Chapter Four
Tabitha
“BRING ON THE PARTIES!” BETH shouts out of the truck window as we head down the street leading to our new dorm.
“Shhh! My parents are behind us.” I’m trying not to laugh, but I’m just as excited as she is, but I also don’t want a half-hour lecture from my parents on what being an adult actually means, again.
“Dude, chill out. My dad is right behind them. I doubt they can even hear me, anyway.” Beth reaches over to turn the dial that raises the volume to the song playing on the stereo. She belts out a few lines before looking back over at me. “I thought you hated country music?”
“I don’t hate all country music.” Which is true, but the real reason I haven’t changed the radio station, because Mathew put it there. I’m not ready to change it just yet.
Beth won’t dig any further, because she already knows why it was set to this station before she even asked. She keeps offering to talk about Mathew leaving for the past couple days but isn’t pushing too hard. She’s hoping that if I talk about it now, I can get it all out of my system so we can start becoming rowdy college roommates together. She’s been getting pretty creative in trying to pull it out of me, but I’m just as stubborn as she is. I’ll talk about it when I’m ready. It’s not going to affect my time with her.
I’m not a dramatic person by nature. Yes, I get sad like everyone else, but I know how to live my life despite that fact I’m upset. I’m a functional sad person. I’ve gotten over the initial heartbreak of him leaving. I’m still sad, but I’m not depressed about it, because I know it isn’t forever. It still sucks that we have to spend a year apart, and a little disappointing that we didn’t get to follow our original plan, but we’ll have forever to look forward to. It’s only been three days since he left, so everyone is still treating me with kid gloves, like I’m made of glass. It’s a little irritating but not awful. They aren’t expecting me to get over it right away, and for that I’m truly grateful.
I’m choosing to not let Mathew’s deployment destroy my first year of college. It wouldn’t be fair to him, or myself, if I did. It wouldn’t be fair to do that to our friends either. It might actually be a good thing, because I’ll be able to focus more on school. I’ll study hard and get through school as fast as I can, so that when it’s Mathew’s turn, I can support us until we can do it together. I’m sure he’s going to hate that, and I smile every time I think about it. He thinks he’s going to spend our lives taking care of us, but I intend to contribute just as much as he does.
“Hey! Did you hear what I just said?” Beth interrupts.
“Sorry, I was thinking about something.”
She gives me a supportive smile bordering on pity, but I choose not to let it bother me.
Not even a minute later, she starts channeling her inner six-year-old and bounces up and down excitedly in her seat. “Oh my God! There it is!” She points to the four-story stone building sitting at the end of the street, which will be our home for the next year. It looks more like an office building than it does a home, but I’m sure the college was more concerned about housing a large amount of students instead of curb appeal.
Beth is jumping all over the place and talking about a mile a minute. I giggle and fidget too, because her excitement is contagious. Pulling the truck over to the curb in front of the front entrance to the building, I shift into park and turn the engine off. Beth is out of the truck before it even stops and runs up the front steps to the dorms. My parents and Sheriff Kane park their vehicles behind me and get out. Beth’s dad, Hank, joins my dad in unloading our stuff from all the vehicles.
“Did she at least wait until the truck was fully stopped before she jumped out?” her dad asks, already knowing the answer and chuckling at the ‘what do you think’ look I flash him.
“Do you think it’s really safe leaving these two here alone, completely unsupervised?” my dad jokes, as he drapes his arm around my shoulders.
I roll my eyes and jab him playfully in the stomach with my elbow. He feigns like I’ve injured him. I toss him another eye roll but end it with a smile, then reach up to kiss him on the cheek.
“We’ll be fine, Daddy, I’m an excellent influence.” I flutter my eyelashes for effect. “We won’t get tattoos or pierce anything for at least a week,” I tease.
“Oh, good Lord.” Hank grips his chest and points his eyes to the clouds. “Maybe we should have invested in a nanny cam, or actual nannies.”
Dad slaps a hand on his shoulder. “How ’bout we get this stuff up to their room and get them settled. We can take our perfect little angels out to dinner after. I’m about to starve to death already.”
“We ate less than an hour ago.” I remind him, as I grab a box from the back of my truck and walk with them to the front entrance.
“Traveling makes my metabolism work faster,” Dad jokes.
“Monroe is only thirty minutes away, Dad.” I laugh in disbelief while shaking my head.
We make it to the front doors just as Beth comes skipping down the stairs. She looks around at our fathers laughing at their own lame jokes that they are now quietly keeping between themselves. “What did I miss?” she asks slyly.
“Just our dads trying to be cool.”
“Oh God, did anyone see?” She looks genuinely terrified as she darts her eyes around, looking for innocent bystanders. It’s cute how this is the type of thing that worries her.
“Lead the way, girls,” Mom finally urges. “The quicker we get your new room set up, the quicker we can spend the rest of the day together. We better hurry if we expect these two knuckleheads to carry everything up.” My mom laces her arm in Beth’s, and the three of us walk into the building.
It only takes us about forty-five minutes to bring up all our things to our room, and another thirty-five minutes to set everything up inside the room. My mom makes our beds, while Beth and I set up our shelves and desks. Hank and Dad disappear as soon all of the boxes are carried up. We’re too busy setting everything up, so we don’t even notice when they slip out.
We’re just finishing up getting all our clothes put away in the closets when Beth gasps loudly. Mom and I halt what we’re doing to look over at her to make sure she’s okay.
“Oh my God. Where are our dads?”
I shove the clothes I’m holding into my mom’s arms with the other clothes she’s holding and step toward Beth at the door. Mom places the clothes neatly on one of the beds.
“Now, girls, I don’t think there’s anything to worry—” she’s quickly cut off when the sound of men’s cheers come from way down the hall.
We all share a look and rush out the door to investigate what caused all the cheers. Beth looks terrified, and it’s comical enough that I’m more amused than worried about what we may find. We rush down the hall until we get to the very end where the floor’s common room is located.
We walk into the room to find Dad standing in the corner of the room, a soda in hand, surrounded by a group of kids around Beth’s and my age, telling a story as everyone around him is laughing so hard there are tears in their eyes. Hank is standing at one end of a ping-pong table set up with cups on each end. He tosses the little ball and it lands perfectly in a cup on the other end. The room cheers again.
“Dude never misses!” a tall, skinny guy with shaggy blond hair says.
“That’s so hot!” a redhead whispers in awe beside him.
This makes me laugh, and it happens to be the thing to break Beth out of her whimpering state of complete shock that she’s been locked in since we entered the common room. She flashes a glare in Red’s direction.
“It’s the furthest thing from hot,” she bites out and then stomps over to her dad at the ping-pong table. She sends a scary-faced look at the guy standing across her dad, and the guy instantly drops the ball he’s about to toss. She returns her focus on Hank and wraps her arms around his, dragging him toward the exit. “Daddy! How could you?” she whispers loudly as Hank tosses a wink over in Mom’s and my direction. We both laugh after Beth has fully left the room with her dad.
I got over being embarrassed by my parents two years earlier, but I doubt Beth ever will. Bethany Kane is the very definition of a drama queen. It’s part of her charm.
Mom walks over to Dad a minute later. She hooks her arm in his. “Sorry, ladies, this one is taken,” she jokes before dragging him over toward me.
I lace my arms through his other arm, and the three of us made our way back down the hall toward Beth and my room. We can hear her still lecturing her dad about being embarrassing at our new school, three doors away.
Dad chuckles. “Whoever ends up with that one is gonna have his hands full.”
I swat my dad on the stomach playfully. My mom tells him he’s not funny, while awarding him a smile that tells him the exact opposite. He leans down and plants a kiss on her lips, and I take it as my cue to walk on ahead. My parents may not embarrass me anymore, but nobody ever really wants to see their parents making out in the hallway where their dorm room is located.
I walk slowly in the room and try to stay quiet and out of the way as to not risk receiving a dose of Beth’s wrath. When Mom and Dad walk in five minutes later, Beth is still telling off her father.
“Now give this old man a break, sweetheart. He was just trying to relive the good old days where he was the cock of the flock,” my dad teases while slapping Hank on the back.
“Was?” Hank gasps. “I still got it, old man! The ladies are banging down my door for a chance to grease these old pipes.” He rubs his hands down his chest proudly.
“Gross, just…gross!” Beth tosses her hands up in the air to signal her surrender. “Let’s just go get something to eat before I lose my appetite completely.” She storms out of the room, shaking her head without saying another word.
“You two need to stop teasing the poor girl,” my mother scolds with another one of those smiles that gives her amusement of the situation completely away.
“But it’s so easy getting a rise out of her,” my dad jests.
“We better get headed down before my Bethy stomps back up here and skins us all.” Hank walks over and drapes him arm across my shoulders, pulling me into a strong hug at his side. “Come on, girl, let’s go get something to eat.” He pets his stomach like it’s an old friend.
We head downstairs and eat at a nice restaurant nearby. Beth gets over the whole common room incident, and our parents lecture us about being safe and calling home frequently. We finish and exit. My mom cries when they drop us off, which causes me to cry a little bit, and then they drive off, leaving Beth and me standing on the sidewalk.
We wave at their vehicles until their taillights can no longer be seen, then Beth turns to me with an excited grin on her face. “Bring on the parties?” she whispers with her smile growing bigger than I’ve ever seen.
I laugh and head into the building, shaking my head. This year is definitely going to be an interesting adventure. Maybe they’re all right in saying it’ll be over before we know it, because isn’t time supposed to fly when you’re having fun? I have a feeling that having Beth as a roommate is going to be exactly what I need while Mathew is away.