I was dropped off at college in the comical way I imagined most families joked about. “The car’s going to keep moving,” my father said. “Jump out and get your things out of the car.” It wasn’t moving very fast but I felt like I was in the airport trying to take my suitcase off of one of those industrial conveyer belts. It’s even harder to remove your luggage when you’re dodging cars, people and the luggage coming out of the cars (that are stock still, for the record). I was determined to do it however, and by the time my father had taken his joke and his car too far, I had removed all of my luggage.

My cello was the hardest to remove, because I was not willing to drop it on the ground. When I arrived at my room, the first thing I did was check it for scratches. It was unmarred, but out of tune. I leaned it up against my too-tall bed. I almost undid all of my careful carrying when a voice from the hallway said, “I think you forgot this.”

I whirled. In front of me was a man I could only describe as eccentric. Perhaps colorful was the right word? A single diamond shone from his right ear lobe. He set my last bag on the floor.

“I’m Flint,” he said.

“A-Andi,” I said. Apparently, I had lost control of the English language.

“I like your tiny bass,” he said.

A flash of annoyance reminded me how to speak. “It’s a cello.”

“Sorry to offend,” he said with a smile, knowing that he hadn’t actually.

“Don’t you have your own room to be unpacking?” I said.

“Naw,” he said. “I came in a week early with the foreign students. I’m from Texas. The University must have thought I needed a lot of assimilating to this cold northern culture.” At this he shivered. “I have to say, I am enjoying the local delicacies. Your fried chicken, however, is lacking.”

I laughed. Absurd. That was the word for him.

The door opened behind him. A girl with a fierce edge to her cheekbones stepped in, her blond hair swaying.

“A party already?”

This was Ruby. We had been assigned to each other a few months prior. We had had one conversation since, which comprised of a trading of surface demographic information. We had met again in the parking lot with her parents but she hadn’t spoken.

“See ya later, Andi,” Flint said as he slipped out of the room, sensitive as he was to changes in temperature.

“I like your suitcase,” I said, a preprogrammed response to silence you could drive a bus through.

“Thanks,” she said. “I was just glad that there were elevators. Weighs a ton.”

We unpacked to the rustling of the plastic curtain in the wind.