Following You (The By You Series) (3 page)

Now, here they were--hundreds of miles from home and starting a new life together.

As Sarah made the final turn toward her dorm, she saw a line of students going into and out of the building. When she'd moved in a few days earlier, the place had been all but empty. She wondered if her roommate would be there yet?

Just a few weeks earlier, Sarah had received a packet in the mail from the University that detailed all of the information she needed for living on campus her freshman year. Included in the packet was a paper giving her a few details and contact information for her assigned roommate--a girl named Claudia. When she'd tried to look the girl up on Facebook she couldn't find her, and when they'd called the phone number they were given, the line was disconnected. Sarah was excited to finally meet the girl she would be living with for the next year. But mostly, she was excited to be starting a new part of her life.

Nothing was going to stand in her way.

The energy inside the dorm was just as vibrant as it was out on the campus. Guys and girls pushed their way through the narrow halls, parents trailing close behind. Sarah couldn't help but smile at the newness of it all. How many of those people were going to become her close friends? How many of them were going to be in her classes?

She'd heard all kinds of stories about college, and she'd seen all of the movies. Her dad had told her that the friends she made in college were going to be the friends she kept for the rest of her life. Were there any lifelong friends that were standing in front of her right now?

What stood out most, was the fact that everyone looked so different. It was like a melting pot, where people from all walks of life would be shoved together. It wasn't going to be anything like she was used to in Green Falls. The fact that she didn't know how her year was going to turn out, the fact that she was starting with a clean slate, was exhilarating. It was like she was being born again, and could make whatever she wanted of herself. She was fresh clay, waiting to be shaped.

The elevator chimed and released Sarah from the tiny, cramped space onto her floor. There were just as many people lining the narrow halls on the fourth floor as there had been on the first, and Sarah was beginning to get eager to retreat to the relative sanity of her room. There would be plenty of time to socialize and meet everyone, later.

As Sarah pushed her way through the crowds of people, making her way closer to the end of the hall where her room was, the excited feeling in her chest turned cold. The door to her room was cracked open, and the sound of thumping music came from within. She did a double take on the room number just to make sure she was at the right door--she was.

Sarah pushed the door with the tip of her finger, and it gave way. The music grew louder and Sarah was greeted with what just couldn't be
her
room. A black, latched crate with gold trim sat at the foot of the bed--that
definitely
wasn't hers--and boxes were piled in a scattered mess that hadn't been there when she'd left earlier that morning. She did a double take before her eyes believed what they were seeing. That was
her
bed beneath the piles of boxes and clutter.

Just like Huck's room, her room split in two parts with the door opening in the middle. Sarah had chosen the left side of the room when she'd arrived a few days earlier, and now her things were buried beneath stuff that didn't belong to her.

To the right of the door, Sarah saw what had been a barren and lifeless bed that morning now covered in a messy pile of sheets and clothes. The once-empty nightstand and dresser now had necklaces and rings scattered on them, the jewelry mostly silver with a few odd colors mixed in. A tiny stereo with an iPod plugged in sat on the nightstand, and was the source of the thumping rock and roll. The tiny speakers were much louder than they should have been.

"
Excuse me
."

Sarah jumped as someone grabbed her shoulder from behind. She whirled around to see the dark, accusing eyes of a girl who towered over her. Her dark, brown hair was pulled back into tight little knots on the back of her head, and her blue eyes were made even more piercing by the dark liner outlining them. She was bigger than Sarah and, judging by the smooth lines on her exposed shoulders, she was all muscle.

"Can I help you?" the girl said, giving her a cold stare.

"What are you doing in here?" Sarah said.

"This is my room, I'll come in here if I want."
 

"Are you Claudia?" Sarah asked.

"No, I'm Billie."

The girl didn't hesitate before answering, but there had been a tiny flicker in her eyes.

"I don't mean any offense," Sarah began. "But I think you've got the wrong room. No Billie lives here."

"Are you sure
you
don't have the wrong room, because this is my key, and that's my stuff." Billie pointed at everything.

"I think there's been some sort of misunderstanding. My name is Sarah Miller, and I'm assigned to this room, too. But, I was told my roommate's name was Claudia."

Billie looked her up and down. "
You're
Sarah?" Sarah nodded. "Oh. Well, why didn't you just say so?"

Billie shoved the door closed and began digging through the new boxes that had appeared in the room. Sarah stood there watching her, stunned and confused.

"You're not going to stand there all day, are you?" Billie asked when she looked up.

"I don't understand," Sarah said. "I'm supposed to be living with a girl named Claudia. No offense."
 

"I don't make the rules. I showed up, they told me this was my room and gave me a key, here I am."

"But what happened to Claudia?" Sarah asked, confused.

"Do I look like someone who cares what happened to Claudia?"

"It's just strange. Why would they change my roommate last minute?"

"Maybe she died."

Sarah gasped. "That's an awful thing to say."

"Why? Everybody dies."

Billie's voice was flat and emotionless. She didn't even bother to look up from her unpacking when she had the nerve to suggest that a girl might have died. Of course everybody died--Sarah knew that--but that didn't mean you could be so casual about it.

Sarah leaned against the edge of her bed, watching Billie as she continued unpacking her things. The girl looked like what she imagined a
Goth
might look like--not that they had any of those in Green Falls--but she was pretty, too.

"Did you get here this morning?" Sarah asked.

"Obviously," Billie said.

"You didn't move all of this stuff in here yourself, did you? Where are your parents?"

"What is this? Twenty Questions?"

"No, I'm just trying to get to know you," Sarah said.

"You're not going to be one of those needy roommates, are you? I can't handle the little puppy-dog types."

"I was just trying to be polite, you don't have to be a bitch about it."

Billie gave her a shocked look, but she didn't say anything back. The two women sized each other up. Sarah wasn't normally a nice person, but she wasn't going to let someone come in here and bully her.

Finally, Billie rolled her eyes and went back to shoving boxes around on her side of the room.

"Figures they'd stick me with some pop-loving hick," she said.

"I'm not a
hick
," Sarah said.

"Whatever," Billie said.

"And what makes you think I like pop music?"

Without looking, Billie pointed a finger at the far wall of the room. A poster hung there, signed by the band pictured on it.
The Believers
.

"I happen to be friends with that band," Sarah said. "And they're hardly considered pop."

"They're popular aren't they?" Billie said.

Sarah gave her a puzzled look. She supposed they
were
a pop band, technically, but Billie hadn't even noticed that Sarah was friends with them. Sarah was used to getting asked fifty questions anytime she mentioned that to anyone. But Billy didn't care.

Sarah decided it would be best just to mind her own business. She still had a lot of unpacking to do before her parents showed up, and it wasn't going to do itself. When she turned back to her bed, she reached for the first box on top--one that Billy must have put there when she moved in.

"
Don't touch my stuff!
"

Sarah jumped, surprised by the outburst. Billie rushed over and jerked the box away from her, giving her angry looks as she did.

"You don't see me going around grabbing your things, do you?"

Sarah gave her disbelieving look and pointed at her bed. "Your stuff is all over mine."

"I'm
sorry
, I didn't realize it would be such a big deal when I was moving everything in
by myself
." She hauled the box back to her side of the room and shoved it into the corner.

"It's not my fault that you don't have any friends to help you," Sarah said.

Billie looked at her, disgusted. "Who's being a bitch, now?"

Sarah was ready to scream in frustration. What the hell had she done to this girl to deserve this treatment?
 

Bang. Bang. Bang.

The door shook with the loud knocks. The sound echoed over the music, and the girls both looked at each other. Neither of them moved.

"I'm not getting it, you're apparently Little Miss Popular," Billie said.

Sarah shook her head--the girl was impossible. She'd never met someone so rude and contemptuous. But, when Sarah opened the door, she found something even more shocking.

"Surprise!" yelled the woman in the doorway. A short, round man stood next to her.

"Mom...Dad... You're early."

Sarah stared at her parents in shocked horror. What were they doing there? They weren't supposed to be back in town until late in the afternoon.

"Are you going to let us in?" Mom asked.

"Sorry, yeah." Sarah stepped back and held the door open for them. Her dad trailed behind her mom when they came in, a brown box in his arms. "I thought we'd unloaded all of the boxes?"

"It's some things from your Aunt Georgette," her mom chimed in before her dad could answer. "She wouldn't even tell us what was in it. Oh, hello. Who do we have here?"

Sarah winced when her mom saw Billie for the first time. The girl had gone back to rummaging through her things, not really unpacking anything, and not really organizing anything.

"This is my roommate, Billie," Sarah said. "She just got here."

"I've been here all morning," Billie said.

"Billie? What happened to Claudia?"

"We were trying to figure that out," Sarah said.

"
You
were trying to figure that out," Billie said.

"Right," Sarah said, curtly. Did she have to add her thoughts to everything? "Anyway... Billie is my roommate, now."

A big smile spread across her mom's face. "Well, it's nice to meet you, Billie. I'm Sarah's mother, Denise, and this is her father, Larry."

Billie didn't even look up when Sarah's mom introduced herself. Both her mom and dad gave each other uncertain looks, not sure what to do.

"So are you from around here, Billie?" Sarah's mom asked. She must have thought Billie hadn't heard her the first time.

"That's it!" Billie shouted, shoving away the box in front of her. "I don't do the
family thing
."

She grabbed a leather jacket from the edge of the bed and rushed past them and out of the room. Sarah stared at the empty doorway, confused and embarrassed.

"It's going to be a long semester," she said.

"She's a gem," her mom said, and they all let out a nervous laugh.

Sarah shook her head. "You guys didn't see the half of it. She's just so...infuriating." She waved a hand around the room. "And this mess..."

"Really, dear. Have you unpacked
anything
since we left?" Her mom looked around, concerned.

"I know, I know. I've been helping Huck get settled into his dorm. You weren't supposed to be here until the afternoon--I was going to have everything put away."

"There's only so much of your Aunt Georgette one can handle," Dad said. Sarah gave him a knowing smile. "How's Huck doing, by the way? Is he excited about the year?"

"Yeah--he can't wait for classes to start."

The smile on her dad's face was positively glowing, and Sarah was pretty sure she knew what he was thinking. She'd grown up her whole life with stories of his glory years at the University of Texas. He had always wanted her to become a Longhorn, too. But, he seemed pretty content with her being a Bulldog.

"Well, don't let us stop you," Mom said, giving one more glance around the room. "We just wanted to drop the box off and say hi." Sarah was relieved they weren't going to stick around. "We want to take you and Huck to dinner tonight before we head home. Is he around?"

"I'm sure he'd like that," Sarah grinned.

"Great. Why don't you two meet us at the hotel at seven?"

Sarah agreed, and they said their goodbyes. When she was finally alone, she blew out a hard breath and looked around the room. The place was in utter chaos and she wondered how she was ever going to get it all cleaned up. Her eyes fell on the little, brown box her father had brought in. A bright orange sticker on the side read
Caution: Breakable
, and Sarah was overcome with curiosity.

If there was any black sheep in the family, it was Aunt Georgette. She was the only one of Sarah's three aunts that didn't live in Green Falls. It wasn't that she lived far away--down near the coast, in Galveston--it was that she led a...less conservative lifestyle. When you come from a strict Catholic family, there are things that are frowned upon. And Aunt Georgette was never one for propriety.

Ripping open the packing tape on the top of the box, Sarah found a card addressed to her.

A little house-warming gift for your new home. Something no dorm should be without
.

When Sarah pulled out the packing paper, she couldn't believe what she found in the box. She smiled from ear to ear as she inspected the three bottles of liquor packed away in the box--Jack Daniels, Captain Morgan, and Smirnoff. Sarah was pretty certain she wasn't allowed to have alcohol on campus--but what could it hurt?