"I'll grab your box for you," he said. "Third floor?"

I couldn't seem to focus on his face, and the warmth of the room was making the nausea worse. "Um, I think so."

He leaned over to grab the box, and the door opened behind me. I turned, expecting Carly and ready to wrench the room key out of her hand, but it was just another student. The cold air whooshed in with him, whacking me in the face like I'd called it a bad name.

"Uh, shoot - " and I lunged for the trash can. I didn't entirely make it.

I prayed as I threw up that I would pass out. Was there a more horrible way to introduce myself at my new school? I really needed to pass out. Right now.

No such luck. My embarrassment, rioting through my head like a tornado, was too distracted to do anything useful like puddle my miserable self on the floor. Instead, I had to deal with the puddle I'd probably made on the floor.

I wiped my mouth slowly. I needed to turn around, back to the others, who were no doubt staring in horror, or trying not to indulge reflex vomiting.

It was one of the hardest things I'd ever done. I wanted to run out the front door, but instead I turned around. Katie, much to my surprise, had already grabbed a bunch of paper towels from the bathroom.

"God, I'm sorry you're sick Dara. You should have told me. I got sick last summer, like sick sick, you know, and it was just awful, except I did lose some weight, you know? Not that that's like a reason to get sick or anything," she said as she handed me a wad of paper towels and started helping me clean up.

The boy who'd just come in went straight to the bathroom, holding his arms awkwardly away from his body. I'd obviously sprayed him. The embarrassment pounded in my head again, but there was no taking back my explosive first impression.

"Thanks for helping me," I said to Katie. "I'm so sorry. I don't know where that came from." I stopped for a moment to spit into the trash. My mouth tasted awful of course, but I felt perfectly fine again. I glanced around, but my box was gone.

Katie told me, "John went ahead and took your box up. He got a little, uh, wet... Is that all you brought? I mean, I guess you'll go home over the summer, but you're probably going to be here for several years and I had loads of stuff when I got here."

"My sister has more, she's outside."

Carly came in then, pulling my two suitcases. "Sorry Dara, that was Gracie's sitter." I didn't tell her what had just happened. No need to hash over it.

Katie showed us to my floor. She chattered about herself and the dorm, which would have been nicer if that guy with the wet shirt hadn't passed us on the stairs. Probably to get clean clothes, and talk about the mess of a girl who'd thrown up on him. Ugh. I gathered Katie was a one-person dorm welcome committee, though I wasn't sure if it was a real thing or one she'd made up. She did have my card key, at least.

"This is for the exterior doors, the stairwell, and the elevator," she said, swiping it in a small card-reading device under the elevator buttons. "It'll only let girls on to girl's floors, and vice versa. Theoretically," she added with a smile.

Katie left us in my room to unpack and Carly's cell phone rang again.

She pulled it out of her pocket, but didn't answer it.

"Is that the sitter again?" I asked, hoisting my box onto the desk.

"Yeah, I'll call her back in a minute."

"Carly, you can go home. It's really okay," I told her. She'd been looking at her watch for the last hour, as my orientation dragged on and on. "I know you wanted to get back by 2:00. Go get Gracie."

"I wanted to help you get settled in your room...but this sitter is new. She's just not...very experienced." Carly's normal babysitter was used to Down Syndrome kids and knew exactly what to do for Gracie, this new sitter made her nervous.

"I'll be fine, Carly, don't worry. I'll unpack a little and go back to the office. Thanks again for getting Mom and Dad to go along with this!" I gave her a hug.

"I'll be praying for you!" she said.

"Sure, okay. See you soon!"

I waited until she got to the stairwell, then I closed and locked my door, throwing myself at the bed. Thank heaven Carly missed my throwing up in the lobby. She would feel horribly guilty leaving me.

I waited for the nausea to return, since I was apparently sick, but it stayed away. The humiliation was plenty to deal with, but I tried to pull myself together. It could have been worse, right? Surely one spot of bad luck wouldn't define my experience here.

And I hadn't been planning to be the most popular person anyway. Like that was even an option. I pulled the stiff, institutional-type pillow over my head and groaned.

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