State of Grace | ONGOING

Chapter 4

My roommates and I started our senior year of college with blueberry pancakes and about a hundred photos on our front porch. We laughed and elbowed each other, carefully posing in an attempt to look as carefree as possible. It was an art form, and a complicated one at that, but as Sunny reminded us, it was our last first day of school, and we all knew we wanted to be able to look back at these photos together.

I stood on the top step with Anna, our arms around each other, leaning over Sunny and Simi, with Billie in the middle at the bottom. We were all dressed far better than we would be in a few weeks when sweat pants and hoodies would become our study uniforms. I was in a cream coloured button up and light jeans, my long blonde hair pulled out of my face with a clip, but the longer we stood outside and posed, the more I longed to be in a sweater set, or better yet, pajamas.

"Sunny, you're literally blocking my whole face," Anna scolded, pushing Sunny's head down lightly.

Sunny grinned and looked over her shoulder at the redhead and said, "I'm doing us all a favor." Anna swatted at Sunny playfully, and the two of them dissolved into giggles.

I took this moment of distraction to sit down and discreetly check my phone. After chewing Bo out for half an hour for not locking the door on Friday, I'd avoided him for the rest of the party and after leaving early - around midnight - I'd ignored his few texts since then. He seemed to have gotten the hint a little too well. He knew that I was best left alone when I was upset, even though pushing people away was one of my worst traits. He let me have space, though, which I appreciated. Even though it only served to piss me off more that I had texted him when I woke up to remind him that he'd promised to come and take these first day of school photos and he hadn't responded yet, nor had he shown up, obviously.

"Nothing?" Simi asked from in front of me, sitting on the steps at my feet since we clearly weren't getting any photos taken while Sunny and Anna argued about their positions.

"Nope, rien du tout," I sighed.

After the humiliation of my Friday night, and having to explain the whole situation to my roommates the next morning over a greasy, hangover brunch and recap session, I had never been so grateful for the distraction of classes starting. Sunny was still teasing me about it. Every time she walked into my room she knocked dramatically and covered her eyes, proclaiming that she was coming in. So maybe some time away from my friends, losing myself in schoolwork, it wouldn't be the worst idea. We'd done everything together for the last two weeks, so it was more than enough time to make me a little sick of them.

"I think this is going to be a good year," I told Simi. "This is our year," I declared.

"Heck yeah," Simi cheered, and we both dissolved into giggles.

"Are we going to finish taking these photos? Some of us have got to leave for class in five minutes," Billie reminded us, and Anna and Sunny finally switched spots, my best friend standing on the top step with me. We posed again as the tripod Billie had set up for us played the duty my boyfriend should have been playing, dotingly taking photos of us.

It took us the full five minutes to get the last of our photos. This, of course, meant that we were going to be late for class. Billie and I each grabbed an extra blueberry pancake to go, carefully wrapped in paper towels, and half-jogged to campus.

The weather was perfect, the sky overhead was bright blue as Billie and I parted ways on campus. She headed towards the fine arts building and her studio class, and I raced towards the massive business building for my first class of the term, and my only business course. As a biology major it was odd enough that I was taking botany as my specialization, but none of my science classmates understood why I was taking business as a minor when they were all studying to be doctors or cure cancer.