Over the next two and a half months, Delilah slowly but surely got over her heartbreak. She still missed Alicia more then anything else in this world, but Alicia would not want her in a depressed funk for the rest of her life.
Ray stayed with Delilah the whole time, their friendship growing stronger. Delilah thought of him as a brother, but Ray wanted more.
Delilah put her house up for sell and within a week, she got an offer for almost twice as much as she originally paid. She gave the new tenants their notice of when they would be gone, and Delilah started to pack the last two years of her life away.
The week before college was to start, Ray and Delilah went down for orientation night, and explored the campus. Delilah got her own dorm room, so she would not have to worry about Tara bothering anyone.
Delilah got her schedule, and she was happy to see what she had. She wanted to be a journalist or a novel writer.
As they got closer to the day they would have to leave for college, Delilah and Ray vowed to stick together until they made friends of their own, so they wouldn't be lonely.
Finally, one day before the start of her college life, Delilah packed everything up in her car, and even some in Ray's car, and they headed the 15 and a half hours from Ferry County, Washington to Berkeley College in California.