Amelia knew the small town that she grew up in like the back of her hand, she knew the ins and outs, the customs, and just everything that you could imagine on it; she used to keep up on the gossip though grew bored of that fairly quickly after graduating high school.
She knew the city about half as well or may be even less than half; she balanced her bags with determined steps and didn't care if anyone thought that she was moving in as she trudged down unfamiliar hallways in a building that she was pretty sure her class was in.
The young woman sighed when she got twisted about again before reaching out for help with a sunny smile and a casual twang of her accent, harbored from the small town not far from here where she'd grown up among corn stalks and dancing through hiding places in the woods that made up a part of her backyard and kept growing out of their domain.
Amelia thanks the other woman with a gracious smile, idly wondering how she came to be asking someone who clearly hadn't lived in this area all that long for directions, but she didn't mind too much as she left the building in search of the correct one, finding her Orientation Class with an air of ease.
Her teacher was a nice, respectable woman that knew a thing or two about how confusing things could be when you're new; she offers help and directions and whatever else you might need with candy in her office for visitors, stragglers that want help balancing which building to go to, somehow coming up with decent credit hour based semesters and getting through them all relatively unscathed.
Amelia decides that she likes her when she cracks a joke that Amelia wonders why no one laughs as freely as she does; she figures that it's something about her that's a little mix of Southern Hospitality and something uniquely Amelia.
She shrugs it off like most things that she doesn't have control over and focuses like her life depends on the class, because out of all the newness of everything, it kind of feels like it does.
When she leaves, she leaves with a sweet smile, a confident wave, and she finds herself idly walking through the building and trying to figure out what the initials on her freshly printed out schedule mean as she finds her way to her General Education Class to be followed by her Basic Math class that turns out to be on the other end of campus.
Amelia grumbles when she gets lost, wandering by foot over unfamiliar terrain, trying to read signs and figure out if she's going the right way, when she leaves the silent train tracks and walks just a bit farther, she nearly sighs in relief.
There's the building, tall but not imposing; she checks her phone even though she's almost entirely positive that she's unbelievably late.
Class started a half an hour ago, so she steels her nerves, enters class with false bravado once she finds the room and pulls out a notebook to take notes, ignoring the obviousness of how late she actually was.
No one says anything whether it's out of the first day of class kind of tone or whether it's just a general acceptance, Amelia doesn't care, just lets relief pool and nearly cheers when class ends, a chance to zap her embarrassment away as she wanders outside for a good place to eat at for lunch, still unsure of whether she can pack anything that she can reheat or not.
She enters a local restaurant or what she assumes is one as she hadn't heard of the place before, and she finds herself standing as tall as she can which isn't much to read the schedule past the small line of taller than her people ordering their food.
Amelia beams a bright smile when she's up, confidently ordering a meal as she hopes its good, trying not to shudder at the price of the food that slightly prickles her skin as she moves aside.
When she turns around, she notices that the place is more crowded than she'd thought it would be, and she doesn't have the heart to wander outside, take a seat there where there are no benches, and thus she heads over to the one table with a lone straggler.
"Hi, I'm Amelia. Do you mind if I sit with you, sir?" Manners have been ingrained in her since she was little due to public schools and requirements, and they come as second nature to her whenever she addresses a stranger or someone older than her; it's how she gains anyone's attention.
He looks surprised regardless, and Amelia realizes that it's not a common thing all throughout America, so she plasters on her bravest smile and waits for his answer.
She'll never take her manners back; it would be weird and kind of rude, plus she's pretty sure that if she did, she'd be isolating a part of herself.
Amelia is rewarded with her patience by a smile and an accented voice, "You may sit down, miss."
He tries for the ease and casual way she said, 'sir,' but she refuses to correct him that the equivalent to 'sir' is 'm'am.'
"I'm Toris." He smiled slightly, "I live at International House here on campus."
She nods her head with a brave, unyielding smile, "I'm a commuter."
"So you live nearby?" He seemed vaguely surprised to find her here, and she nearly laughed at the strange sight of seeing a slightly confused commuter eating here.
"Yeah, in a small town. My parents are farmers." She shrugs, remembering how she used to goof off with her cousins on relaxed days, sneaking past the corn where they can get into trouble and off to the woods to play and see how many games of Hide and Seek they could win.
Amelia always knew the best hiding spots.
"So what's your major?" He asks as if it's a last effort to keep the conversation up.
"Education." Amelia smiles widely, "I want to be the kind of teacher that kids love going to class with, the one that lets them know that they can truly be anything that they want to be. I don't know what subject I want to teach however." She sighed at last, unsure of whether she wanted to instruct language arts and fumble through the finer points of English grammar or be the kind of math teacher that always celebrated Pi Day with sweets of all kinds and playful chatter or may be she'd like to teach gym and encourage fun filled games with the memories still fond of when she used to have gym and play all sorts of fun and active games.
"In America?" There's something about his green eyes then that hold her captivated, "I'm studying science."
"Probably, yeah." Amelia holds an unsteady breath before finally releasing it when she realizes how weird that may look; her mind takes a quick turn down a path that she wasn't expecting, a science teacher and her scientist.
She nearly giggles, because certainly it's weird to already imagine that, but she doesn't quite make it to form the giggle.
"I kind of want to go back home when I graduate." There's something sad and reflective about how he says it, like he feels the distance of continents between them when there are none, so Amelia plasters a smile and thinks of some nameless country with nameless history and thinks of how she could learn to call something other than her familiar farm, her familiar language, and mannerisms, the culture that she's been immersed in her whole life, home.
It's kind of silly to want to give up her whole life for a stranger, but she leans forward to grab his hand and reassure him; it doesn't matter if she forgets to eat as she speaks with him or if her food goes cold or whether she spends all of her lunch break here with him.
There's just something about Toris that drags her in, and she can't even think to scream or deny its influence.
When she sees him again, it's between classes on a Wednesday, not a Monday anymore; it's been weeks, but his green eyes call to her like the forest behind her house called for her to hide in a playful game.
She steps closer, "Toris, hey, Toris!" It's a far cry from the last time that she called out to him; it's much more casual and spoken in a louder volume that somehow suits the more distant outside.
His eyes flicker in surprise, and he steps closer to her as if pulled by a string to the sound of her voice.
"Amelia," He breathes, and she doesn't question how either of them remember each other's name past a once in passing meeting, she figures that a part of each of them was left to float around that small table in the somewhat crowded restaurant, caught in the air if either one of them wanted to grab hold.
"So I'm on my way to French, see?" Amelia leans toward him smiling, "I'm nowhere near fluent but curious."
"You ever thought about learning Lithuanian?" He asks her, slightly off topic, and then Amelia's mind jumps quick to focus on it.
"Yeah," She murmurs even though she didn't even consider it before today, right now.
The American smiles a beaming smile as Toris walks her through basic introduction; a part of her jumps to her throat and refuses to leave then.
They exchange numbers that day under the excuse of wanting to teach Amelia more Lithuanian.
She loves how his accent comes together in focus whenever he speaks Lithuanian and the gentle way that he corrects her slip ups.
Amelia isn't all that surprised when she flunks her French class later on; she didn't really study it as much as she focused on Lithuanian.
She'll pretend that there was some better reason if her parents ask her, and may be she'll take German later, because Lithuanian is not taught at her school.
There's something about the night sky outside of the windows and the twinkling stars that bid her to sleep as she cuddles near Toris, studying long since being dulled far away from her mind.
He helps her study for all of her classes now and apologizes for the millionth time over her failing French though she's always quick to reassure him, a million and one times more, that she prefers Lithuanian anyway.
Amelia's mind isn't good at languages, half the time she talks in slangs or old mannerisms ingrained in her after years of learning them and handling them, and at that moment, she gives up on learning to teach English, decides that may be there is a different class that she can teach.
She sleeps on Toris's dorm room floor as if it were a bed and Toris, her pillow, and his roommate doesn't say too much, just moves away from them to let the two doze, caught up in dreams that only they know.
Amelia doesn't remember what she dreamed of that night, just that she slept better than ever; she tells her parents that she fell asleep at the library with her friend studying, because she has no idea how to explain who Toris is and is unsure of how they'd react to her falling asleep in someone's dorm room though it was innocent and on the floor regardless.
They let her claim some independence, because she's growing up and drives to school and usually drives back home; they look forward to her bright smiles when someone texts her and her thoughtful look like she's pulling something from the reserve in her brain to say that it unfamiliar to her.
She always smiles the brightest when she gets it right.
Amelia has no idea when Toris kisses her, just that he had already graduated but stayed local, and that she's on her third year at the university; he lets her study at his apartment and helps her sort out her confusion.
He's smart, and she's so thankful for him though now her mind flutters away like butterfly wings under the thin pressure of his lips.
It feels like coming home, like two years of friendship added up, and it feels like so much more; her heart beats hard in her chest, and she presses closer.
She's unsure where anything will quite take her from here on out, but she's half positive that she'll follow him to the ends of the world just to remain by his side that feels like home, feels like tall, corn stalks that hide small bodies from sight, feels like laughter dancing off of the trees in her backyard.
Amelia has no idea how he came to feel like her home that he's never lived, never played as a kid there, and she realizes that she wants to bring him home to meet her parents soon, because they need to know of the incredible man that makes her smile and laugh and learn.
She figures that he's a better teacher than she ever was though she knows that if she says that, he'll correct her with a gentle smile, because even though she hasn't graduated, doesn't have a room in a school yet, whenever she teaches, he listens and talks of this bright, positive energy that she releases into the air that makes everyone lean closer and want to learn even he tells her when she jokes of her corny jokes, her jokes added something to each lesson.
Amelia loves her little home that raised her, she loves teaching, she loves Lithuanian, and she loves her boyfriend even if they never used the word that sounds almost cliche compared to the home that he radiates from his chest, from his heart, and to her very being.
Toris is home though neither she nor he lived in the other's home, neither of them had a home together either, but he was all of the extra bundle of home that she could ever want.
So she smiled when she adjusted his coat over his shoulders and brought him to meet her parents, and she smiled when they accepted him graciously into her family.