My life became a disaster the moment I walked across the street, around the winding cement sidewalk and up to a short blonde boy sitting on a stoop within an ivy-covered enclave on a spring night. I want you all to know my mistakes and learn from the things I've done. If I could redo parts of my life these past nine months, I completely would, but I don't want to take back any of the good times I had. All names are changed for privacy reasons, ya'll.
It all started with these few words: "you know you need keys for that, right?" shouted at me from across the street, but that comes later. I came to my college town to try and start my life a little early as a college freshman. I lost a lot in high school in terms of friends, who I wanted to be as a person, and family, that of course is a story for another time as well.
I moved away from home with 100 dollars in my pocket and a car full of my possessions to start my new life on my own. It was incredibly difficult; I moved into a house of people I met only twice the time prior. Which is what I'm going to get into now.
Where the yelling I mentioned before comes in, starts with my childhood best friend leaving to go to work and leaving me to fend for myself with the rest of the roommates for the day. We stand around on the balcony enjoying the before-summer heat when we start hearing a lot of commotion across the street.
The boys across the street are out in full darty fashion, tossing a football, drinking, your average day in a college town when it's warm. At the time, I didn't pay much attention to it, since I was too worried about getting a job, trying to figure out where I was going to live—when I realized I didn't have my car keys. In a blur, I take off down the stairs and try yanking at all of my car doors in the driveway, to no avail.
I had no access to any of my things for the rest of the day, putting a halt on the job search. When I finally yank on my driver's side door in one last-ditch attempt, I hear a male voice shout at me: "You know you need keys for that right?" which came with a chorus of laughter from all the other people in attendance.
The boy who said it happened to be in denim shorts, with long dark hair and a trucker hat, not exactly my type of person to associate with. I gave a dirty look over my shoulder and hiked my way right back up the stairs away from the trouble I would have caused if he kept up the jokes. That was the end of that.
When this all begins to get interesting is when I decided against my better judgment to get to know these people that I got off on the wrong foot with earlier in the day and decided to go talk to them later that night. I walked up to the house on that spring night to the short boy with the blonde hair on the stoop. I did this out of pure curiosity, considering my friends across the street didn't have much good to say about them. I basically just wanted to walk around and meet people.
This boy (who we're going to call Rob) scared me to death, the kind of person with eyes that watch you like a hawk, someone you are never sure how they feel about you. He kind of laughed me off at first, giving me a few pointed jokes—but all and all, it seemed pretty okay. In the end, I actually got invited indoors, but the house wasn't exactly as spectacular on the inside as it was on the outside.
I was lead through a large front door to the actual living quarters of the house. It was dark—just a hallway lined with doors. We reach all the way to the top of the house to the third floor, where we run into the hat boy (who yelled at me earlier) and a large group of people. Hat boy's actual name happened to be Lee, and he wasn't too keen on me being inside the house, so I said goodbye.
All in all, we had a few laughs and I got to see all these people who I didn't know would later become my best friends. If you've kept up thus far, we are going to flash-forward to the end of May.
Still on my search for a place to live and now out of money, I had nothing to really go for. With graduation over and all my possessions in my car, I couldn't exactly be a choosy beggar. My investigation left me bored, leading to Tinder-swiping to pass the time. I run across—who even could've guessed it—Lee.
Prior to my Tinder-swiping, I asked Rob if they had room for a summer renter, but the only person I could even speak to happened to be going home for a few weeks before beginning the summer. I got into a full-on conversation with Lee on Tinder about my situation and where I could live. He said there was room in the house, but I just had to ask the president—who, oh wait, happened to be the man himself.
Probably the most corny joke anyone has ever even said to me, but I digress. Lee passed on the information to Rob, who the following day was going to show me my room and get the housing contract set up.
I finally had my first place to call home.
This is only the start of this long story—in the coming days I will give the second installment of my tell-all. It's only the beginning of this story, and it hasn't gotten to the good, the bad, or the ugly just yet.
