Chapter 6: Moving Out and On
Prom and After-Prom were the last two major events of Ell and Sirius' high school career. Ell and Sirius were both re-hired and went back to Grape Cake to work. Since they were both legal adults, and no longer had school obligations, Sirius and Ell both worked longer hours, and had less personal time for them. Also, Ell was injured at work, and was forced to remain on light duty for a few weeks while her ankle healed. Throughout the whole time she was "off her feet", Sirius took care of her.
As preparation for college was beginning, both Sirius and Ell were preparing to move away from home, while working and spending whatever time they had left together. An amazing opportunity arose for Ell, and she did not want to miss out. Crater Joint the bigger sister park to Grape Cake needed some employees from Grape Cake to come work there. Since Grape Cake was closing early for the season, and Ell always wanted to work at Crater Joint, she talked to her manager, and applied to Crater Joint.
Sirius was headed off to Crate State University in Crate, Ohio, while Ell was headed off to the other side of the state to Flowing Stream State University in Flowing Stream, Ohio. Jean-Sean Contour went to school about 15 minutes away from Ell in Tomato, Ohio, at the University of Tomato. Ell started college while she still worked at Grape Cake.
Ell left for college before everything was finalized for Crater Joint, and while Ell was away at college, she was injured playing Ultimate Frisbee with the ROTC program. Ells' knee suffered a pretty hard blow, and she believed she was out of the running for Crater Joint. She wanted to be a rides person again, but with having to be off her knee, that was out of the question. She also applied to be a Halloween scarer, but that required her to be on her feet as well. Her last and final option was to become an Admissions person. Since they desperately needed Admissions people at Crater Joint, Ell finally accomplished her dream of working at Crater Joint. On the weekends Ell worked at Crater Joint, and during the week she went to college.
Ell was having a real tough time transitioning from home life to college life. College was pretty awesome, Ell had her own room, was able to make her own rules, but somehow she felt something was missing. On her first day at Crater Joint, Ell met a guy who was a little standoffish, and did not really look like he wanted to talk to anyone. Ell tried to get some words out of him, but he only told her where he was from, his name, and his age. Drake Highwater, 20, Tomato. By the second weekend, Drake and Ell had become the best of friends, so close in fact that their supervisors believed that they were dating. As Drake and Ell became even closer, to prevent other misconceptions, the decided to call each other brother and sister. They became twins, inseparable, working together, hanging out together, driving to work together, even living together in Tomato, at the Crater Joint Dorms, and even at Ells' dorm in Flowing Stream.
As Crater Joints season ended, Ell became more home sick, missing Sirius more than she had ever, and missing all her friends at home. There was a week where Sirius, no matter what he was doing made a point to call and see how Ell was doing. Ell felt that no one cared about her except for Sirius. Whenever she asked Momma Oranik for help, something came up, and Poppa Oranik was at work. Drake was also there to help Ell out, but as he had never been in college, Ell did not think he could help her all that much. Slowly but surely the semester came to a close for college, and Ell was packing things up, and heading back home. During the middle of the semester, Ell had decided that things just would not work out at Flowing Stream, and decided to transfer to the University of Ronkar. Sad that she would be leaving Drake, but knowing she would see him soon, she spent her last week at Flowing Stream hanging out with him in her dorm.
The last day being in Flowing Stream, was a day of mixed emotions for Ell. She was happy to be done with her first semester, sad she was leaving such a great place, sad she was leaving Drake, and angry she did not do better in some of her classes. The long grueling process of moving Ell out, took her mind off of anything that would have bothered her that day.
Christmas Break was finally here, Ell did not have to worry about school, work or anything of the sorts. She for once could actually enjoy her break, and a crazy one it would be. Ell and Sirius spent the whole break together, along with Sly, Peg, and Gwen. The break flew by, and soon it was time to head back to school. That did not stop Ell and Sirius from hanging out with each other. Ell met Slys' friend Opium Juan, as well as helping Sly hook him up with her best friend, Gwen. In January, Ell, Sirius, and Sly headed down to Cinnci for a Chili Poppers concert. Ell was doing really well in college, so was Sirius, Sly, Opium, and Gwen were in their last few semesters of high school, and life was getting really good. A few weeks went by before Ell and Sirius were at yet another concert. This time it was just Sirius and Ell, but Poppa Oranik drove both parties to and from the concert.
College, kept Ell and Sirius apart for a little over a month, but Ell was still available to hang out with Opium, Gwen, and Sly. Gwen and Opium had begun to go steady; Sly was a free spirit looking for someone he could date for a little while. All was becoming good in the world of Ell, except for the fact she had to rely on all her friends, and parents to go places.
College life became more intense, harder work, longer classes, more homework, Ell became burdened down with school, and nothing else. Social life had come to a near complete stop, and Ell was working on doing well in college. Eventually the driving became a burden on Mamma Oranik and thankfully Ell met up with some of her old high school friends and they offered Ell a place to stay on the days she needed to be up early in the morning. So every Thursday evening, Ell would stay at Dar and Lori's place to be up for ROTC the next morning. Sometimes she would go out and party for a while, but somehow was always able to be up and function the next morning. Eventually things slowed down for Ell and she was able to see Sirius. Then in April around the holiday time, Ell's grandfather passed away, once again luckily it was on a Thursday so Ell's friends were there to console her. Ell kept on going and finished the semester with a 2.867 grade point average. For the summer Ell had plans to leave and go work at Crater Joint.