I spent the majority of my Sunday studying with Nadia in our dorm room.

"What time is it?" I asked, hanging off my bed and trying to read my textbook upside down.

"7:30," Nadia responded.

"Damn it," I cursed, sitting up.

"What?"

"I was supposed to meet my partner for an English project 30 minutes ago."

"Oops," Nadia said, not making me feel better.

As quickly as I could, I gathered up my things and left the dorm.

When I got to the address that Daniel had given me, I got out of the cab. The house was a pretty average brick home with greenery wrapped around it. My feet slammed across the brick walkway as I hurried up to the door. After ringing the doorbell, I waited. Then, I waited some more. I was about to text Daniel when the door opened, and the last person that I expected to see came into view.

"River?" I said, eyes widening.

"That's my name. What are you doing here? How did you get my address?" He asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"I'm supposed to meet with Daniel Green for a project."

"He's my roommate," River said, understanding coursing across his face.

"Oh. Small world."

"Wait, that's the guy that you've been texting?"

"Yeah."

"You could have told me his name."

"Alani," Daniel said, walking into view.

"What are you doing, dimwit. Invite her inside," Daniel spoke, smacking River on the back of his head and eliciting a laugh out of me.

I walked into their house and took a look around. It was surprisingly clean.

"How many people live here?" I asked.

"4. Here's Nelson and Victor," River responded as two other guys walked into the foyer.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi, who's this?" Nelson asked River.

"This is the bucket list girl, Alani, and Daniel's partner for an English project," River said.

"This is Nelson and Victor," Daniel said to me.

"Hi," I said again.

"Let's go work in my room," Daniel said, grabbing my hand and tugging me toward the stairs.

"Why can't you work down here?" River asked, following us.

"It's too loud down here," Daniel said before pulling me upstairs and into his room.

Daniel and I worked on our project. It was pretty boring. Daniel tried to talk to me about other things, but my mind was on this project and this project only. It's not that I didn't want to talk about other things with him. It was that I hated small talk and wasn't in the mood for a conversation with someone I wasn't comfortable around. After about two hours of working, we heard a knock on Daniel's door.

"How's it going?" River asked from the other side of the entrance.

"Fine. Can you leave us alone?" Daniel said, annoyance lacing his tone.

"Why is the door locked?" River said, trying to turn the doorknob.

"So, you guys don't bother us, like you're doing now."

There was no reply as we got back to work.

About an hour after the interruption, we finished, and I left. I didn't see River on the way out, so I assumed he was sleeping.

I went to bed that night, excited about dying my hair tomorrow.

*****

After school the next day, I headed over to a local drugstore and purchased a box of purple hair dye and bleach. I was a little nervous to dye my hair. What if it looked terrible? My appearance was something that I tried not to fret about, but everyone did one way or another. Worries flooded me as I checked out.

As I drove back to my dorm, I pushed all worries to the back of my mind and reminded myself why I was doing this. I needed to try new things and break out of my comfort zone, and the only way to do that was to do something that made me afraid or that I wasn't comfortable doing, so the fact that I was nervous about this was a good sign. Besides, it was only a streak of my hair instead of the whole thing.

When I walked back into the dorm room, I found Nadia lying on her bed.

"Hey," She said.

"Hi."

"Whatcha got?" She asked.

"River and I are dying a streak of my hair purple."

"That's so cool! Can I help?"

"Yeah," I smiled as a knock came from the door. I opened it and found River waiting on the other side.

"Ready?" He asked, popping a chip into his mouth from the bag he was holding.

"You brought chips?" I asked.

"Yeah, why not?"

I rolled my eyes as River walked in and closed the door.

"Wow," He said, looking around the room.

"Sorry that it's so messy," Nadia said.

"No, it's fine. I'm River," River said, holding out his hand.

"Nadia," Nadia replied, shaking it.

"I was shocked because of how different the room's sides are."

"Yeah, mine is a little plain compared to Nadia's," I said.

"It barely even looks like someone lives on this side," He said, motioning toward my side and causing me to hit him on the arm.

"Let's get started," I said, walking toward the bathroom.

The bathroom was tiny. It barely fit all three of us standing, but there was more room after I sat on the closed toilet seat.

"We need to bleach it first," Nadia said.

"Have you done this before?" River asked her.

"Nope."

"Great. Two amateurs," I sighed, feeling even more nervous. While I trusted both of them, accidents happened.

"Where do you want it dyed?" Nadia asked.

"Right here," I said, pointing toward a strip near the front of my face.

After Nadia applied the bleach, we waited thirty minutes before taking it out. I was shocked to see that the streak of my hair had turned a bright yellow.

"Looks terrible so far," River said, laughing.

"Shut the fuck up. It's not done yet," I said, lifting my leg and connecting it with his shin.

Next, we applied the purple hair dye and scrunched it up. After waiting another thirty minutes, we washed it out. Once my hair was dry, we all looked in the mirror.

"Wow," River said, playing with the curly strand.

"I love it!" Nadia exclaimed.

I couldn't decide on an opinion. It looked great, but it made me look different, and I didn't know if I liked the thought of looking like someone else. After staring at myself in the mirror for five minutes, I decided I was happy with how it turned out.

"Thank you guys so much," I said, pulling my friends into a group hug.

"It turned out more pink than purple. I guess I got the color I wanted after all," River laughed.

"It's a pinkish purple," Nadia added.

"I really like it," I stated, looking in the mirror again.

"Good. Let's go get dinner somewhere," River said.

"Can I come?" Nadia asked.

"Of course," He replied.

"Okay, let's go."

We headed out and drove to a local restaurant. After we were seated, all eyes were on me and my new hair. I was aware I was acting dramatic and that it was all in my head since it was only a tiny strand of hair, but I was shaking anyway.

"It looks great," River reassured me as if he could read my mind.

"Thanks," I smiled.

After ordering, River suggested that we play the get to know each other game.

"What the fuck is that?" Nadia asked.

"We ask questions and learn more about each other. It's not really a game, but whatever," River said.

"Okay, I'll go. What's your guy's favorite brand of water," Nadia asked.

"Easy, Aquafina," River said right away.

"I don't know, regular? I don't know the difference. Isn't it all the same?" I said.

"Pay more attention, and you'll notice the difference," River said, shaking his head.

"I like Fiji," Nadia added.

"Okay, my turn. Nadia, what are some of your hobbies?" River asked.

"Meditating and Yoga. I'm usually very hyper and tense, so they help me relax and calm down."

"River, what would you consider your hobbies?" I asked.

"I don't have any hobbies. I could never stick with anything long enough to get good at it."

"You don't have to be good at something for it to be a hobby," Nadia added.

"True," I said, taking a sip of my water, even though, if I had been involved with hobbies, I would have had the same mindset at River, having had enjoyed being good at things for as long as I could remember.

"I have more stuff to add to your list," River said.

"I'm listening."

"Okay, to start, we can redecorate your side of the dorm."

"Okay, I like it."

"And we can take a yoga class."

"Oh, you guys can come with me to one of mine," Nadia offered.

"Okay, anything else?" I asked.

"We can go to the Jonas Brothers concert."

"You, River Cohen, want to go to a Jonas Brothers concert?" I asked in disbelief.

"Not really, but it's the only 'big' concert this month."

"Okay, we'll add it. I love the Jonas Brother's music anyway," I said, and it was true since I had been listening to them ever since I was little.

"That's nineteen activities. You should add one more to make it twenty," Nadia suggested.

"Have you ever been to a football game?"

"Nope."

"There we go," River said as I wrote the new activities down in my notes app, mentally reminding myself to write them in my notebook later.

"Okay, enough business talk," I joked, "Let's enjoy dinner."

And that's exactly what we did.