Wildest Dreams

Chapter One

Chapter One

Imani enters her box sized dorm room and throws her bag on her bed. She is entirely spent; she woke up at six in the morning because her first class is at eight and she had to go to the packed cafeteria before heading to class. She also had to throw in a last minute cram session for her English quiz. It is now one in the afternoon and all of her classes are done for the day.

She wants nothing more than to take a shower and a long nap. She is relieved that her rowdy roommate is not here. Her roommate, Cara, is a little fireball full of energy. One minute she is angry because of relationship problems with her on and off boyfriend. Then, she is back to normal and talks too much. Sometimes she scares Imani to the point where Imani just thinks she is crazy. She would have switched rooms a long time ago if they had any rooms available in their building, but they didn't.

Connecting her phone to the speakers on her nightstand, Imani rummages through her dresser for something comfortable to wear. After picking out clothes, she walks to the bathroom that they share with the dorm beside them and takes a shower. She knows better than to lock the other dorm's door that leads to the bathroom—it is against the ground rules that they made on the first day when they all met each other.

In fact, all four of the girls—Imani, Cara, Hayley, and Jessica—came up with an idea after much thought. They decided to slip a paper that said 'occupied' underneath each other's door to let each other know they are in the bathroom. When they have to get ready for school and brush their teeth, the rule don't really apply as much. It basically only applies when one of them is naked or in the shower. So far, no one has had a problem with it.

Imani opens a drawer in the bathroom and pulls out the piece of paper. She slides it underneath Jessica and Hayley's door. She doesn't know if they are in their dorm room yet, but she's not taking any chances. She has been in the shower for a good fifteen minutes when she hears Cara entering their shared dorm room. Cara sounds angry—Imani can sense it when she hears Cara throw her bag against the wall. She winces as she hears Cara cursing up a storm. There never fails to be something wrong with her. By the time she gets out of the shower, Imani hopes that Cara has calmed down because she's not in the mood for one of Cara's moods.

When Imani goes back into the dorm room, she sees Cara sitting on her twin-sized bed—hers has a black comforter with red and white pillows, while Imani has a sky blue comforter. Cara is highly concentrated on her phone. Imani almost chooses to ignore her and keeps walking, but she speaks, nonetheless.

"Hey, Cara." Imani mumbles.

They aren't quite labeled as friends, but very strong acquaintances. They speak to each other on more than one occasion, but it's not like they are best friends. They only met a couple months ago when the semester first started, so they are still new to each other, like every other freshman.

"Hey, Imani." Cara says. She doesn't look up from her phone, but she sends Imani a wave.

Good, Imani thinks to herself, she seems to be in a better mood.

Imani doesn't mind being roommates with Cara one bit because they mainly keep to themselves. Imani knew they weren't going to be the best of friends when they met each other because reality is not like movies. You don't instantly become best friends with a stranger. It just doesn't happen in a matter of a few days, in her opinion. Cara talks a lot when she wants to, but only when she is in the mood for it. 

"I hope you don't mind, Chad is coming over later." Cara says after a moment of silence.

"Yeah, that's cool." Imani shrugs her shoulders.

She is just going to take a nap anyway, but maybe she should do homework first. She has a five to eight page essay due in her literary class. She weighs her options: to procrastinate or to actually do homework. She opts for doing homework and grabs her laptop from underneath her bed. She plops down on her bed and gets to work. Three hours later and she's only done with half the essay. Her eyelids are heavy and dying to close from the amount of concentration kept on the bright screen. She decides to finish her essay tomorrow and puts the laptop back underneath her bed after saving her work.