College Cravings

1

I didn't even notice the guy walking down the hallway, wearing only a blue bathrobe and flip flops, until my mom pointed him out to me.

"Hmph! That boy might as well be in his underwear," she said, just loud enough for me to hear.

"Mom, I told you this floor is co-ed," I said.

"Sorry, Sunny, but if this is how boys act around here, you have to move to an all-girls floor."

Her devastating comment made me drop the last of the boxes I had carried into my new dorm room. Four years at an all-girls high school and now possibly the next three years of college on an all-girls floor? How would I ever meet boys here at Greendale University? My expectations for college popped into my head: fall in love and graduate.

I know the first one sounds old-fashioned but I'd like to think it still happens, just like in TV and movies. I was kind of raised by them. With my strict parents, TV and movies were comforting. They made sense, they had structure, logic, rules, and likeable leading men who always got the pretty girl. In real life we didn't always have that.

Mom marched down the hallway toward the room of the resident advisor. I followed, twisting a strand of my straight black hair with my finger and huffing in protest. I adjusted my white crop top, pulling it down a bit toward the waistband of my high-rise jeans as I passed more potential peers on this floor.

The RA's door rattled when Mom knocked on it politely. I looked down at her as we waited. She was in her early fifties and her blonde hair was graying, but no wrinkles were visible yet thanks to daily exercise and moisturizing. I would say I hope I inherit her good genes but she isn't my biological mother. And with me being Korean, there is hope for me to look just as young and vibrant at that age thanks to good Asian genes.

When the door opened, my jaw hit the floor upon seeing my RA for the first time. He was the same guy wearing a bathrobe!

"Welcome to Greendale! I'm Tae. Can I help you?" he asked in a cheery voice.

I couldn't help but stare into his large, deep brown almond-shaped eyes. His appearance, his defined jawline, and full lips were striking and...were those butterflies fluttering in my stomach?

Mom's words took me out of my trance. "Good evening, young man. I want to transfer my daughter to a different floor."

Tae's eyes swept from me to my mom with an all too familiar look of recognition that I must be adopted because of how different we looked. "Sorry, all the dorms are full."

Whew!

He spoke up again. "Oh...except..." he checked a paper taped to his wall "...the all-girls, quiet-living, quarantine floor on twelve. You could request a transfer form at the front desk."

I cringed at the description that sounded like hell to me. Mom thanked him and we both turned on our heels back to the room, me shuffling my feet across the thin, threadbare carpet. Once inside, I turned to her and pleaded, "Mom, please let me stay here. I'm nineteen, an adult, and I can make my own decisions."

As I sank into the chair by the desk next to my bed, I had a sinking feeling I was going to lose the freedom I so desperately wanted. This was major...as in major dilemma. I continued my pleas, "I've always followed the rules. You and dad said I couldn't date until I was 18, couldn't go to parties, I couldn't even drive. So I didn't."

Mom wore a tight smile and sighed. "What would your father think?" she asked with a worried frown.

Dad, who was no longer with us, would have wanted me to stay at home if he had his say. But since he passed, Mom had decided to loosen the reigns a bit and let me go away to college, after a year at the junior college down the street from us, giving me my first taste of freedom.