Office hours

Part 1 - Moving day

20th of September, 7:20am

My room had never looked so empty and cold. Cardboard boxes lined the white walls where shelves of books and framed photographs had stood only a few days ago. The pale sage- green paint that I'd begged my mother for when I was fourteen seemed strangely unfamiliar without the clutter of my life covering it.

I sat cross legged on the carpet, folding yet another jumper into an already overstuffed suitcase. "Right," I muttered to myself. "One more," yet the suitcase refused to close. Of course it did, it was completely packed with things I barely knew I still had. I pushed down on the lid but nothing. Even when I sat on it nothing. "Great, just great." The zip stared back at me in silent defiance before I glanced around my room again.

The fairy lights above my bed were gone, leaving tiny hooks scattered across the wall. My desk was almost bare except for a old sketchbook I had tucked under my bed for years, and a mug filled with pens that probably hardly worked. The corkboard that had once held concert tickets, postcards, and photographs now looked strangely  nude.

This room had been mine for years and in less than an hour, it wouldn't be anymore. I mean technically it still would be but not in the same way it had been.

I sighed as I finally managed to force my suitcase shut.

Outside my window, the September morning was still waking up. Pale grey light filtered through the curtains, casting long shadows across the room. The grass in the front garden glistened with dew ,and the world beyond my window seemed strangely quiet, as though the day hadn't quite begun yet.

University. The word still felt unfamiliar, it was an experience I had been excited for all my school life until now. For a year, I'd managed to avoid thinking about it. My gap year had been exactly what I needed. While most of my friends had gone straight from sixth form to the world of lectures and seminars. I'd spent basically 12 months working at a city art museum.

Technically, it what been an internship and in reality it involved much more coffee making and running out for errands than I had originally expected. Still I loved most of it, the quiet galleries before opening hours, the smell of old books and varnished wooden floors. The careful ways visitors would stand infront of paintings, searching for meaning behind careful and precise brushstrokes that were hundreds of years old.

I'd learned how exhibitions were organised, how artworks were preserved and how much work was put into everything. But more importantly i learned that I wanted to stay in that world, the world of art history. Museum studies, research whatever form it took, I wanted it. That certainty was probably the only reason I wasn't completely panicking right now.

Well, not completely. My stomach twisted as thoughts flooded my mind. What if I hated university? What if everyone was smarter than me? What if I walked into the wrong lecture or made no friends? What if my professors were shit?

I had spent the entire summer imagining severe academics with impossible expectations, the type of people who could destroy your entire confidence with a singular condescending glance or raised eyebrow.

I groaned and flopped backwards onto my bed. "You're twenty years old, Evie." My phone buzzed beside me.

mum
"Are you ready yet?"

I stared at it and then at the remaining pile of clothes, then back at the message.

"Almost"

I replied. A lie, a very blatant and obvious one at that but still.

7:35am

I found myself pacing around my room one last time. My slender fingers brushed over the edge of my off-white desk. The windowsill where I'd spend countless rainy afternoons reading, the wardrobe door covered in tiny scratches. Every corner held memories: late night revision sessions, arguments, phone calls that I wished never ended. Everything that had happened between ten and twenty seemed somehow trapped within these four walls.

For a moment, nerves gave way to something softer and less worrying, more sad now. Growing up was strange. You spent years desperate for change then suddenly change arrived, and all you wanted was one more day that was exactly as things were.

"EVANGELINE"

My mother's voice echoed up the stairs.

"COMING!"

"WE HAVE A TWO HOUR DRIVE!"

I laughed despite myself as another shout followed.

"AND YOUR FATHER JUST TEXTED ASKING IF YOU'VE LEFT YET"

I rolled my eyes, of course he had.
The relationship between my parents could best be described as complicated. Divorced for years, my father drifted in and out of my life often enough that I'd stopped trying to predict it. Some months we'd speak every week and other times he'd disappear for ages before suddenly reappearing as though nothing had ever happened.

Lately we'd been somewhere in the middle, still complicated.

I picked up my final box and took one last look around the room. The room that had watched me become the person I am now. My chest tightened but no tears came just a small accepting smile. Nervous or not, this was happening. University, new city, new people, a new chapter.

And for the first time in a long time, absolutely no idea of what would happen next and somehow that felt terrifying.

"MOVE IT, EVIE"

Mum shouted from downstairs as I quickly grabbed my suitcase, and headed for the door.