I nod slowly. “Thank you for helping us.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it.” He gives me a quick side hug and goes into the hallway, looking over his shoulder at me. My room suddenly feels darker. I need to pick some flowers or hang posters on the wall or fish my cows out of the closet at home.

“You’re coming home Labor Day weekend, right?” Mom asks.

I nod. “I might come home before then though, you know, if I need to.”

“Call me anytime, okay?” Nick says. “Day or night. I’ll be here.”

“Thank you.”

My brother gives me a big hug. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Then it’s time to say good-bye to Mom. And that’s when I lose it. Tears streak down my face. It sucks that something so exciting is so sad. She embraces me and smooths my hair. She opens her mouth to speak, and I expect that she’ll say she loves me. That she’s proud of me. To go after my dreams. Or she’ll quote some “deep” line from that book everybody seemed to receive as a graduation gift, Oh the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss.

But she doesn’t.

A smile appears on her face. “Have fun.”

•••

My quiet lasts approximately half an hour.

And then the Vanessa-Kelsey-Iggy hurricane makes landfall. Squealing ensues. Parents are everywhere. Vanessa’s ridiculously hot brother, Ty, moves all her stuff in. He’s a 6'4'' NFL quarterback. The result is that girls we’ve never met are lined up outside our room to sneak a peek. He doesn’t seem to notice.

“Where do you want your TV?” he asks Vanessa.

“Over there?”

After he’s deposited the TV on top of her dresser, he looks out the window. “You’ve got a nice view of the quad,” he says.

“Thanks for giving me the window, Annie,” Vanessa says, smiling. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“That’s really nice of you,” Ty says with a grin that probably makes girls throw their panties at him.

Colton arrives, because he can’t seem to keep away from Kelsey to save his life, and fan-boys over Ty, giving him a high five and singing his praises.

“Dude, that pass you made last year in your game against the Seahawks was insane.”

“Thanks, man,” Ty says.

“Colton, you’re just as bad as the girls swarming in the hall,” Kelsey says.

“What girls?” he asks seriously. He goes to the door and peeks out. “Oh. Girls. Hello.” He shuts the door and sits back down beside Kelsey on Vanessa’s bed.

Vanessa gives me a look and whispers, “He’s got it bad.”

Colton can’t sit still. “I can’t believe we’re actually here. I mean, we get to do whatever we want now.” My mom has never been overly protective of me because she always wanted me to understand the real world, but Colton’s dad is the mayor of Franklin. That means Colton has always been under close scrutiny.

“No curfew!” Kelsey squeals.

Colton stifles a yawn with a fist.

“Not that you’d be able to stay up past ten p.m.,” Kelsey says.

“I could!” he replies, and much eye rolling ensues.

“Your curfew is still midnight,” Ty says to Vanessa, who sarcastically blows a kiss back at her brother.

Iggy flits into our room, sticking a hand out to Ty. “Are you our RA?”

“What?” Ty says, narrowing his eyes.

“Our resident assistant. You look like an authority figure.”

Vanessa mouths, “Authority figure.”

“Are you kidding me?” Colton asks. “You don’t know Ty Green?”

Vanessa collapses into a fit of giggles and Ty checks his phone, not amused. “C’mon, Vanessa, I told Papa we’d have dinner with him.”

Kelsey and Colton leave next. He says he needs Kelsey’s help getting his room set up.

Iggy decides to go join the Baha’i Faith Club, whatever that means.

And I’m alone.

It’s only 7:00 p.m. I do need to get to sleep early tonight considering I have a sixteen-mile run tomorrow. Only two months until the marathon. But 7:00 p.m. is way too early to pack it in. Laughter and music fill the hallways. I suddenly feel panicky, like I don’t know who I am or what I’m supposed to do. Can you lose your identity in a place that you don’t understand?

Do I even have an identity?

Would Kyle have helped me move in today? Would we have gone to dinner in Murfreesboro or explored campus together? Or would he have had to work at the fire station? If I had said yes to his proposal, I might not even be here. We probably would’ve gotten a place to live together by now.