Anika was next, and I was dreading it. I respected her opinion. I didn’t want her to think less of me. The prospect of being a bridesmaid wasn’t going to have any sway over her. That wasn’t something she would care about either way.
We had decided to room together that fall, in a suite with two of our other friends, Shay and Lynn, in the new dorm on the other side of campus. Anika and I were going to buy cute plates and cups, she was bringing her fridge, and I was bringing my TV. Everything was set.
We were hanging out in her room later that night. I was packing her books inside a big crate, and she was rolling up her posters.
The radio was on, and our campus station was playing Madonna’s “The Power of Good-Bye.” Maybe it was a sign.
I sat on the floor, putting away the last book, trying to drum up the courage to tell her. Nervously, I licked my lips. “Ani, I have something I need to talk to you about,” I said.
She’d been struggling with the movie poster on the back of her door. “What’s up?”
There’s no greater power than the power of good-bye.
I swallowed. “I feel really bad having to do this to you.”
Anika turned around. “Do what?”
“I’m not going to be able to room with you next semester.”
Her eyebrows were knit together. “What? Why? Did something happen?”
“Jeremiah asked me to marry him.”
She did a double take. “Isabel Conklin! Shut the shit up.”
Slowly, I held up my hand.
Anika whistled. “Wow. That’s crazy.”
“I know.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. Then she said, “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Yeah. I think so. I really, really love him.”
“Where are you guys going to live?”
“In an apartment off campus.” I hesitated. “I just feel bad about letting you down. Are you mad?”
Shaking her head, she said, “I’m not mad. I mean, yeah, it sucks that we won’t be living together, but I’ll figure something out. I could ask Trina from my dance team. Or my cousin Brandy might be transferring here. She could be our fourth.”
So it wasn’t such a big deal after all, my not living with them. Life goes on, I guessed. I felt a little wistful, imagining what it would be like if I was still the fourth. Shay was really good at doing hair, and Lynn loved to bake cupcakes. It would have been fun.
Anika sat down on her bed. “I’ll be fine. I’m just… surprised.”
“Me too.”
When she didn’t say anything else, I asked, “Do you think I’m making a huge mistake?”
In her thoughtful way, she asked, “Does it matter what I think?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not for me to judge, Iz.”
“But you’re my friend. I respect your opinion. I don’t want you to think badly of me.”
“You care too much about what other people think.” She said it with sureness but also tenderness.
If anyone else had said it—my mother, Taylor, even Jere—I would have bristled. But not with Anika. With her, I couldn’t really mind. In a way it was flattering to have her see me so clearly and still like me. Friendship in college was different that way. You spend all this time with people, sometimes every day, every meal. There was no hiding who you were in front of your friends. You were just naked. Especially in front of someone like Anika, who was so frank and open and incisive and said whatever she thought. She didn’t miss a thing.
Anika said, “At least you’ll never have to wear shower shoes again.”
“Or have to pull other people’s hair out of the drain,” I added. “Jeremiah’s hair is too short to get caught.”
“You’ll never have to hide your food.” Anika’s roommate, Joy, was always stealing her food, and Anika had taken to hiding granola bars in her underwear drawer.
“I might actually have to do that. Jere eats a lot,” I said, twisting my ring around my finger.
I stayed a while longer, helping her take down the rest of her posters, collecting the dust bunnies under her bed with an old sock I used as a mitten. We talked about the magazine internship Anika had lined up for the summer, and me maybe going to visit her in New York for a weekend.
After, I walked down the hall back to my room. For the first time all year, it was really quiet—no hair dryers going, no one sitting in the hallway on the phone, no one microwaving popcorn in the commons area. A lot of people had already gone home for the summer. Tomorrow I would be gone too.
College life as I knew it was about to change.
