Eren's POV

Standing up from where I'd been sitting on the carpeted floor, I took a few quick glances around my bedroom, trying to see if there was anything that I needed to take with me that I hadn't packed yet. I hurriedly grabbed a few more articles of clothing and shoved them in the box, hoping to get this last one closed up and in the car before my mother decided that she wanted to get nostalgic with me before I left to go. Go where, you might ask? College. I had graduated from high school what had felt like days ago, but in reality was three months. Three long, tiring months of trial and error, of applying to different schools and hoping and praying that I would get in. Finally, one of them had accepted, and I had begun packing almost immediately, wanting to get there as soon as possible since classes were going to start soon.

My mother, as if having heard my thoughts of not wanting her to appear, walked through my door just as I was putting a strip of packing tape on the last box.

"Hi, Eren." She had a somewhat sad smile on her face. "How's your packing going?"

I brought my head up to look at her, then looked back down at the box I'd just taped, then trained my eyes back on her, placing a hand on the top of the box. "This is the last one."

"Oh, Eren. I can't believe this is actually happening!" She stepped forward and wrapped me in a tight hug. "My baby boy is going to school! I'm going to miss you so much!"

I felt my face get a bit warm. "Mom, come on. I'm eighteen." I pushed back against her a little. "And, as I recall, you said that exact same thing on my first day of high school."

"Did I?" In fact, she did. Even though my memory could be spotty, there were some things that I remembered extremely clearly for some reason, and that was one of them.

"Yeah Mom, you did."

"Oh, okay." She shrugged. "Anyway, I'm going to miss you," suddenly, her arms were back around me in another bone-crushing hug. "Your father and I are going to be all by ourselves, now that you and Mikasa are both going to be gone!" Mikasa was my adoptive older sister of three years, who'd graduated high school three years prior to me and had been accepted to the same college as I had. I had no doubts that I would be seeing her very soon after I arrived; she had always been very protective of me.

"I'll visit." Once again, I tried to pull away, but my mother wasn't having that, and she kept me close to her as if she was never going to let go.

She fake-pouted, "how do you know? Mikasa never did!"

I sighed and gave up in my attempts to escape. "Well, I'm not surprised. The school is practically in another state."

"I don't want excuses. I want visits from my kids."

I chuckled lightly, pulling back from my mother's embrace and being allowed to let go. "I promise I'll visit you, and I'll try to get Mikasa to come too."

My mother's expression of feigned sadness disappeared to be replaced by a warm, loving smile. "Oh, thank you Eren. I know I've already said this more than a few times, but... I'm going to miss you so much." She reached forward and lightly clasped my hand in hers. "But, if you can't get Mikasa to come, I expect you to at least bring somebody." Suddenly, her smile was replace with a smirk. "I'll be impressed if you manage to get a nice pretty girl to come back with you."

I felt my face get hot once more and I pulled my hand away from my mother's and hid my face in my palms, grumbling to her and myself. "Come on, I don't even like girls..."

The expression on my mom's face changed from what it was to a look of slight confusion and shock for a moment, before shifting to amusement and love, and she spoke with a smile on her face and in her voice. "Oh, right, I forgot."

Wait, seriously? I looked up from behind my hands to look at my mother confusedly. I practically just came out to my mom, and she brushed it off as if she already knew? Huh. She's cooler than I thought.

"Don't worry, I won't tell your father. We both know how he is." Standing up, she continued speaking. "I think the best way to let him know would be to bring some lucky guy home with you; show him that it's already too late for him to do anything about it."

I couldn't hide my smile. "Thanks, mom." I stood up beside her and gave her one final quick hug. "Now, do you want to help me get this box into my car so I can go?"

"Sure, I'd love to." She and I each grabbed one side of the box, lifting it together and carrying it out of my bedroom, down the stairs, through the living room, and out the door, setting it in the trunk of my small car, where there was already one box and a large suitcase.

I thanked her and shut the trunk, heading back inside to say my final goodbyes to my mother and father before exiting the home once more, climbing into the driver's seat of my vehicle, and giving one final wave to my parents as I pulled out of the driveway and began the long drive to the campus where I'd be living and learning for the next four years of my life.

A/N

Heyo! yeah, I'm posting another story. You may be confused as to why I'm just now starting a new one when my other one is still only one chapter long, but actually, this one is already a LOT longer. I've been posting this on Wattpad every Wednesday, and I've got six chapters finished (yeah, this has been a thing for six weeks). I'm going to post all of the chapters so far today, and then I'll do Wednesday updates after that. I'm only posting all of them today since yesterday was Wednesday so it's not too ridiculous to post all of them now.

toodles! (oh my god who even says that anymore XD)