Chapter Text
Lottie Matthews watched the strangers laughing, hugging, kissing around her. It was as if the heat of August was almost attacking her. The luggage handle had been hurting her hand for almost half an hour. Be calm, Lottie. You are going to arrive soon.
You know what is even worse than the first day of college? It's the day before the first day when you have to make small talk with everyone so that you don't end up alone. It was that specific day for Lottie Matthews.
Yesterday, Mel, her older sister had pulled Lottie over and gave her a long speech about how to survive college. As if she was going to some battle. It was an enormously long speech but apparently, the best choice was to hang out with her roommate at the dorm. That was Lottie's plan to survive this day. And only then, she could do whatever it took to survive the rest of her college life.
Lottie felt a sense of relief after feeling the overworking air conditioner at the doorway of her dorm. She stopped for a moment to wipe her sweat.
The Girls' Dormitory of Brightwell was a small dormitory that had two floors. There was a common area at instant right where she saw a TV and lots of colorful cushions. She hesitantly averted her eyes from the girls chatting on the cushions. Yet, she felt their eyes on her.
At the left, she had seen a kitchen. Two girls were eating their crunchy cereals in their pjs. Lottie felt her stomach growl.
I wish I had tried to make some conversation; she told herself harshly afterwards. But it was too late; she was already climbing the wooden stairs to the upper floor. Her destination was clear; Room 156.
The first thing she realized about the room was that the left side had already been taken and it was full with... a lot of stuff. Beside the bed, there were posters of female soccer players whom Lottie didn't know about. The bed was left messy. And there were lots of oversized checkered shirts and baggy pants left on the chair by the table. Her closet doors were open, but clothes were mostly stuffed rather than hung. On the shelf above the table, there were some books about psychology, but more than that, there was a pack of journals left on it.
The journals were of all kinds and and colors, and they seemed a little battered. Lottie couldn't take her eyes off all the journals for a while.
"Okayy." She muttered to herself. "She's not very tidy but at least... She seems to be a writer."
Her side looked pretty empty compared to her roommate's side. The walls were empty, and the bed was tidy with no sheets. The only noticeable thing was two pens and a cup with Brightwell Academy written on them on her table.
Lottie put on her headphones, an urge she had been fighting for 30 minutes. She slowly hung her clothes on the hanger, put her sheets on the bed, and cautiously put the novels she brought with her by the shelf over the table.
She thought how she would have twice as much as she would if she started studying literature in a day. Widening her library always had given Lottie the chills, in a good way.
When she was a child, she would always dream of her future home with a room of library. She would dream of book shelves reaching out to the sky. Every book, every writer she ever read her whole life would be there. It would feel like putting her whole life in a room. It would feel convenient for a girl who lived her life off books.
As she turned her back to get some more books, she realized that she was not alone in the room anymore. She squawked.
The other girl had gingerish brown hair and brown eyes that resembled those of does to Lottie. Her hair was a little messy too, which was no surprise after seeing her room. She wore an oversized checkered shirt with cream and brown squares intertwined with capri jeans as well. She wasn't short, but she was not as tall as Lottie. (Lottie had always been the tallest child in her class.) She had a rather intense look on her face.
"Sorry," Lottie apologized.
"So you're the new roommate?" The other girl raised her brows. "Name's Shauna." She thrust her hand.
Lottie shook her hand. "Hi, I'm Lottie. Lottie Matthews." She realized that Shauna was rather muscular while shaking her hand.
"Nice to meet you, Lottie. Welcome to Brightwell." Shauna answered with a rather soulless face.
"Thanks," Lottie answered. She looked at Shauna's eyes for a while. Why did she have to suck at making small conversation so bad? Think, Lottie, think. Her eyes stole a look at Shauna's journals.
"So, you like to journal, huh?" She asked with fake enthusiasm. The kind of fake enthusiasm you use when the friends your parents come to visit, and they want to talk to you about school but all you want to do is listen to Mitski and read a classic in your room.
"Yeah, I do," Her big eyes were opened as if she were slightly surprised that someone had noticed.
Lottie's eyes stuck at the old journals for a while. She would not have guessed Shauna for the one to journal. "It is a good activity. I tried it when I was a child but it got a little..."
"Okay, okay, okay. We don't need to chit-chat about my journals, okay? You can just... Mind your own business." Shauna's jaw clenched.
"O-okay," Lottie mumbled. She was not expecting that. But maybe she should have. At that moment she heard a thousand thoughts wandering around her head. Of course a normal person would not like her journals being brought up by a stranger they just met. How could she have acted so stupidly? She had just ruined her friendship with her roommate the instant she arrived.
"Fine, I'm going to head out, okay? See you in the evening." The brown-haired girl said with a flat tone. She was not even making eye-contact with Lottie anymore.
She heard the door getting slammed. And just like that, Lottie was alone again. "Fuck this," she muttered.
She looked for something to watch from her Macbook to pass some time. She had just started a television show about high school girls whose plane crashed in the Canadian wilderness. She could never imagine what she would do if something like that had ever happened to her.
As she opened her show, she saw a notification coming to her school email.
"Club Activities Fair will be held on the main courtyard. We encourage all students to attend.
Kind regards,
Brightwell Academy Student Affairs"
A part of her didn't want to go. She could just lie down and hang out by herself. But then she saw Mel speaking beside the kitchen counter: "You should be bold and forward to have your way in college."
The truth was, Lottie hated acting bold and she always acted weird when she tried to be forward. Yet, a part of her felt like maybe the mail was a sign from the universe. Damn you, Mel, Lottie thought to herself. Now she had to go.
The center of the Brightwell Campus was huge. It had lots of sorts of cafeterias and restaurants in the main building. Lottie read the main building was almost 250 years old, and yet it was gorgeous.
She observed the people on the terrace sipping their coffees and smoking their cigarettes. And at the front of main building, there were the club stands. She could smell the fresh coffee at the hands of tired club committees. The flyers were switching in between people's hands at light speed.
Lottie was too overwhelmed by the crowd to be able to go to any stand. Suddenly, she felt all alone in the crowd. She wanted to run, go back to her room, rot in her bed all day. But, she didn't. She just froze, crossing her arms around her stomach.
Just then, a girl with ginger hair touched her shoulder. "Is it your first day?"
The girl had freckles, and she was around the height of Shauna. But the thing that Lottie noticed most was her warmth, which was nothing like Shauna. It was almost as bright as sunshine. She was wearing an oversized dark blue t-shirt with yellow stripes, and cream capri shorts.
Lottie opened her crossed arms. "Yeah... How did you know?" She asked quietly. She could see the spark glowing in the other girl's green eyes.
"Well, just a pretty lucky guess based on how nervous you look." She giggled. "I'm Van. This is my first day too."
"Lottie."
"So, I just joined the theater club. If you would like to..." Van offered.
"No, sorry. It's just that I can never imagine myself on stage." The black-haired girl confessed, awkwardly. "But I guess I would like to join something."
"Do you want to check the stands together?" Van asked.
Lottie exhaled with relief. Thank you, Mel, she thought. "I would like to."
While walking towards the stands, Lottie realized a stand a little behind the others. 'Creative Writing Club', it said. A small flutter started in Lottie's stomach.
A girl with brown eyes was seated alone on the stand. She was wearing a blue/purple t-shirt and had tied her dark curly hair with a bandana. She looked rather bored, compared to all of other club officers who were busy socializing and handing out flyers.
"Come on," Lottie pulled Van from her arm.
"So you're a writer?" Van talked back. "Why am I not surprised at all?"
"Are you here for the creative writing club?" The curly-haired girl asked as they got closer to the stand, her tone almost mocking.
"Yes, I would like to join. I'm Lottie." Lottie thrust her hand out.
"Van."
The club officer shook both their hands. "I'm Taissa. I'm writing your name, Lottie."
She took some notes on her notebook. Then, her brown eyes turned to Van's eyes. "What about you, Van? Are you not interested in creative writing?" Her eyes fixated on Van for a few seconds.
"I don't know," Van confessed. "I guess it could be... a thing... that I am interested in. I once went to a script writing course." She added, awkwardly.
"Well, that's more than enough. And it's not like we don't have any free space." Taissa replied in a playful tone. "And also between us, I need to find some recruit or our club professor gets a little... mad."
"Write me up too, then."