Post by Laurie Collins on May 10, 2007 19:00:49 GMT
Laurie’s surprised, now that it comes down to it, just how much stuff she has to move to make room for her new roommate. Moving around most of her life had kept her possession count limited- if it couldn’t fit in the trunk of one of their ever shifting fleet of cheap used cars then it was too big, too much to own. Even in New Mexico and New Jersey where they’d stayed the longest she hadn’t gotten many new things, but her mother seemed to be trying to establish a sense of permanency for her at the Institute. Now for the first time in her life she has pictures on her walls (a laminated print of Starry Night, a couple movie posters, a few postcards that reminded her of places she’d lived) and, well, stuff for lack of a better word, that cumulation of living. There’s an extra lamp from a flea market on her desk, a dust ruffle on the bed she uses, a small CD player, an alarm clock shaped like a pig that oinks every morning at seven (her mother’s choice), and a lot more books. It’s only now, as she shuffles it all to one side of the dorm room, that she realizes the remaining half looks different from hers, that her side has an actual personality, a sense of being lived in that she’s not used to conferring onto her environment.
She finishes up clearing the bureau on the new girl- Sofia’s- side of the room and then sits, cross legged, on top of her own bed. She fidgets for a moment, then stills and smoothes out the comforter, thinks getting to be too hot for this and stands up quickly, relieved to be moving again not thinking about how now she won't have anywhere to hide herself away, folding the blanket and laying it at the foot of her bed. Then it’s back to sitting. She is coming today isn’t she? She tries reading but she can’t concentrate so she hits play on her CD player and listens to a few lines of “A Better Son/Daughter” by Rilo Kiley before realizing that now she won’t be able to hear Sofia approaching, she’ll be snuck up on, and hits stop even as a scornful mental voice comments, oh for goodness sake it isn’t as if she’s the Mongol hordes come to invade. She settles in to stare at the door before realizing that this too is wrong, after all how weird will it seem if the poor girl walks in to find Laurie staring intently and silently at the door?
“Gah!” Laurie grumbles throwing up her hands flopping backwards onto her bed. “I just lose at this…”
She finishes up clearing the bureau on the new girl- Sofia’s- side of the room and then sits, cross legged, on top of her own bed. She fidgets for a moment, then stills and smoothes out the comforter, thinks getting to be too hot for this and stands up quickly, relieved to be moving again not thinking about how now she won't have anywhere to hide herself away, folding the blanket and laying it at the foot of her bed. Then it’s back to sitting. She is coming today isn’t she? She tries reading but she can’t concentrate so she hits play on her CD player and listens to a few lines of “A Better Son/Daughter” by Rilo Kiley before realizing that now she won’t be able to hear Sofia approaching, she’ll be snuck up on, and hits stop even as a scornful mental voice comments, oh for goodness sake it isn’t as if she’s the Mongol hordes come to invade. She settles in to stare at the door before realizing that this too is wrong, after all how weird will it seem if the poor girl walks in to find Laurie staring intently and silently at the door?
“Gah!” Laurie grumbles throwing up her hands flopping backwards onto her bed. “I just lose at this…”
