? ? ?
I parted ways with the boys outside my dorm and headed inside to gather my things and my wits for the last run of the day. There was another half hour before class began, which was just enough time to check e-mail and all that other social media junk. And apply some makeup, because even though Chris just saw me without, I needed my warpaint to tackle an intensive four hours of playing eye avoidance with him. Yes yes, it was a complete one-eighty from my stance this morning, but I was allowed to be fickle on some things when I had to be rigorous about everything else.
Out of habit, I checked my cubby for mail. A little blue slip sat inside, which was pretty much like discovering a hidden twenty in your pocket. It meant I got a package, and seeing as I hadn’t ordered anything, it meant a care package from home.
Which meant cookies.
Elisa would be pleased. Our weekend was just made.
I took the slip over to the front desk and handed it to Jessica, another RA.
“Score,” she said when she handed the large package over. “Are these more of your mother’s delicious baked confections?”
Like Maria, Jessica was fresh out of college and sweeter than honey. Which was kind of funny, seeing as she usually wore black and had a tongue piercing from her “wild days.”
“Looks like it,” I said, giving the box a cursory shake. It was very obvious this was from home and not from a shipping department: There were heart and star stickers all over it, and the return address said MOM with her address in tiny parentheses below. “Don’t worry, l’ll save you some.”
“You’re a gem,” she said with a wink. “And you just got a week’s pass on room inspection.”
That didn’t mean much, seeing as the RAs only glanced into seniors’ rooms to make sure we weren’t living under garbage. But it still made me grin.
Elisa wasn’t up in the room, which was kind of a relief. I always felt awkward opening presents when she was around. Not that she didn’t get her fair share—her side was practically littered with photographs and mementos sent from home—it was just . . . something about this was insanely precious to me. A moment to be savored. It still blew my mind that Mom was willing to spend twenty bucks on shipping just to send a box of cookies and some handwritten notes. I definitely cried the first time she’d sent me a package, a month into my first year here. And Elisa had definitely been sitting there, pretending not to watch while she typed on her computer. She never asked a question.
I sat down on my bed and glanced around. Yeah, her side of the room was more homey, with silk scarves draped from the shelves and a plethora of photos of her and her family on vacations. There were even a couple of shots of her and Jane on their West Coast trip—a collage of them in the car, standing by a large concrete troll, the Space Needle, a forest. My side was a little more bare, though I’d been trying to make it a nest this year. Mostly, it was sketches either Ethan or I had done. I had a few photos taped to the wall of Ethan and me at the mall in one of those photo kiosks, as well as some shots from when I had visited him in Chicago last summer. Mom knew I was lacking in the personal decor department; I’m pretty certain she’d made it her secret mission to fill my room with knickknacks without my knowing.
I took a deep breath, trying to preserve the moment of anticipation, and then opened the box.
Purple and blue tissue paper rustled inside, hiding the contents, and I carefully dug through it. Mom often hid little notes and letters between the layers, and I didn’t want to miss a thing.
Sure enough, between one fold and the next, I found glitter stars and sequins and intricately folded lines of poetry. Each one made me miss her just a little bit more.
Farther in was a plastic container of chocolate-chip cookies, probably three dozen. There was also a handful of parcels wrapped in starry paper (Each of Mom’s boxes had a theme, I’d learned. This one apparently was the cosmos. The last had been dinosaurs; Ethan had stolen all the stickers, though, the tool.), and some bags of miscellaneous candy. And yes, even the candy was moderately star-themed, right down to the jelly alien eggs.
I unwrapped the smaller packages one by one, a stupid grin plastered on my face. The first gift was a photograph of her and Dad and me at a picnic, all of us smiling. Mom and her black hair and pale skin and curvy frame, Dad and his pencil-thin stature and short graying hair and skin as dark as mine. And me, not quite as crazily dressed as I was now, with a smile on my face and a spark of hesitation in my eyes.