The Twilight Twenty-Five
Prompt: Alone
Pen name: LightStarDusting
Character POV: Bella
Rating: M

Chapter 3 – Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
1999

So, there I was: my first week of college and my first week away from the only place I've ever known as home.

Not only was I away from all the familiar comforts of home but I was sharing a 15x15 box with Lucy. To call it a room would imply a level of hominess or comfort it just didn't have. The metal bed frames, the huge white generic wardrobes, the sprinkler heads that hung from the ceilings, and the plain eggshell white walls. The situation was as about as opposite of home as you could get, especially for an only child who had never shared her room with a sibling. Let alone with someone like… Lucy.

To put it succinctly, Lucy was, is, and always will be a fucking nutjob.

My dad met her while I was moving in and described her as a "character." Then again, he still calls me a "character," so I guess that's not really saying much. She was colorful and quirky and not at all what I expected when I filled out that little questionnaire during orientation.

Lucy and I were two very opposite people. I couldn't help but wonder if the Residence Life people had since re-evaluated their match-making methodology. Perhaps they should consider hiring those match dot com people to help them craft a new survey, one that asks about more than the three S's (smoking, sleeping, studying). Maybe if they used some of the other letters in the alphabet, they'd get a better profile. I thought about going to the RA to fill out one of those suggestion cards they were waving around during our first hall meeting.

I would never try to switch roommates because it wasn't my nature to rock the boat, and I could tell from the get-go that it would be an experience like no other. And it was. As it turned out, she and I continued to room together for another two years. That first week, if someone had told me that I'd come to love and depend on Lucy, I wouldn't have believed them. Yet she was oddly just what I needed to get through some of those crazy times in college.

My dear roommate did all of the exact opposite things we had marked down on the questionnaire. Residence Life didn't have an issue matching us up with those three questions, but Lucy didn't exactly answer truthfully when she gave her answers. She wasn't able to attend orientation because her summer was spent on a graduation trip around Europe. That's where she picked up the smoking habit, unbeknownst to her parents.

Her parents were sitting next to her while she filled out the questionnaire at home. Not wanting them to know her new habits, she did what she had to do – she lied. Of course, she hadn't look at it as lying, exactly. She told me that she had plans to follow through with her answers and she knew her trusty roommate (me) would help her. Lucy had great faith in someone she had never met before.

She apologized to me as she flitted around the room on check-in day. Lucy always apologized, she still does. She apologized for taking the bed closer to the door. She even apologized for using the microwave one day, the microwave that she had brought to the room. I played along and reassured her because at the time, I thought that's what a roommate was supposed to do in these situations. I didn't know for sure since I had never been a roommate before so I was just making it up as I went along. I figured apologizing was a nervous habit for her, so I automatically told her things were okay to settle her down, even if they weren't really okay at all. I learned that playing along got old very quickly, and once I had came to that realization, Lucy and I were both a lot better off.

Despite her craziness and our many differences, most of the time I actually enjoyed her. I wouldn't have thought I would, but I did. She was sweet and sat with me while I shed a tear about being homesick and missing my dad, and didn't tell anyone else on the floor about my little breakdown.

She laid down next to me as I curled on my bed in the fetal position and told me that while she loved traveling in Europe over the summer, she cried often because she missed her sense of normalcy and didn't have anyone to lean on. Then she told me that she'd be that person for me, if I would let her be. At the time, I didn't know how much I'd come to lean on her but I thought that the offer spoke volumes about her character. Everything was changing so quickly and knowing that there was someone there, someone on my side, was a comfort.

I truly don't think Lucy had a mean bone in her body, which made up for her strange ways. Through the years, and even very early on, I'd come to the conclusion that small doses of Lucy were best when it came to my interactions with her. The floor mates seemed to love her. While she was crazy and could drive me crazy, she was also sweet and understanding. Her copious amounts of energy made my head spin at times. She never even needed to drink coffee. It made absolutely no sense to me.

One of the first nights of school, she and the other floor mates talked me into going out to a fraternity party. Prior to going out, we were getting ready in our room. Well, to put it more accurately, she was getting ready. I was already ready. The music was blaring loudly. Lucy explained that this was part of the whole getting ready process. Some pop-tart singer was warbling about her baby hitting her one more time. Sounds like domestic abuse to me. We all saw what went down with Britney a few years later.

She was transferring things from one purse to another. A purse at a fraternity party didn't seem wise to me. Not to mention the heels she had slipped on her feet.

We were going to our first college fraternity party and she was wearing heels. While our school was many things, it wasn't even close to pretentious. The party was going to take place in some dingy basement with too low ceilings and discarded beer sloshing around the floor. I knew the heels would be a hindrance and I had visions of Lucy giving herself a concussion by smacking her head on a wooden beam. She was already tall and with the additional four inches, she would tower over most of the men in attendance. My darling roommate seriously looked like she was going to a dinner party where the tables were adorned with white table clothes.

I was pretty sure the only tables we'd be seeing in the fraternity houses would be beer pong tables. Not that I've ever played beer pong, but you hear stories and watch those "no longer in high school, now we're in college" movies. When I questioned Lucy on the heels she reassured me that these were her old heels. She even offered up another pair of her old heels for me to borrow. I politely declined.

Let's review: Heels, purse, and an amazing outfit, all of which were totally inappropriate for a fraternity basement. Oh Lucy.

Our floor mate, Makenna, busted into our room, nearly hitting me with the door in the process. She had a bottle of Pucker hidden in her sweater and we all did shots while she told us the "game plan." Her older sister had graduated from our esteemed college the previous May. Therefore, she was the leading expert as to the best parties to attend the first week of school. She rambled on for a bit about which house we were going to and the boys there. Lucy sat next to me, giving me excited glances and bouncing on the thin mattress.

They rambled to each other about the boys they noticed on campus and the nicknames they had for each: Nature Boy, Granola Boy, Cute Boy. Aren't you supposed to get smarter at college? I was surprised that they didn't have a photo flip book with pictures. I had this crazy thought in my head of them pulling out this thick book of pictures, all marked up with given names, nicknames, phone extensions and room numbers.

Pucker? Really? I took a swig straight from the bottle, wishing it was something stronger. If I willed it to be so, maybe it would happen? Not that I was a huge drinker but even I knew Pucker was glorified Hawaiian Punch.

Okay, so I wasn't exactly enthused about the whole situation. How did I get roped into going to the party with Lucy, Makenna and the gaggle of floor mates? Well, I guess it was because I knew that's what you're supposed to do in college. My thinking at the time was that I might as well get out there and be social. Plus, Lucy was a force to be reckoned with and would not take no for an answer. She said it was important to blow off some steam. I'm not sure how much steam one could build up in the first week of college but I played along.

We walked in a tightly formed pack to the off-campus houses of Fraternity Row. I was surrounded by the chatter of my floor mates and random clicking of heels on the pavement. There was the occasional squeal of one of the girls as she turned her heel. Which is another reason why, at the time, you wouldn't ever catch me in heels: either I'd be smacking my head on rafters or twisting my ankle. Little did I know that a few years later, they would be my most worn footwear. Not the most preferred footwear but still, the most worn now being in the "real world." I'd still take flats any day of the week. Makenna led our group past the dive bar on the corner and a few blocks down to the house that was our destination.

The house looked fairly innocuous from the street. A few people milled around, but otherwise it was quiet and we wondered if we had the right place. We started walking up to the front porch when one of the guys sitting there hitched his thumb over his shoulder and motioned for us to walk around to the outside basement steps. After showing our keys to on-campus rooms and promising we weren't planning on driving anywhere that night, we were all given empty red SOLO cups. Thankfully, we didn't have to pay for our cups since it was the start of school and the fraternities were using their marketing skills to pull in their "customers" for the upcoming school year.

The basement door swung open and loud music poured out. I could see it was packed to the gills with college students. Hanging toward the back of the crowd, I watched some floor mates teetering preciously down the steep steps in their heels. I grabbed Lucy's arm and assisted her while we nervously giggled together. I threw a silent prayer up to whoever was listening that she not wipe out and take me along with her. She barely had anything to drink (I said it then and it bears repeating, Pucker didn't count as drinking) and the steps were a challenge. Thankfully we made it down without incident. We all drank the piss warm beer from the keg and sang along to the music as the beer loosened our vocal cords and inhibitions. The beer wasn't fantastic but the brothers had also made a concoction they called "Jungle Juice" which was purple and all sorts of delicious. I had my fair share of it and then some. And then some more. Before I knew it, I too, was belting out Britney with the best of them.

One minute Lucy and I were attempting to have a drunken conversation with each other about who loved whom more and the next minute this guy had his tongue shoved down her throat. The details of the night were hazy from the outset due to the alcohol; time has only made that worse, but it was forever tattooed on my brain that Lucy's combination of heels, makeup and clothing were some powerful mojo. Perhaps Lucy knew something I did not.

I stood next to them for a moment, staring into the nearly empty cup of Jungle Juice and thinking about what I should do. Should I wait and see if Lucy was going to come up for air? Should I look for the other girls from the floor that had seamlessly blended into the crowd around us? I looked around and saw no one I could connect with. Once again, I was surrounded by people, yet alone.

So I did what any other drunk and stupid first year college student would do; I stumbled up the stairs by myself and made my way back to our dorm. One of the fraternity brothers offered to walk me home, but I knew better than that. What if he tried taking advantage instead of coming to my rescue? I wasn't falling for that.

I waved him off and somehow made my way to campus while clutching my keychain-sized pepper spray in my hand. I'm not sure I would have had even the wherewithal to use it, but it was my security blanket in my drunken state. I might have even randomly shouted out: "I have pepper spray and I'm not afraid to use it," at squirrels rustling in nearby bushes. Thankfully, I made it back to my dorm without getting mugged, raped, kidnapped, killed, or otherwise assaulted by said squirrels and any other baddies that might have been skulking about the streets.

Well, I eventually made it back to my building. The one that I visited first wasn't mine, exactly, but the one next to it. The one that was completely identical in appearance. You know that the architects had a good chuckle over the possibility of that happening when they were built. In fact, I'm pretty sure I saw a few upperclassmen sitting in the courtyard just waiting to watch people do just that.

Once I finally figured out why the key was not working in the door, I sheepishly made my way back to the right dorm. I know, I know – not one of my finer moments. But my thoughts didn't have time to linger on my stupidity as I fell into my bed and promptly passed out, alone and safe in my room at last. Well, at least I was alone for that part.

A/N - You still with me? No Jasper in this chapter but no worries, he'll be around soon. Couldn't have him around for the alone prompt! ;)

KrisBCullen is my beta love and braves the winter storm with me (is it spring yet?).

ElleCC and Miztrezboo pre-read and rock my world.
TheHeartofLife and LoreliD are my loves who take care of me from across the country.

Thank you so much to those who have left me reviews, favorited, and alerted this story. I squeal every single time I get an email telling me so (no joke - my family thinks I'm nuts!).

Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly... - The Beatles

Please let me know what you thought. :) I'll squeal and scare my family once more.