"Who are you when no one's watchin'? You close the door to your apartment, Are you afraid of the silence? Are you afraid of what you'll find in it? Three in the morning, stayed up, Feels like the world won't wait up, All in your mind, it's made up"- ChloexHalle
"So sweetheart, how are you liking your salad?" Dad asked.
"I'd like it better if I could actually eat it."
I was sitting outside with my father at one of my favorite restaurants in DC. Since today would be my first day living on campus and not at our house, he wanted to take me out to lunch. Dad told me to dress nice, which I didn't really understand since after this I was supposed to be unpacking. Nonetheless, I picked out my favorite white jumpsuit and brushed my black curls into three buns, Janelle Monae style, and met him at the restaurant.
"And why can't you do that?"
"Because cutting and fixing salads are hard and I always make a mess," I pouted. "Can you do it?"
"Juli-bear you're a college student. Who's gonna fix your salads when I'm not here?"
"Mommy,"
"And what if she's in a meeting or away?"
"Then I guess I won't eat a salad until she gets back,"
"So you're willing to give up one of your favorite foods because you don't want to make a mess?" He deadpanned.
"Yea pretty much," I replied. I'm Julia Day, what do I look like making a mess with a salad?
"I doubt you would make it one week," He teased.
"Try me," I shot back. "I'd do almost anything to save myself from public humiliation,"
"Almost everything...except not eat salads,"
"You're unbearable," I groaned. "Now can you pretty pretty please, with whipped cream and two cherries on top, cut my salad for me?" I pouted. I batted my lashes a few times to add extra effect.
"This is the last time I'm cutting your salads until you come home for break," He announced. "I hope that by at least your sophomore year you can confidently cut and fix your own salads,"
"Yea I should be able to do it by then, but it's so much easier on me if I have you do it." I pointed out.
"Your mother and I have just spoiled you too much," Dad sighed. "Look at me, got me cuttin' salads because you don't feel like it,"
"Hey, think of it as a final gift to your favorite daughter before she leaves for college!"
We continued to converse as we ate, reminiscing over old memories while making new memories. Eventually dinner came to an end, as his lunch break was almost over and I had to drive to school.
"Well, I guess this is goodbye Juli-Bear," dad sighed. "I'm really sorry that I couldn't get off of work to help you move in,"
"It's alright dad, I understand," I replied. "Well, I'll call you tonight once we get all settled in! I love you,"
"I love you too Juli-Bear," I went and gave dad a really long hug that should last us until I can get a chance to visit home, then we parted ways.
~
I briskly walked down the long corridor looking for my room. 205? Nope. 207? I don't think so. What number did mom say again? Ahg this is frustrating. I've been trying to remember my room number for maybe three minutes now and I keep drawing a blank. Maybe I'll listen to some music, it always helps me remember things. I scrambled to find my Air Pods in my purse and quickly put them in. The first song that played was Freakum Dress. Nothing like some Queen Bey to make me feel better. I walked down the corridor with many rooms. Then it hit me, the rooms are album assigned and my RA told me that I got the B'day room. I jogged down the hallway to my dorm. This is where I'll be living for this new chapter of my life. I grabbed the handle and twisted it. As the door opened, the first thing I noticed was a short girl standing by her bed having a full blown concert.
"I'm sorry Mrs. Jackson 'oooh' I am forreeeeaaaallll,"
"Nevah meant to make ya daughtah cry, I apologize a trillion times," I sang along.
The girl jumped and spun around, quickly ripping her air pods from her ears, "Oooh Jeez- you scared me!" she said frightened, grabbing her chest breathing deeply. I noticed that her eyes were red and slightly puffy, like she had been crying. She let out an embarrassed laugh, "I was just.. You know...unpacking and what not," she said with an abashed smile.
"It looks less like you were unpacking and more like you were having a concert," I chuckled. "At least you have a great taste in music,"
She looked down bashfully, "Thanks...Julia, right? Or are you the RA?" she asked curiously.
"No RA, just plain ole Julia Day," I cheesed.
She laughed, snapping her fingers as if she was at a poetry slam, "Ok bars! I see you!" she said hyping me up as she walked over to me, holding out her hand for me to shake, "Well hello Julia Day, I'm Sasha Z, it's so nice to finally meet you in person, and not on a computer screen," she said.
"Well It's finally nice to meet you in person too, Sasha Z!" I replied, shaking her hand. She's pretty chill and laid back, I like that. I was so scared I was going to get an uptight roommate and she seems to be the exact opposite. Maybe this roommate thing will work out really well and I won't have any roommate horror stories to post on twitter. What questions should I ask to get to know her more? Meeting new people is hard. "So...how was your check-in process? I'm sure by now you know that my mom is the Dean, since she's the one in charge of the Check-ins. She's always so eager to tell people that I'm her daughter, although I really wish she wouldn't," I said with a playful eye roll.
She gave me a weak smile, "Yeah, she was quite happy to tell me that, but I don't know if that same sentiment can be expressed about me being here," she said with a shrug and a slight chuckle.
I grimaced slightly, getting an idea of what she meant, "Yeah...my mom can come off really strong sometimes, but I promise she's not that bad, she's just testing you, she wants to see if you can handle the pressure of college or not. She's always stressing to the incoming freshman that 'This isn't high school, and college is a different ball game, and yadda yadda yadda," I said, rolling my eyes and making an on and on motion with my hand as I mocked my mom's mantra, "You think hearing it once is bad, try hearing it on a daily basis," I jokingly replied.
She laughed as she nodded in understanding, "Yeah, you definitely have a point there. But other than that, everything went smoothly, well at least until a team of movers showed up to deliver all of this," she said motioning to all of the boxes in the room. I looked around and took note of the headboard and mirror, very impressed yet intrigued, they both looked really expensive. Is that gold AND marble? Her family must be really wealthy, I thought to myself, "She was not a fan of that,"
"Ohh I can explain that. See, growing up my mom was really spoiled because my grandpa was a really rich judge, but in college he cut her off because of her bad spending habits and her life was never really the same after that, especially after her first marriage to my sister's dad. So please, don't take it personally. She probably just had a flashback and became triggered. You can take the pearls from the girl, but you can never take the pearls out of the girl," I explained.
"Ahh, ok that makes a lot of sense. And I didn't take it personally at all, from our conversation she would always start off brash but then she would mellow out a bit. Trust me, I've dealt with worse people," she assured me.
"Well I'm glad that she didn't scare you at first. She tends to do that to a lot of people and it leaves a lasting impression on their image of her."
She waved me off, "It takes a lot to scare me, your mom is just really dedicated to her job, and I can respect that."
I nodded, deciding to switch the subject a bit, "Was it as hard to say goodbye to your family as it was for me to say goodbye to my dad?"
She looked in thought for a moment before answering, almost like she was trying to choose her words carefully, "Yeah, it was, my mom took it really hard. Cried like a baby."
"Understandable, you seem like you're not from around here. I think my mom would've cried like a baby too if she wasn't the dean. And well, I know my dad is pretty crushed that I won't be over his house any more since after this summer he's going back to the Big Apple,"
She shook her head, "No, I'm originally from LA. It's always been my dream to come to Howard, and now I can't believe I'm finally here! I'm so excited!" she said happily, but her tone sounded a little unsure. Sasha seems kind of mysterious, like one big mystery waiting to be unraveled. I know it's wrong, but I want to unravel her mystery...
"Are you originally from here?" she asked.
"Well I was born in Richmond but when my mom got this job we moved to DC. so I guess I'm technically not from here but I kind of am," I glanced around the room again and noticed the multitudes of boxes. As I looked back at Sasha I noticed my reflection in the full length mirror behind her. Wait a second, I forgot to bring my mirror from dad's house. "Hey Sash, wait is it okay that I call you that?"
She nodded, "That's fine!"
"Okay cool! Anyways, I realized that I forgot my mirror at my dad's spot. Do you wanna maybe go shopping with me since now I have to buy one?" If she says no this might be kind of awkward. "And since I've noticed you have AMAZING taste, maybe you could help me pick one out!"
She lit up a bit, "Sure! That sounds like fun, plus I'm sure there's a few things I forgot as well, and it looks like we have everything for our room, but not for our living area. I'm sure if we put our heads together we can come up with a dope theme that will fit the both of us and make this place feel more like home, well at least for the year," she said with a shrug," I have a pretty big SUV that will fit everything, if you want to ride with me?"
"Yea sure! Plus it would be better for us to plan if we rode together."
"Cool, sounds like a plan," she said before looking at her phone, "We have some hours to kill before the dorm meeting tonight, we can just go now and do that. Besides, I'd much rather wait until after the meeting to start unpacking, especially if we're about to get more stuff. Do you have everything you need?" she asked as she reached into her purse, taking out a pair of dark sunglasses and putting them on. It's pretty bright outside, but those are some really dark sunglasses.
"Yup, I didn't really take anything out of my purse when I got here so I'm all good!"
She grabbed her keys, "Alright, let's go!"
~~~
We left the dorm and started walking to the parking lot. As we left the building's doors, I looked around for what may potentially be her SUV. As we rounded the corner, she clicked her keys and I heard a car unlock. I looked over to see a gorgeous, blacked out SUV. It must have cost a fortune.
"Julia, meet my baby, Noir. Isn't she beautiful?" she gushed, admiring the car as she quickly got in the driver's seat and started it up, the engine barely making a sound.
"She's absolutely gorgeous. The touch of gold really adds class," I responded. It's true, it's not too much gold but just enough..
"So...what's your major?" I questioned as I climbed into the car. Wow this is REALLY nice, the seats are so soft. It's super classy too, I almost feel as if I shouldn't be in the car at all. She even had her initials stitched in gold in the floor mats!
Her phone immediately connected to the car's Bluetooth and she put in an address into the GPS. It called off the starting route, and once it told her what her first turn was we were off, "African American Studies, but my minor is in Psychology. I want to pursue a career as an African American Studies or History professor, maybe here perhaps. When I came here for orientation I took a tour of the department, and I could see myself working here in the future," she said.
"Wow, that's actually really well thought out. It would be amazing to have a history professor that doesn't just teach black history during Black History Month but instead completely incorporate it into the curriculum, especially at such a fine institution such as Howard University," I replied.
She nodded in agreement, "What's yours?" she asked.
"Well I'm majoring in fashion design. It's always been a dream of mine and I can finally follow it!"
She smiled widely, as if she could really relate to my major choice, "Ayeee, that's dope! I'm not a fashion designer per se, but I do make designs and witty phrases and put them on t-shirts and sell them. I make a pretty penny too. What made you want to study fashion, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Well with my mom being an art fanatic, growing up we were always at art shows and looking at art exhibits. Although the art was always beautiful and unique, I paid more attention to the art enthusiasts. Usually they would all wear suits or fancy dresses depending on the exhibit, but there were always the unique people. The people whose clothes always stood out. That's when I realized that I like expressing my art in not just drawings and paintings, but designing clothes as well. Over time my love and passion for fashion design just grew more and more and now here we are,"
She nodded in understanding, "I relate to that a lot, believe me, and I love art in all forms, visual, musical, but especially literary art. My absolute favorite era is the Harlem Renaissance. The art and literature that we have from that time was just phenomenal, it almost makes me wish I was there. Almost," she said jokingly with a laugh, "There's some parts that makes me glad I was born in this generation and not that one," she said, and then her face lit up as if she just thought of something, "Hey you should really consider blowing up some of your designs to poster size and hanging it up around our living area. It would definitely personalize the room a bit, and since you love fashion, and I love Black art, surely we can find pieces that are a mix of the two that we can decorate the place with. What do you think?"
"I honestly think that it's an amazing idea!" And it's true. We're a lot alike in many ways. I'm glad we're bonding over our love of the arts. "And maybe we can make some too! It'll add more flavor to the room because it'll show that we worked together to create it. Like you said, it'll show that our styles wont clash but instead become one in the same,"
"I would love that!" she said as she turned to merge onto the freeway, "What colors do you like, the color scheme I chose for my room is green and gold. Gold is one of my favorite colors so I'd definitely like to incorporate it somehow," she said as she focused on the road as well as the directions the GPS rang out.
"What shades of green? I like a lot of colors but I feel like sage green would be a good contour color to go with gold, Oh, and maybe a few gray pieces as accents."
"It sounds like you like a lot of earthy tones, I like that! The green in my room is emerald green, but the colors you suggested all go with one another, maybe we could add a blue to tie it all together? Did you have a color scheme in your room? Or a theme?
"I had some color schemes but I mainly wanted to see what you had planned out so nothing would clash,"
"Ok, tell me what you got."
"Well, I already told you about the sage green and gray, but what about maybe doing navy blue, white and gold or a pastel pink, white, and gold?"
"I like pink, white, and gold. It's light, earthy, and feminine. I'm feeling it. Do you have any sketches on your phone? There's a print shop near campus, you could have them blown up, matted, and framed and we can pick them up on the way back," she suggested.
"I have some, let's do it! How many should I print out?"
"Maybe four? I like that number," she said.
"Four Julia Creations coming right up!" This is all coming together. Sash and I work well together. And she's easy to talk to. I'm so glad that I got her as a roommate. She also has a great sense of style and design. I love the fact that we're working together to create a place that we can be comfortable together in. It just makes the place all the better. But, I still do have some questions about her.
How does she have all the funds to purchase everything that was delivered to her room, and her car, and why was she being so careful with her words earlier? I really don't want to pry, but I feel like if we're going to be living together then we should be a little more open with each other. Like dang, this girl is more private than Beyoncé. Maybe...hopefully, my questions will be answered soon.
For the next few hours we went from shop to shop, getting things here and there to make our room feel more like us and like home. We had gotten a TV, a rug, and things for our bathroom. The last shop we went to before picking up my prints was a store that had a lot of cool African American art pieces. Sasha's eyes glossed over and she became like a kid in a candy store. Before I was able to ask Sash how many paintings we should have, she was off, looking at the multitudes of paintings. I decided to just leave her to it and roam the store.
I didn't really look at the paintings per say. From years of looking at art, I've learned that you don't necessarily need to look at the art because the art that you need will call out to you. It'll always catch your eye and stay on your mind until you decide that it's the one. I strolled down the aisles, glancing over the various paintings the store offered. As I was walking, a specific painting caught my eye. It was a beautiful painting of Beyoncé from her movie Black is King.
It was highly detailed and flowed together yet had bright spots of vibrant colors. The background was a blend of pinks, blues, and yellows which perfectly contrasted her caramel complexion. I have to get it, I think Sash would love it.
I grabbed it off of the shelf and moved onto the next aisles. As I shopped, various paintings called out to me such as a beautiful blue and white marble painting as well as another blue and gold abstract canvas print. As I roamed the aisles, I decided that the three paintings that I had found were enough.
I searched the store and found Sash to show her what I had picked and to see what she had chosen as well. She had found a set of three paintings, each one with a faceless woman with big hair and a big, gold crown on each of their heads. Two of them had a blue background and the woman was painted in gray scale, and the other had a gold-ish yellow background and the woman was in color. They were all very beautiful and they happened to match the paintings I chose perfectly.
I showed her the paintings I chose, but I was really eager to show her the Beyoncé painting, I mean considering it's her album cover on our door it just felt right, and besides, you can never go wrong with Queen Bey. When she saw it, for a brief moment her face paled, almost like she had seen a ghost, but just as fast the look left and was replaced with a saddened look. It was weird, I had never seen anyone react like that when it came to Beyoncé. I mean there's really two reactions you get when it comes to her, either you're a stan or a hater, but I prefer to call the haters 'undercover fans', because who could hate the Queen?
She stared at it in silence for a few seconds before a warm smile graced her face. She caught me looking at her and blushed slightly in embarrassment, she told me that she really loved it and that we should definitely get it. I looked at her for a moment before shrugging and agreeing, and afterwards we went to pay for our items as our shopping trip came to a close.
All in all, our shopping trip was successful. We, well I bought what I needed and we had a lot of fun. We also got to know each other more. I told her more about my mom and dad, and even about my older sister Arielle, but when it came to the subject of her family, she was very vague. She would always talk around the subject and not be straightforward, which I found a little odd. She did say she was the middle child and that her parents were very busy people who worked a lot, but it made them very wealthy so she wasn't complaining. That would explain a lot, and now I see why my mom was triggered. Don't get me wrong, my dad is pretty rich and my stuff for my room is nice and expensive, but not like hers. She takes fancy to the next level. When I asked her if her parents bought her car for her 18th birthday, she laughed and said no, and that she hadn't even turned 17 yet, which blew me away, because she looked and acted like my age. She must be a genius or something.
She surprised me even more when she said her car was a birthday gift from her older brother, which made me wonder, who the heck is her brother? The more we talked, the more I found out, yet didn't find out, if that makes sense. She was like one of those gag gifts someone gives you, one of those big boxes and you open it up, it's another box inside of that one, and then another one, and another, until you get to the tiniest box, and by then you think surely this is it, the moment you've been waiting for, when you finally get to learn something of substance. So the anticipation has built, you're so excited to open the box, and with wide eyes and a big smile you open the box to find...nothing.
And that's kind of how it felt talking to Sasha. Don't get me wrong, she did tell me a lot about herself personally, like her likes and dislikes, her dreams and goals, and other things of that nature, but anything else she treated it as if it was information that was given on a need to know basis, and I didn't need to know, which really added on to the mystery, and really made me want to know even more who she was. So, I've made it my mission to find out who Sasha Z really is and what her story is. And I plan to do that by any means necessary. Actually, that's a lie, she's really nice and I don't want to come off as rude or like I'm trying to pry. So let me reword that to by any respectful and comfortable means necessary while breaking as few boundaries as I can.
On the way back to school we had got caught in a bit of traffic, so by the time we arrived we only had enough time to unload everything in our room and go right back downstairs for our dorm meeting. It took us a few trips to get everything in our room, but we got it done, and best believe after three back and forth trips up and down those stairs we were both tired and out of breath. By the time we made it to the meeting it was just beginning we were closer to late than we were on time. I caught my mother in my peripheral vision, giving me a disapproving look at my near tardiness. I gave her an apologetic smile before taking a seat next to Sash as the meeting began.
After the RA's finished letting us know all that was needed to know about the building and setting some ground rules for all of us we were dismissed. A lot of people immediately got up and went back to their rooms, some people left, presumably to eat dinner at the cafeteria, and others stuck around to talk to the RA's and ask any other questions they may have had. Sash and I decided to go on back to our room and get started unpacking and afterwards we would order in from somewhere. As we walked back to our room we chatted about some of the moments from the meeting. We walked in our room, and after Sash closed the door we turned and immediately stopped dead in our tracks at the sight before us.
My jaw dropped and my eyes widened as I leaned over to Sash, "Uhhh, am I dreaming, or is Beyoncé sitting on our couch right now?"
∆•∆•∆
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Sasha?
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Thanks for reading!