2016 - September

I was so close to New York, I could almost taste the freedom. I opened the windows to feel the warm wind on the highway towards the Lincoln Tunnel. I hadn't slept for a long time, not taking the time to stop along the way. I was kept up by coffee, Coca Cola, and playing music. I should have been listening to loud rock n' roll but I settled for the classics. Cat Stevens poured through the speakers. When I listened to music like this it made me think and I needed time to really think. I thought a lot about Jake, I thought about her too. I thought about how much I loved him and I could only imagine how much she loved him. We hadn't talked about it for almost a year, our plan had worked. He never made me feel like there was someone else, I was always his priority, but he still had never ended things with her which hurt me to my core. A core that Jake had never even seen, let alone dove into.

It was early in the morning when I arrived to my new home. The building was large and grey. People were walking in and out with huge roller bins filled with their things. I left the car double parked outside and walked in to register. First, they gave me my key, then a badge to get into the building. I took the elevator up to the 15th floor, I'd never lived that high up before. As I turned the key in the door, I heard people inside. The door swung open and I was greeted by an older woman. "Hello dear!" I didn't recognize her, was I supposed to?

"Hi.."

"Oh, I'm sorry! I'm Kate's mom." I stayed silent, as I didn't know who Kate was. "She's one of the freshman staying in the suite.

"Ohhh... I'm Maggie!" I stretched my hand out to her.

"Well, come in, come in!" I walked into the dorm, it was bigger than I thought. There was a little living area with a couch, a table, and kitchen supplies (i.e. a fridge, stove, oven, microwave etc.). Then there were two doors, each of them had two beds in them. The doors each had two names on them. One said Margaret and Katherine, the other said Lily and Dylan. I walked into the room that had my name on in and was greeted by a girl I could only guess was Katie.

"Hey, are you Margaret?" She smiled at me, as she hung up a black and white poster of JFK and Jackie Kennedy in a little sailboat putting up the mainsail.

"Yeah, but everyone calls me Maggie or Mags. You must be Kate?" She nodded, smiling wide. She had beautiful long blonde hair, the type most people are envious of and green eyes, god did I wish I had green eyes. "Have you been here long?" I said, noticing that her bed was made and most of the stuff was hung up.

"About an hour, but my parents are here to help, so it went by faster." She picked up another poster, this time it was a Talking Heads poster. I didn't expect that.

"You like the Talking Heads?" I asked a little surprised.

"Yeah, I love them, the music is other worldly." She said happily. "Hey, do you want any help unpacking? I'm almost done and we have the whole day. I smiled at her.

"That would be great, but if you decide you don't want to anymore you can just say so."

"Nonsense, we're roommates, that's what friends are supposed to do." I didn't think about that. She was going to be my first friend in this city... weird to think about. "Plus, my dad loves this stuff. He'll hang your power strips for you and make sure posters are even. He's weird like that, but hey he is a dad." I laughed at that, what it must be like to have a dad that really cares. Someone who would do anything to make you happy.

We spent the rest of the morning taking trips to my car and fixing up my part of room. I would have been totally screwed without the Fitzgeralds. After that, Katie's parents left, but not before getting my parents information so they could send pictures of us decorating the room. We were left alone to just sit and talk. "Do you wanna do anything tonight?" I asked.

"Sure, it's so weird, there's so much to do here. I've never lived in a place like this." I had learned that Katie was from Colorado and it made me feel a little closer to her.

"Same here. We could go to a bar or go see music, or I guess really anything." She let out a sigh at my ideas.

"I don't have an ID, so I think those things need to be crossed off the list." I laughed at her sadness.

"No way, we can just go to a small bar and I'll go get the drinks. Then we can order you one. It'll all be fine." She perked up when I said this and nodded. We go all dolled up. I was jealous of her style, so clean and classy, but it had little flares to it. "Ugh, I have no clothes." She laughed at me.

"You can wear something of mine it you want. My mom went crazy before we came here saying I needed duplicates of my clothes, she went overboard." She looked through her closet and then at me, as if scanning to find the perfect outfit. She reached inside of her closet pulling out a bright yellow skort. I looked at her with wide eyes, letting her know I thought she'd gone insane. "Trust me, it looks really great. Wear a loose black t shirt with it and...." She looked at my shoes and pulled out a pair of lowish, beige sandal type heels that were very simple. I did so and looked at myself in the mirror. Katie had blow dried my long brownish blonde hair, the same as I had done for her. It looked rather nice. I had done my makeup, more than usual, but I thought it looked nice. The outfit looked better than fine, it looked amazing. I looked down at my black toenails and smiled, I felt good. I looked at Katie who was sliding on a red dress a la Clueless. It made her look amazing. Needless to say we were both insanely tan from the summer and that helped to.

I learned a lot about Katie. She was similar to me in many ways. She loved classic rock and folk music, she was a democrat (which was amazing for me), and she had three older brothers. Each of whom were talented and smart in their owns ways. She had learned how to play the piano when she was little and for that, she brought her old electric with her. I had smiled at it, setting my guitar down (a birthday present from Sam) next to it, like they belonged together. She was happy in her life and I was jealous. Along with her telling me about her life, I told her about mind. I told her about the boys and Ronnie. I talked about how I wasn't very close with my dad and brother, but I was with my mom. She got me and I was happy that was the case, we were really going to be friends.

"I heard there's this place called Scratcher. It's like an Irish Pub and they have live music and open mics, just jamming basically. Do you want to go there?" She asked. I jumped at the opportunity agreeing immediately. As she walked on the streets, not bothering to take the subway because it was so beautiful we talked more.

"So, do you have anyone? Boyfriend, girlfriend?" She shook her head at me.

"No, I did before I left, but he's in England. Going to Oxford and I'm.. well I'm here. I didn't want either of us to get held back ya know?" I understood completely, but I kept fixating on her saying "ya know." Weird of me, I know. "What about you? Anyone at home?"

"Actually yeah. He's one of the guys I was talking about before, the guitar player. We're sort of together."

"Sort of?" She asked.

"We, well, he has someone else. I'm his.. I'm not really sure, I just really love him and I know he loves me." She nodded, understanding it was a touchy subject based on the way my breath hitched.

"Well, someone else isn't good enough! Let's get drunk!!" She yelled and I laughed as we ran down the street to enter the pub. I ordered two IPAs because well I was a beer girl at heart and she was going to have to be. I walked them over to our booth as a young guy walked up onto the little stage in the back we were facing.

"Hello!" He said with some sort of accent. What was it? "I'm Niall Connolly." The people in the room started hooting and hollering at the Irish man in front of us with dark red hair and a beard. "This is an original song, I wrote. I hope you like it." He started to strum to a beautiful song with a faster pace. It was beautiful, every lyric I had ever wanted to hear. I thought about Jake. The lyrics resonating with how I felt about him. I wanted to be his rock, but I knew he wouldn't let me. I wanted to tell the world that I loved him, to help him, but it's not about me and he wouldn't let me try. I was taken out of my world when the clapping began. He played a few other song and then got off the stage walking over the the bar. I turned to Katie and she smiled.

"This place is awesome." She said quietly, like a little kid that didn't want to break anything.

"I know, that guy was great right? I mean that wasn't just me, right?"

"No, definitely not just you. You should go talk to him, fellow guitar players are always nice to each other." I looked at her seriously.

"You really think I should?" My confidence wavered. She nodded her head.

"Yes! Go, go.." I nodded and stood up shaking my tipsiness out of my mind or at least trying. He was sitting at the bar with a Guinness in his hand. I walked over and sat next to him and then to turned to face him. He turned to me and smiled.

"Hi, I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed that it was really great." I said really fast. He laughed.

"Thank you. I'm Niall." He said sticking out his hand.

"Maggie."

"Do you play?" He asked me, while simultaneously ordering me a Guinness.

"Yeah, I do. Acoustic, a Taylor 614CE."

"Oh, she's a beauty." He said.

"Yeah, she gets me through writing."

"You write music?" He asked.

"I try.. Nothing like yours, your lyrics are beautiful, really truthful." I gushed, I looked over at Katie, who was drinking her beer alone until a guy walked up to her and sat down. She looked happy, that made me happy.

"I think lyrics are really important. I got married a couple years ago and started forgetting what real music felt like, but she helped me through it. Family is important in music."

"That's amazing, I just moved here so she," I stopped to point at Katie, "is about the only family I have here. We're students at NYU." He looked over at her and smiled.

"Oi! Glen, get away from the girl would ya?" He yelled over at the guy talking to Katie. He looked to be older than us, older than Niall at least who had to be in his mid 30s. The guy smiled at us, he looked to be kind. "Glen, he's, he's a guy for sure. You'd like him, he's very poetic, very funny." He laughed.

"I'm sure he is." I smiled. "So do you and your wife live here? Or do you live in Ireland?"

"Here, we live in Brooklyn. We're expecting so we thought Brooklyn was best for us."

"That's amazing, congratulations!" I said happily.

"So why New York? I mean I know you're a musician, but why here?"

"I think that New York is as raw as it gets. You can't hide here, you have to be truthful, or people will notice. I tried out Seattle, but we didn't fit together, so here I am." He nodded. "I'm from Michigan so either way it would be far."

"Michigan?" He asked. "It's beautiful out there." I nodded.

"Very." I said taking a sip of my half done beer.

"Escaping anything?" I thought about the question for a little bit, I knew I was escaping some aspects, had I just been trying to get away from everything though.

"Maybe... I'm not really sure."

"I see, well if you ever want to tell anyone, you can get up on the stage here. Tell people your truth." I smiled at him and nodded. "I need to get home, but I'll give you my phone number. New people in big cities need friends and you can bet that the Connolly's will be your friends." He kissed my cheek.

"It was nice meeting you." I smiled, with that he walked out. I walked back over to the table where Katie was sitting with this Glen guy. They were laughing.

"Is it time to go?" She asked me. I nodded not wanting to interrupt anything, but also not wanting to say no if she was trying to get away. "I guess that means yes. Here's my number, if you need help anytime." She said, letting out a giggle. I smiled down at them. She got up and grabbed my arm, linking ours together. Then we started our way home.

We couldn't stop laughing as we walked into the building. The security guard gave us a weird look, but we kept laughing as we got into the elevator. "He was- he was 46!" I yelled. She nodded, not able to talk. Our laughing dulled as we made it into the apartment. "The weird thing is that I think I kind of liked him." I raised my eyebrows.

"Ooookay.... If you had babies, he would be like 90 or something when they went to college." I joked, she punched my arm. I let out a noise falling into the other people's room and holding my arm. "Not nice." I said in my best mother voice. Just as I was about to get up, the door behind me swung open and I fell.

"What's happening out... Oh!" A girl said, giggling at me on the floor.

"Sorry!" I said flustered. I looked at her. She had similar hair to me, actually we looked a lot alike, but she didn't have freckles.

"You guys must be the other roommates. I'm Dylan." She said. I nodded at her smiling. Just as she said that another girl with dark brown hair and olive skin walked out.

"I'm Lily!" She smiled.

"Well, I'm Maggie and this is Katie!" I said pointing to a very thirsty Katie, who was chugging classes of water. We stayed up for a long time talking, but then decided it would be best if we finished talking tomorrow and went to bed now. Katie and I took off our makeup and changed getting into our beds.

"Hey, Maggie?" She said as we lay in our beds in the dark.

"Yeah?"

"I really hope he calls me." She said, I smiled warmly, but knew she couldn't see it.

"I'm sure he will."

"And Maggie?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm really glad we're friends."

"Me too." I said quietly, but I knew she could hear me. I heard her breathing lightly, so I assumed she had fallen asleep. I realized I hadn't checked my phone since I told Jake I had made it here safely. I took it off the desk next to my bed and open it. I had a ton of text messages.

7:15 am

Glad you got there safely! Let me know what you're up to in the big city.

You make it there?

Jake told me you did actually. Everything alright there? Love you.

8:30 am

Miss you, hope everything's going well on your first day.

Sorry I couldn't say it when you left, but I love you and miss you. Not good with emotions. Let me know how you're doing.

1:07 pm

Hey, you there?

1:45 pm

Are you okay? Don't want to bug you, just want to make sure you're okay.

4 pm

Please call me Mags! Is something wrong?

4:30 pm

Are you okay? We're worried, respond please!

7:50

Did we do something wrong? Why aren't you responding?

1:20 am

Babe, I don't know what we did. I'm sorry for whatever it is, I need to hear from you before I can go to sleep. Just respond, lets talk.

My mind was spinning, they thought I was ignoring them? That they did something wrong? I felt bad, this was all my fault. I slipped on a pair of sneakers, my sports shorts and tank top were basically sports clothes so I was fine. I grabbed my cigarettes and keys and got into the elevator down. I walked out the front door and sat on the ramp. I lit a cigarette and hit Jake's name on my phone so it would ring. It rang once and then was picked up quickly.

"Hey!" I said happily.

"Maggie, is something wrong??" He asked, obviously worried. I laughed.

"No, everything for than fine. I was just setting up my room and then we went out to listen to some music." I said smiling in all of my words.

"Who's 'we'?" He asked

"Oh, me and my roommate, Katie. She's really cool, we've been getting to know each other." He sighed seemingly relieved. Then I heard noises in the background.

"Is that her?" I heard a voice say.

"Yeah, she's fine, nothing's wrong."

"Put her on speaker!" I heard Sammy's voice say loudly. Then laughs followed.

"I'm putting you on speaker." Jake said.

"Okie." I stayed outside for what felt like thirty minutes, but what was actually 2 hours.

"You guys, I love you and all, but it's really late here and there, but I've been traveling all day."

"We should let her go to bed." Danny said.

"Alright, love you Mags." Josh said.

"Bye Maggie." Sammy said. "I'll call you tomorrow."

"Love you Maggie!" Danny said.

"Bye guys, I love you, we'll talk soon." With that, Jake took the phone off speaker.

"I should probably go too, but I don't want to."

"Believe me, I don't want to either. I miss you so much and it's only been a day."

"Promise you'll come home soon?" I sighed.

"I can't promise that right now Jakey, but if you want to come to New York you'd be more than welcome."

"Okay, then I'll come see you soon."

"Good. Okay, I love you and I'll call you in the next couple of days." I said.

"Love you too. Bye."

"Bye."