Chapter 5: Bella

On My Own

Two weeks later, Charlie was helping me move my stuff into my tiny little dorm room. We walked into the room and I looked around, it appeared that my roommate had already arrived and set up her side the way she wanted it. It was evident from about two glances over her things to realize that she and I did not have a lot in common. It seemed as thought everything she owned was pink, and way too girly. She had a giant poster of a dog inside of a giant pink shoe, wearing a big pink bow around its neck. Her bedding was pink, her towels were pink, even her laptop was pink. I rolled my eyes at Charlie, who shielded his eyes as if he was being blinded.

"I didn't know this much pink existed." He said to me, with a big smile on his face. Apparently he found my impending doom to be comical. I glared at him, "and just what is so funny?"

"It looks like you are going to have a lot of fun with your new roommate." He laughed again, louder, "you sure you want to do the dorm thing?"

I looked at him, "you know I need to do this to help me get the full college effect." I looked around at her princess tiara, her giant care bear stuffed animal and huge mound of shoes in the closet and groaned inwardly, "I wonder if anyone has ever actually died from too much pink."

Charlie dropped my stuff onto my bare bed, "I guess we will find out."

I smiled up at him, despite myself. We unloaded my truck and put my junk away. It was amazing how much more drab my side of the room looked in comparison to the princess', but yet I liked it so much more. This girl appeared to be Alice on steroids and I wasn't sure I would have the first clue on how deal with her.

When my roommate finally did show up, she was dressed from head to toe in designer shit; her shoes looked like they cost more than the entire year's tuition. But, to my utter amazement, she was not wearing even one stitch of pink. I looked her up and down, "you must be my roommate."

She walked toward me and put out her hand for me to shake, "hey there, girl, I'm Ashley."

"Nice to meet you." I lied.

She looked at me and then looked around to her side of the room, "I know what you must be thinking. You have to be thinking that I'm either the world's biggest priss or the youngest college freshman in the history of the world." She smiled at me, "my mom decorated my room as a surprise for me." She rolled her eyes dramatically, "personally I hate the color, but I couldn't tell her that. I figured I would wait until she had left to redecorate."

I let out a laugh, much more at ease than I had been, "oh thank God."

Ashley burst out laughing, "don't get me wrong, I like shoes and I enjoy designer clothes, but I'm pretty much just an average girl at heart."

"Well, I'm about as average as they come." I told her, opening my arms to show her how average I was. Average was a very good description of who I was. I wasn't a vampire's fiancé who had a werewolf for a best friend; I was just me….or at least that was what I wanted her to think. She didn't know I was a freak, not yet anyway.

I spent the next hour getting to know my roommate. After we had talked about everything there was to talk about (well, actually she did most of the talking) we decided to hit up the dining hall together. We sat on the end of a long table (meant for a lot more people) and ate cheeseburgers and French fries. Unfortunately the food was much like the food in high school….awful!

Two days later I started my classes. I decided to take a bunch of general education classes that semester, dabbling in as much as I could in order to find my place in the world. I decided to take world history, intro to literature, math 100, biology and I even signed up for a music appreciation class. I know….me. I had no musical background what so ever, which I think was why I chose to take this class. I needed something new in my life, something that might help me look at the world differently. I knew music meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people; maybe it could mean something to me.

My biology class had a lab with it that met on a separate day. I hated dissecting things, but I really enjoyed learning about living things, I always had. Considering my love for living things, I wonder why I had been so eager to add myself to the endangered species list. It was all very strange when you thought about it.

My music class ended up being very interesting. I learned a little bit about music theory; like how many beats certain notes got and what tempo was and such, but more importantly I learned how to listen to music and hear different elements within it. I learned to listen to a piece of music and hear more than just whether it sounded pretty or not. I never understood how complex a piece of music could actually be; I grew a much greater appreciation for musicians.

History was….well, it was history. Things never really changed in history. I mean, World War I always started in the same year, no matter what course you took. I think there was something safe to me about history, something concrete. Sure, there could be different interpretations about historical events, but the basic facts never changed and that was something comfortable to me. Maybe it explained a little bit about my fear of aging and changing.

There wasn't much to say about my literature class. I just really loved it. Reading has always been a huge part of my life, maybe the one thing I was really good at. I never tired of reading a great classic and analyzing the hidden meaning within the context. It was a great class and I knew after the first day that I would ace it without much effort.

Going to this school and taking these classes was important to me because I wanted to learn as much about everything as I possibly could. My classes were intellectually stimulating and accurately challenging. I grew intellectually and analytically through those classes. Unfortunately they did little to foster my development emotionally and spiritually. Unfortunately they didn't offer any classes like "to die or not to die 101" or "so you want to marry a vampire 100?" I guess things would never be that clear cut for me, but I knew the answers I was looking for were out there somewhere.

That's when I stumbled onto the debate team…literally. I was walking through the campus center, book in hand, barely paying any attention to where I was walking, and I tripped over some guy's big feet. I stumbled and fell, throwing my book about ten feet away, as my body landed on the floor, face first in front of a couch full of handsome guys. What the hell? Why did I always have to be so damn clumsy?

The guys looked at me in horror and amusement; they seemed as though they were debating whether they should laugh or not. One of the guys, who later introduced himself as Steven, helped me to my feet and fetched me my book. "Wow, Romeo and Juliet, that's some heavy reading."

I looked up at him, trying to figure out whether he was being serious or not, "you think so? I think it's rather light; it's kind of your typical teen love story. Guy and girl fall in love, but it was not allowed so they have to keep it hidden, then they sacrifice their own lives to be together for eternity." Before I had even finished the words I noticed the similarities between this classic story and my real life. That's strange.

The guy raised an eyebrow, "you think that's a typical teenage love story? I don't know what teenagers you know, but from where I'm from teenagers never get serious enough about anything to want to sacrifice their life for it. I mean, come on, kids change their minds more frequently than they change their underwear….trust me I know; I used to be a very dirty child."

I laughed at him, trying to think about what he was saying. Was he saying that Romeo and Juliet was improbable because teenagers could never get serious enough about another person to want to kill themselves to be together? Well, that couldn't possibly be true?

As I was thinking about the meaning behind his words another college boy (whose name turned out to be Travis) chimed in, "Please, I don't even think there is any value to this story. I mean, come on, what person would want someone to kill themselves so that they could be together for eternity? I mean if you truly loved someone you would want them to live, right? None of us know what eternity will be like, maybe people won't even get to be together the way they think they will, but killing yourself….that's just immature. If they both hadn't been so willing to axe themselves they would have survived and maybe they would have realized that they didn't really love each other as much as they thought they did. They probably would have grown up a bit and realized that the whole thing was merely just lust and infatuation and they could have moved on to someone who they could have a future with; someone who truly knew them and loved them for who they were on the inside."

I stood there, mouth hanging open, "so you don't think that they could really have loved each other?"

"Of course not. It was love at first sight. They didn't know anything about each other, just that they were attracted to each other. Attraction and lust isn't reason enough to go against your family and your friends. I could see if they had spent months and years getting to know each other maybe taking a risk in having family problems, but they barely knew each other at all."

Jordan stood up and joined the conversation, "and the things that used to be seen as romantic back in those days, people now look at as stalking. Watching a chick through her bedroom window and scaling the balcony to see her would get you arrested nowadays."

"But, what happens if he wanted to ensure her safety, because he was concerned for her?" I asked, truly interested in what the guys had to say.

"He was probably just trying to make sure she didn't have another man in her bed. You know how guys are, especially when they want to make a claim on a woman; they're always getting jealous and trying to make sure that another man doesn't move in on their chick."

My throat went dry, why did I feel such a connection to these characters? "Well, shouldn't he be concerned about another guy?"

"Of course he should be, but he should know better than to be obsessive about it. I mean, girls don't normally react well to over protective guys being all up in their grill. Also, if a guy really loved her he would trust her enough to make the right choice. Yes, he may be concerned, but he would know that the way to a woman's heart is through patience and understanding and giving her the space to sort herself out."

And that's when it happened; I finally was able to take a step back and look at my crazy, mixed up life with a bit more clarity. These guys made me want to scream back at them in argumentative fashion, but at the same time I wanted to learn more. I wanted to hear more about what these intellectuals thought about love and relationships. They say that girls learn how to have healthy relationships from their parents. How in the world would my parents have taught me anything valuable about marriage? Maybe I didn't really know as much about love as I thought I did.

I realized that I had a lot to learn and these guys could be the vessels through which life lessons could be taught. After discussing things with them in great detail, they invited me to become part of their debate team and I accepted. It would be interesting to debate moral dilemmas with them and learn about perspectives that differed from my own. It was a really enlightening experience.