April 8, 2010
3:45 p.m.
Evalynne’s Apartment

I hadn’t taken a plane to get to Michigan this time for two different reasons. One, it was cheaper to drive and two, it was the only way I’d be able to take my car with me. The drive had been long and boring, but definitely worth it. Because now I was here at my brand new apartment. In Michigan, where Cole lived. I grinned just thinking about how close he was at that very moment.
He didn’t know just how close we were though. I’d tried to get a hold of him about ten times yesterday and five more times this morning. He wouldn’t answer any of my calls though. Wouldn’t text me back either. It was beginning to worry me. So on my drive to my new home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I’d decided to go give Cole a little visit as soon as I was done meeting my new roommate, Addison.
She’d invited me to go out to dinner with her and her boyfriend later that night too, in order to get to know them a little bit better. She told me I was welcome to bring Cole too if I wanted. I definitely did. I wasn’t sure how comfortable I’d be alone at dinner with Addison and Ashton. It wasn’t Addison that I was worried about though. It was that peculiar boyfriend of hers that had my stomach in knots.
I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about that yet though. Right now, I was supposed to be going to meet Addison. I was currently standing in front of the door to her apartment, to our apartment. Taking a deep breath, I raised my fist and knocked on the stark white door.
Seconds later, a pretty blonde girl answered it. Her eyes were wide and dark green, twinkling at the sight of me standing there at the door. Here skin was pale, like porcelain, and her honey-colored hair fell down to her shoulders in loose waves. “Evalynne!” she greeted me, her voice even cheerier in person. “Come on in!”
I grinned back at her and stepped into the brightly decorated apartment. The walls of the tiny kitchen were painted a vivid yellow and the living room walls were a vibrant orange. Addison owned the apartment, so she was allowed to paint it whatever color she wanted. I was just going to be living there temporarily. Probably for about a year or two. At least until I got better control over my life and was ready to settle down into a place that was truly my own.
“Wow,” I said. “It’s very…colorful,”
She flashed me a toothy smile and looked around her apartment, taking in all of the nearly-blinding colors. “Yeah, I hope you don’t mind,” she replied.
“No, it’s great!” I assured her. I was just grateful that she’d let me move in so quickly. Most people wouldn’t do that.
“Well I’m glad you like it,” she said. “Do you want to see your room?”
“Sure,” I replied, hoping it wouldn’t be painted neon pink or something equally as obnoxious. Luckily, when we stepped into the small, slightly boxy space, the walls were a serene light lavender color. “I love it,” I told her truthfully.
She beamed back at me, “Awesome,” she said. She seemed so excited, although I wasn’t sure why. I was the one who was getting the new apartment, she was just getting a roommate. But apparently she was just one of those people who could be excited about practically anything. She was a really sweet person, but I was afraid that her constant cheerfulness may get annoying after a little while.
I couldn’t be thinking negatively right now though. This was supposed to be a happy moment for me. I wasn’t about to ruin it with all of my irritating pessimistic thoughts. I needed to learn how not to be so cynical about everything.
“Do you need some help bringing your things inside?” she asked me.
“Sure, if you don’t mind,” I replied. I grinned at her, grateful as she led me out the door of the apartment. We walked outside, through the parking lot and over to my car. Then Addison helped me with all of my suitcases and boxes. Finally, we unhooked my mattress from the top of my car and with some struggle, dragged it up the first flight of stairs, to our second floor apartment.
“Thank you,” I said to her once we were finished moving my stuff from my car to my new bedroom.
“No problem,” she responded brightly. A short moment of awkward silence passed between us before I spoke up again.
“I should probably go let Cole know that about dinner tonight,” I told her.
“Ok, Ashton will probably be here by the time you get back so you can just bring Cole back with you and we can go out to dinner then.” she suggested.
“Sounds good to me,” I agreed. Then we said a quick goodbye and I was off to the university to inform Cole about my new living arrangements.


I knocked on the door to Cole’s dorm and patiently waited for someone to answer. I’d already signed in and gotten my visitor’s pass so it was ok for me to be there. Especially since it was Saturday so none of the students had classes that day. That meant I could spend the whole rest of the day with Cole.
The thought put butterflies in my stomach. I was so thrilled to live this close to him. I really was in love with him. After finally sleeping with him for the first time, it felt even more real too. It felt like that had bonded us together for life. And it felt really good to make things so real too. Now there was no wondering about whether we were together or not. It was official. Cole and I were a couple and we were happy that way.
The door burst open, interrupting my thoughts. However, instead of Cole, it was Shaun who was standing there. He shirtless, wearing only a pair of sweatpants. His hair was all over the place too, like it had been blown around by a huge gust of wind. Also, his face was red and his lips looked slightly swollen. I glanced to the bed behind him, my eyes landing on a half-naked Megan. All she was wearing was a tiny pair of flannel boy shorts and a skimpy camisole. Her hair was also in a disarray. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they’d been in the middle of an extremely intense make out session in there.
“Evalynne!” Shaun greeted me. “Wow, it seems like I haven’t seen you in so long. Gosh, the last time I saw you was…” He trailed off remembering what had happened the last time we’d seen eachother. When I’d gotten mad at him for dumping Kristy and went off on him.
However, I never really had the right to do that. Shaun couldn’t help it that he was in love with Megan. I was just thinking about Kristy’s feelings when I’d gotten so angry at him. I’d never thought about how Shaun felt though.
“Yeah, I’m really sorry about that.” I told him. “I shouldn’t have gotten so mad. That was really stupid of me.”
“No worries, you’re forgiven,” he replied with a grin. “Come on in,” He stepped away from the door to let me inside the small room.
Megan met my eyes and awkwardly scrambled to pull a sweatshirt that was at least two sizes too big over her head. It had the school’s crest on the front of it…probably Shaun’s.
“Damn!” Shaun exclaimed out of nowhere. “What happened to your face? Did you get in a bar fight or something?” He said it jokingly, but I didn’t laugh. I tried my best to hide my emotions with a smile, but it came out faltered. Shaun obviously took note of my reaction because his expression immediately changed to one of concern. “Evalynne, what happened?” he asked, seriously this time.
“Um, nothing…I just ran into a tree.” I lied, trying to make it sound as believable as possible.
“A tree?” he asked. “It looks more like somebody punched you or something… Cole didn’t do that, did he?”
“No, of course not!” I assured him.
“Ok, just checking,” he replied, calming down a bit. “But seriously, what happened?”
“I already told you, I ran into a tree.” I said to him. I caught Megan smirking out of the corner of my eye and I felt the urge to smack that smug look right off her face.
“Fine,” he remarked. “Don’t tell me,”
I decided that this was the perfect time for a subject change. “So where’s Cole?” I asked him, remembering what I’d came here for in the first place.
“Oh, he’s at some party,” he replied, rolling his eyes. “He thinks he’s so cool just because he got to go that party.”
“Well why aren’t you at the party too?” I wondered aloud. It was pretty obvious that he wanted to be there.
“Because someone,” he fake-coughed Megan’s name, “made the person hosting it not invite me.”
“I did not!” Megan remarked, crossing her then arms over her chest. “It’s not my fault Chelsea doesn’t like me! I didn’t even do anything to her.”
“Didn’t do anything to her?” he demanded. “You convinced John to break up with her so Katrina could date him! Do you not remember doing this?”
“Well yeah…but she had her chance with John and she just couldn’t cut it. So Katrina took him. I just helped.” she replied.
“Whatever,” he said. “Either way, Chelsea hates you now. Therefore, she hates me because I’m dating you. Therefore, neither of us are invited to her ultra beastly party.”
“Why do you want to go to her party so badly anyways? You’d probably just get drunk off of jello shots and fall into the pool again.” she remarked smugly. I pressed my lips together to contain my laughter.
“That was one time!” he cried defensively. Rolling his eyes, he turned back around to face me. “Sorry about that interruption.” he apologized. “Some people can be so rude,” He pointedly glanced back at Megan after he said this.
I smiled back at him, realizing just how much I’d missed his hilarious personality. “No problem,” I replied. “So about Cole…”
“Oh yeah, he’s at Chelsea’s family’s lake house for the party. He doesn’t have his phone on him though.” he told me.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Well, because it’s severely damaged…I kind of, sort of stepped on it by accident.” he said. No wonder he hadn’t responded to any of my various texts and voicemail messages.
“How can I get a hold of him then? Do you have Chelsea’s number?” I asked.
“No, but I can give you the address of the lake house… Why do you want to see him so badly anyways? In fact, what made you decide to come here in the first place?”
“I actually live here now…well not here. But I’m renting an apartment that’s about two minutes away. I just wanted to let Cole know. Plus, my new roommate invited both of us to dinner tonight with her and her boyfriend.”
“Oh, that’s cool,” he said with a smile. “So what made you decide to move?”
I bit my lip, unsure of what to say. I wanted to tell Shaun what had happened with Michael, but I knew that I wasn’t supposed to. “I just really wanted to be closer to Cole. I couldn’t handle having to keep our relationship going on long distance,” Technically this wasn’t a lie. I really did want to be closer to Cole.
“Awww, young love,” he said jokingly. “Here, let me give you Chelsea’s address so you can go fetch your lover,”
“Oh, shut up,” I replied, laughing at the same time. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw Megan rolling here eyes in irritation. Such a bitter person. I had no clue what Shaun saw in her.
He smiled and grabbed a pen and a piece of paper off of his cluttered desk. Then he quickly scrawled out the address to Chelsea’s lake house and handed it to me. “Here you go,” he said.
“Thanks,” I replied. “It was good to see you again,”
“You too,” he said to me. “Bye,”
“Bye,” I echoed back as I walked out the door. Smiling contently, I tucked the piece of paper away in my pocket. Things were going great so far. My apartment was nice, Addison was great, Shaun and I were all good again and now I was on my way to see Cole. It really couldn’t get much better than this.

Author's Note: I know a few chapters ago, I said that Shaun was looking for somewhere to live with Megan, but I changed it around so that they're both still in college. So none of them dropped out. Shaun just had to talk to a few professor's to clear things up. But if you still have questions about it, feel free to ask me :)