apartment hunt and had accidently found an apartment that was just perfect, it was an old building with brick walls, outside and inside, it had a large living room-slash-kitchen, four bedrooms, a bathroom, which I would have to share with three others so that would take some getting used to since I was used to living with my dad only after he and my mom separated a couple of years back. One of the best things about the apartment was the large terrace on the roof. During the summer I’d been to the apartment a couple of times to move my stuff so I wouldn’t have to do it all last minute and I’d found myself drawn to that roof and every single time I’d been there I’d sat at that roof, enjoying the view over one of the most beautiful cities in the entire world. It had been perfect.
The apartment belonged to the father of one of my roommates, Octavia, whom I’d met by chance while apartment hunting, I’d been walking around New York, checking out these shitty apartments and found myself being desperately lost while looking for my seventh house-viewing, when Octavia had come up to me, asking me whether I was looking for something. I’d told her I was looking for an apartment and that I was apartment hunting. She’d taken a good look at me, shaken her head and linked her arm through mine, guiding me away with the words “you don’t belong in this neighbourhood beautiful, come on, I am still in need of a new roommate and by the looks of you, and yes, I’m a very good judge of character, you’re going to fit right in”.
She’d been right, after showing me the apartment, my new bedroom and the rest of the apartment, I already felt like I was home and I didn’t want to leave ever again. She’d introduced me to one of her other roommates, Raven, it was apparently an all-girl household, and we just started talking and didn’t stop until it was midnight, which was when I needed to get back to my hotel. Octavia made me sign the lease the next morning over breakfast and I got to spend the rest of the weekend in New York and got properly introduced to the dynamic city by my two new roommates.
Apparently there was a third roommate called Lexa but I’d never met her because she’d been traveling through Asia, ‘doing everything god forbade her’ the entire summer. Lexa, whoever she was, apparently was a badass kind of girl, traveling by herself through Asia for two months, partying, probably doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Both Raven and Octavia had described her as ‘tough to love but definitely worth loving’ because apparently she was the owner of a NOT-so-called bubbly and sparkly personality but still she was a good friend and person. I hadn’t given it much thought because I had always been pretty good with people, we’d most likely get used to each other eventually if we didn’t hit it off immediately. We would have to since we were going to be living together.
After a two and a half hour drive I finally arrived at my new apartment, I hit the button on the little device Octavia had given me, and in front of me the garage door opened automatically and after driving in I parked my car. Apparently not one of my roommates owned a car, so I could park in spot 5b, which was our apartment number. A tingling sensation suddenly worked its way through my entire body, I was excited, extremely excited. To be living in New York, to have these amazing new roommates who were already becoming my friends, going to school and become better at writing and painting. These were, without a doubt, going to be the best years of my life, I could feel it in every cell of my being.
Once I had parked my car I got out my last two bags and slung them over my shoulder. After carefully locking my car I made my way up the stairs, all ten of them and arrived at my new apartment only slightly flustered and with ragged breathing, wishing the building had an elevator but knowing very well that the building was too old for one. While trying to get my breathing under control, I got my keys from my pocket and opened the door, relishing in the fact that this was my new house for at least the next couple of years.
When I opened the door my new roommates looked up, Octavia was the first to jump up from her bar stool and smiled like a Cheshire cat. “Oh my god, you’re here, finally, we were getting worried” she said as she made her way over and took one of my bags off my shoulder.
"Thanks," I murmured and dropped the other one on the floor.
"Did everything go all right?" Raven asked, also making her way over with two bottles of beer in her hands. Handing me one after giving me a hug.
"Yeah, my dad was getting kind of emotional when I left, couldn’t stop hugging me."
Octavia chuckled “I remember when I left for college, my mom seriously lay down in front of my car in protest.”
I laughed. “No way.”
"Way."
That made me laugh all the more and the others joined in. Then Octavia opened her arms to pull me in for a hug, “Welcome to your new home Clarke, for real this time. God, it’s good you’re finally here, it feels like ages since we’ve seen each other doesn’t it.”
"It kind of does," I replied truthfully, which was odd because it had only been a couple of weeks since we’d last seen each other and we’d spoken practically every day since we’d met, even when we’d been on holiday, me to Canada, her to some fancy resort in the Keys, Raven to Europe.
"Come, let’s sit, we’ll help with your stuff later," Raven said.
"It’s all right, it’s not that much," I smiled and we all made our way over to the kitchen where Octavia gestured for me to sit down and drink my beer while she and Raven continued preparing dinner. For a while we just talked about our holidays, then we talked about the upcoming semester and eventually about the fourth roommate, who was apparently still traveling in Asia and they had no idea when she’d come back. They had been in touch only sporadically because Lexa mostly travelled through places without cell reception, there had only been a couple of texts here and there, proving she was still alive, along with two post cards, one sent from Thailand and one from Beijing.
We had dinner, we had entirely too much to drink and both my roommates and I ended up falling asleep on the couch. It was the first night of a new beginning, a new chapter of my life and it felt amazing, I had never been that happy in by entire life, I felt right at home, like I finally truly belonged and couldn’t wait for the rest to fall into place as well.