The Dreams

Chapter Twenty One

Getting to Corine's proved to be an exhausting ordeal. Rina found waiting for her friend to be an emotionally draining ordeal. The fight she spent the day preparing for ended up being much less of a blowout than she had expected. Instead of being angry her mother just seemed confused and disappointed.

That proved to be a greater burden to bear than she had prepared herself to endure. She tried to hold on to the anger she felt to keep herself from crying. Once she admitted to herself that neither of them were actually angry at each other she was doomed to spend the rest of the night with tears in her eyes and she would end up feeling filled with regret.

She felt pretty tense even before Corine arrived, but she did not feel any sort of relief once her bags were tossed in the back seat and they were on the road. The freedom was a relief. The ride in Corine's car of questionable road-worthiness brought on a whole new sort of stress. The car had been nearly on its last legs when she bought it back in high school, and two years with Corine behind the wheel had done it no favors. Between the car, the driver, and Rina's current mood the term death trap easily came to mind.

There was not much talking during the ride back to Corine's dorm. Rina spent most of the ride biting her nails and worrying about how much she might have just messed up her life.

Corine seemed to understand that she was not ready to talk, and for once she did not pressure her to speak. That might have something to do with the frantic texts Rina send earlier in the evening, and then the hasty phone call she made before Corine even had a chance to send a message back. She suspected her friend thought she was overreacting, and now that she was literally putting distance between herself and her problem she found herself sharing that sentiment.

Back on campus, they hauled Rina's things from the sophomore parking lot to Corine's dorm. The walk was a cold one, and with her bags to deal with they neither had the energy or the desire to talk much.

Fortunately, they were able to ride the elevator up to Corine's floor rather than carrying everything up the stairs.

Corine glanced over at her and said, "My roommate might be asleep already. We'll have to be extra quiet or she'll be pissed and probably want you to go home."

"Wait. You did ask her if I could stay, didn't you?"

"Yes and no."

"What do you mean 'yes and no'?"

They were off the elevator now and walking down the hallway. It was late at night, but as any typical college dormitory, this floor was hardly silent no matter what the hour.

"I mean I sent her a text telling her you were sleeping over tonight, but I haven't heard back from her."

"So she never actually gave the okay for me to sleep on your floor?"

"Well, no, but you're sleeping on the floor on my side of the room so she can just deal with it."

Rina knew she had nowhere else to stay for the night so she was just going to have to take Corine's word for it and hope that she would not end up being the source of conflict in the room. Already she started to wonder what time would be a good time to go back home. She knew it would be pointless to even consider going home again tonight. Even if she thought it would be a good idea she would not want to be that much of an imposition on her friend. She had a feeling that many favors in one evening could put a strain even on their long friendship.

She resigned herself to sleeping on the floor for at least one night, and possibly more. She knew she might not feel the same way after a few hours of sleep. Most people cooled down after sleep, but she knew at least to a degree she calmed down because she flat out ran out of energy to be mad. After getting a bit of sleep she would find her energy reserves replenished and with that she might find more anger.