New Beginnings

Chapter Four

<LAUREN POV>

Ally and Lauren unloaded box after box of Lauren's clothing, decorations, and school supplies into the small but cozy dorm room making casual conversation with some awkward silences here and there. Lauren found out that Ally was from an hour away and that everyone in her family had attended Northwestern so her going to school here was really no big deal to the Hernandez's just another generation of wildcats. They talked about little things like pets, hobbies, music, favorite books, nothing too personal. For some reason Lauren still wasn't completely open with the girl even though they had spent several hours together and would be living with each other for the entirety of the year.

Lauren had almost completely finished unpacking as Ally sat silently on her bed when there was a knock on their door.

"Come in." Lauren called too lazy to open the door herself.

The door opened and the housing assistant that checked Lauren in stood at the doorway with a slightly hesitant look on her face. She looked at Lauren before clearing her mouth, "I am so sorry please don't get too mad at me," the girl spoke carefully, "but it seems when I was checking you in I accidently gave you the wrong key and room number, instead of 307 you are room 407."

Lauren stared at the girl at first slightly dumbfounded before she finally spoke, "Okay so just switch whoever was supposed to be in here with me, problem solved."

"Unfortunately we can't do that," the girl, now extremely embarrassed at her mistake said, "it's against university policy, I'm so sorry but you're going to have to move rooms."

Lauren's temper began to boil, she could be a bit of a hot head when she dealt with incompetent people and clearly this worker was incompetent. "Jesus fucking Christ," she mumbled, "I just spent three hours unpacking my shit!"

Ally gave a slight gasp at her outburst with the housing assistant standing right there but quickly chimed in to help the situation, "I will help you pack up and unpack your new room."

Lauren gave a slight smile to the small girl before looking back at the housing assistant with a glare, "thank you Ally, at least someone here is useful." The words came out harsher than even Lauren intended but she decided she didn't care quickly and closed the door in the girls face.

Lauren and Ally spent the next two hours packing her stuff back up, mostly throwing the stuff into bins without bothering to fold any clothing. It was around 4 o'clock when they finished and Lauren was exhausted. She made her way up the elevator with all her stuff in hand and Ally right behind her, she opened the door to her new room and found that her roommate had already moved in but was not there.

Good, she thought, one less person she had to deal with. Ally spent the next couple of hours helping her unpack AGAIN and arrange her stuff. They made some more small talk and Lauren actually started to take a liking to the smaller girl now that she knew they wouldn't be living together. Maybe they could be friends.

Friends.

Friends was a rather new concept for Lauren. She went most of her life alone after her best friend left out of nowhere when she was eight. Lauren wondered what ever happened to the girl, she had to be in college by now too, right? She shook of the thought as Ally spoke "that was the last box," the dirty blonde girl shrieked, "you are officially moved in...again, yay!" Ally jumped over to Lauren and gave her a hug. This was weird. Lauren stood there awkwardly not knowing how to reciprocate; she didn't really hug people besides her family.

Ally took this as a hint and spoke, "well, I guess you probably want to be alone now so I'll—"

Alone.

Lauren decided she didn't like this word; she was in college after all this was a new start. "Actually," Lauren turned to face Ally, "I'm kind of hungry, all this moving in worked up my appetite, want to go grab some food?"

Ally's face looked like it was about to explode. "Yes of course!" she stated almost too excitedly. So the girls grabbed their ID cards and headed out the door.

<NORMANI POV>

Normani finally got back on the train after a day full of exploring the city of Chicago by herself. It was by far one of the best days she had ever had, she didn't even care that she was alone.

Alone.

Normani decided she liked this word. She was so used to being surrounded by people: friends, family, Kevin. For once she got to just be by herself and do things SHE wanted to do.

She found a cozy car in the back of the train and settled in, too tired to get out her magazine but instead opted to put on her headphones and listen to music on the short 25-minute train ride. When she finally got back to campus she made her way to her dorm room and opened it up surprised to see her roommate had moved in but the roommate was nowhere to be found. Normani figured she was either out with her family or getting something to eat so she shrugged it off and decided to go get some food herself.

She was locking her door and turning around before suddenly her body collided with a girl carrying a mountain of boxes.

"Shit!" The girls yelled as the boxes came tumbling out of her arms spilling her clothes all over the floor.

"Oh my god I'm so sorry!" Normani said leaning over to help the girl pick up the items of clothing scattered about the hallway. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah I'm fine," the girl replied getting off the floor to look at the girl who had bumped into her, "shouldn't have tried to carry all those at once anyways, I'm Dinah by the way. Nice to...run into you."

Normani gave a slight giggle as she stuck out her hand to shake the girls. She was very tall with long blonde hair and tan skin. She was very pretty but looked like she was at least 25, no way was she a freshman.

"I'm Normani," the dark skin girl replied with a smile, "let me help you bring those to your room, which one is yours?"

"Um thanks," Dinah replied shifting the boxes to her hip to get a piece of paper out of her pocket, "it looks like, that one right there," she said pointing, "room 409."

Normani smiled wide, "well hey there, neighbor, I'm room 407!"

"Nice! Day one and I already have a friend next door, just please don't bump into any more of my shit." Dinah joked as she opened her door and set the boxes inside.

"Why don't I help you move your boxes in and then we can come back and I will help you unpack." Normani said to Dinah as she set boxes on the empty bed.

"That sounds fantastic," Dinah, replied with a smile, "I was just getting hungry anyway. Does your roommate want to join?"

"I haven't seen her yet, she must have had the same idea." Normani spun back around as the taller girl locked the door and she headed to the dining hall to eat with her new friend.

It had only been a day and Normani already loved college. 

A/N: These chapters are probably getting really annoying little filler chapters I'm sorry I promise it is gonna pick up soon I just want to build up the big reunion leave you anticipating it. Anyway most of my chapters are prewritten because I wrote this like last year so I don't really have but one NEW new chapter written so just know with classes starting up and everything I hope I can continue to update regularly. But let me know what you think I love to see feedback and comments! :) -Jauredramatic