My brother Gabriel was an artist before anything else. He was always looking for something to depict in his dark, abstract brush strokes.
Then he was nothing, and yet I saw his face everywhere that day.
I saw him in the students hauling their boxes and suitcases across the parking lot and into their dorm buildings. Four years ago, Dad had helped Gabriel fit his new art easel into the elevator, just to find that there was no room for it in his small dorm. My mom had hugged me close and whispered that this was a good thing—if Gabe couldn’t keep it in college, maybe he’d come home more often.
I saw Gabriel in the short, impatient gesture the residential life volunteer used to hand over my college ID and instructions on how to access the dorm building before calling, next in line!
In my dorm room, I saw him in the graffiti etched into the drawers of my standard university desk. I filled the top drawer with my origami papers before my mom could see it. Above all I saw him reflected in her green eyes, and my dad’s peach-colored freckles and chestnut hair. Traits they’d given to Gabriel, and then to me.
While my father and I trekked back and forth between my dorm room and our Honda, my mom busied herself with cutting precise shelf liners and pinning a paper calendar to the wall, carefully circling the date for my next telehealth conference with my psychologist in sharpie. Then she aligned my medication next to my shower caddy. The two orange bottles were by far the brightest thing in the room.
While I looked the other way, my mom slipped her hand into her purse and pulled out the picture frame of Gabe I’d noticed was missing from the living room this morning, and quietly propped it up on my desk.
“This is the last box,” my dad finally huffed, shouldering his way into the room, and dropping it next to my suitcase. He looked around and smiled, “Not much space, huh?”
“It’s a freshman dorm.” I leaned against my bed and fanned myself with a campus map. We had no air conditioner, and the room was stiflingly hot. “I wasn’t expecting much.” I tried for a smile, but then watched as my dad’s gaze fell to the picture frame on the empty desk.
“Yeah. I guess they’re all like that.” I knew what he was thinking: Gabe’s college dorm had looked just like this.
And college was when everything had gone wrong. When my brother had struggled for two years, and then died.
For a moment, no one said anything. I pulled my hair over my shoulder, tugging on my braid. Another moment passed and I bit the inside of my lip, my front teeth fitting in the familiar raw grooves. It was time for them to leave, and I knew my mom had been dreading this moment since the second I’d received my acceptance letter last spring.
Gabe’s university was a ten-hour car ride from our house, so we’d left the day before and spent the night at a hotel with a star-shaped hot tub. The next day my parents had invited Gabe’s roommate out to lunch with us. When it came time for goodbyes, Gabe had tugged on one of my braids and kissed the top of my head.
Keep looking, Care bear, he’d told me.
It was our code phrase. The first time he’d said it had been on a bike ride five years previously, when I’d spotted a flat pebble on the sidewalk and stopped to pick it up, thinking it a quarter. Keep looking, Care bear, he’d laughed at my childish disappointment. The next time had been about a month later, when I’d told him, I wish I had something like you have art.
You will. You just have to keep looking, he’d repeated. It had become our nonsensical code phrase for both the little and the big things, like when we thought mom had put too much salt in the minestrone soup, or when I’d spent all my allowance money and didn’t have any left to buy dad a Christmas present.
Keep looking, Care bear.
“Cara?”
I blinked back from my daze to find my parents watching me.
“I’m fine,” I said immediately—instinctively—then realized that wasn’t what they’d been asking. “Sorry, I’m just thinking about everything I have to do before tomorrow’s campus tour,” I amended on the fly, tasting blood on the inside of my lip.
“Well,” my father clapped his hands once to dispel the silence, “I guess we’ll leave you to it, then, Care bear.”
I smiled, releasing my lip, “You guys should head home. It’s already late.”
I walked them out of my room and back to the parking lot, where my father had left the Honda with the trunk open and the rear lights blinking.
“Remember that for heavier laundry loads, you should use two pods,” my mother said as I closed the trunk. “Also, don’t eat the chicken fingers at the dining hall—I read an article about the horrific things college dining halls put in their batter. Oh, and I left a sticky note with your debit card pin on the wall behind your calendar, just in case you forget,” she prattled on, delaying the good-bye hug.
“Yes, mom.”
“And in a couple of weeks remember to check-in for your virtual doctor’s appointment at least half an hour before—”
“Patricia,” my father interrupted gently with a hand on her shoulder. “Honey, I think Cara’s got everything under control."
“And remember that you can come home for absolutely any reason,” my mom exhaled, “we’ll come get you in the middle of the night, too.”
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary.” I stepped forward to embrace her before she could add anything else.
“I’m excited for you,” she lied, holding me so tightly I felt her anxiety in every bone in my spine. Then I kissed my dad on the cheek, and finally watched them climb into the car. I went around to the passenger side and my mom reached her hand out the window for a final squeeze.
“Be good and be safe, Cara. And take your Mezadone—”
“Yes,” I replied again, gently pulling my hand from her claw-like grip. “Drive safe.”
“We’ll see you soon, Care bear,” my father called, backing out of the parking spot. “Love you.”
“Love you too,” I answered quietly as they joined the steady stream of parents lining up to exit the dorm parking lot. I stayed until the taillights dimmed, until I lost the Honda in the traffic, and then a little longer. A soft breeze picked up, finally cooling the back of my clammy neck.
On my way back into the building, someone recruited me to carry a neon body pillow to the room across the hall from mine. My red-haired neighbor had brought approximately seven pillows and fifteen stuffed animals with her to college.
“Thank you so much.” She jabbed her foot in front of the open door before it could swing shut on my face. “That definitely would have gotten stolen if I’d left it unattended on the sidewalk.”
“Definitely,” I readily agreed, propping the body pillow up against the bed frame. “We’re neighbors, by the way,” I told her, pointing to my room just across the narrow hall. “That’s me.”
She squinted to read the two flower-shaped name tags on my door, then gave up and pulled a pair of thick-rimmed glasses from her back pocket. Clamped onto a strip of pale skin just above the generous curve of her waist was an insulin pump. “Are you Cara from Rhode Island or Floris from Florida? Hah. Floris from Florida.”
“Cara from Rhode Island,” I twirled my hand in a little tah-dah motion, then immediately felt silly and twisted my fingers into the belt loop at the back of my jeans. “I haven't met Floris yet.”
“I’m Rebecca,” she held out her hand, “Rebecca Endel. From California.”
“Cara Day.” We shook hands and then laughed at our glittery fingers. “Nice to meet you. I should get back to unpacking, but I’ll see you around.”
I crossed the hall and entered my code into the door’s lock system. The door opened with a beep, and I pushed my way inside to find, presumably, my roommate leaning against my desk, looking at Gabe’s picture frame.
“You must be Floris,” I said before the door even had time to close behind me. Too fast, I admonished myself, too unfriendly.
“Hi!” she stood, looking slightly abashed. She was tall and slender, with spaghetti-straight hair and bright blue eyes. She tugged at her crop top floating above a shiny belly button piercing. I would have guessed Miami without having to read it on the nametag. “Sorry, I was looking at your picture because it’s the only decoration you’ve put up. Boyfriend?” she asked.
“Brother,” I corrected, trying to keep my voice light. “I’m Cara. Nice to meet you.” We shook hands, and I had to explain why she then found glitter from Rebecca’s pillow in her palm.
“You’re already making friends!” she drew her eyebrows together and pouted. “You can’t socialize without me, we’re roommates now! We’re supposed to stick together until we find our real group of friends.”
“That’s…”
“Kidding! Just kidding!” she laughed, going to her closet. “Did your parents already leave?”
“Yeah, just half an hour ago.”
“Mine fly back to Florida tomorrow morning.” She dragged a mattress topper from between her closet and the wall, pushed it onto her bed, then began to manhandle white bed sheets over both. I was pretty sure the mattress cover didn’t have the obligatory fire-proof wrapping the university had sent us four emails about over the summer. My mother had spent hours researching the best rated one for safety. “I had to basically kick them out of here. My mom is an interior designer and wanted to totally take over the decorating.”
I dragged my finger through the tape crisscrossing the top of my last cardboard box, distracted as she proceeded to pull what looked like ten yards of fairy lights from her backpack.
“She’s welcome to help me with my side. I didn’t bring any decorations.”
Floris looked up, an arm tangled in the string of lights, “No decorations? At all?”
I kept myself busy with my navy pillow covers to avoid meeting her gaze and lied, “I guess I’m a minimalist.” The truth was last week my mother had bought me a string of decorative laundry pins to hang polaroid pictures on my dorm wall. When she’d seen that Gabe wasn’t in any of the Polaroids I had chosen, she hadn’t spoken a word for the rest of the night.
Floris kicked her flip flops off to climb onto her mattress, which was easier for her than it was for me. I had to use a running start to propel myself onto the raised dorm bed.
“There’s no such thing as minimalism in college. There’s just not enough space for any small quantity of things to seem minimal. Hey, is this a good spot?”
The string of fairy lights was long enough to wrap around the perimeter of the entire room. I helped her hang the remaining wire with my Scotch hooks, then she turned off the harsh overhead light and we sat in semi-darkness for a couple of seconds before she managed to stab the plug into the outlet. The lights came to life and basked the room in a warm, honey glow.
“Wow,” I murmured, watching the light soften even my stark navy bed set. “They’re so lovely.”
“You say that like you’ve never seen string lights before.” Floris looked about the room, satisfied.
“I don’t have any in my room at home, and we don’t really decorate for Christmas,” I explained offhandedly. “—because we usually travel,” I immediately added, realizing how gloomy I sounded. I tugged on my braid again. You’re such a buzz-kill.
“We don’t decorate much, either,” she replied. I couldn’t tell if she’d picked up on my discomfort or was just being honest. “Snow decals don’t fit in very well in Miami.”
“Thanks for sharing them,” I smiled, veering us to safer waters.
“No problem. You can Venmo me fifty dollars for the lights on your half of the room.”
I stared at her serious face until she started to crack up.
“Oh Cara,” she swooped in for an unexpected hug I barely had time to respond to. “We’re going to have so much fun.” She held me tightly for a second, and then bounced back to her side of the room.
“Until we find our real group of friends, you mean,” I added after a heartbeat.
“Touché,” she laughed.
~)(~
The next morning, I awoke with the first ray of light sneaking around the ripped blinds. I checked the time on my phone and had to blink a couple of times to make sure I’d read the numbers correctly. It was already seven am. I’d slept dreamlessly.
I put my phone back down and blinked up at the patchy dorm room ceiling, bracing for the anxieties of the day to push me out of bed, but none came. My mother wasn’t going to knock on my door at seven-fifteen. School didn’t start at eight, sharp. I had no expectations for the day to come. I had nowhere to be until our campus tour at noon.
I exhaled. Everything was quiet, except for Floris’ gentle snoring from the other side of the room. She slept in boy-shorts, an oversized tee-shirt, and thick yellow socks she’d shoved into her flip flops to go brush her teeth in the public bathroom the night before.
Last night was the first time in two years that I hadn’t slept in my room at home. Wrapped in a different blanket felt strange. but it felt also strangely comforting. Floris’ breath hitched and she rolled to her other side. I finally sat up, dangled my feet over the four-foot drop, and lowered myself to the ground. I took my medication—MEZADONE glaring at me from the orange prescription bottle—and swallowed it dry before going to sit at my desk.
I quietly pulled the top drawer open and ran my thumb over the names and profanities carved into the wood. I leaned forward to see them better and was momentarily blinded by the reflection of the light sneaking around the ripped blinds behind me and bouncing off the glass of Gabriel’s picture frame.
I leaned back again and bit my lip as I considered his grinning face and imagined his paint-stained hands ringing in his lap as he grew antsy before the camera.
I was at my cuticles without even realizing it, my heart already hammering in my chest. I held my breath and forced my hands into fists, then slowly released my grip as I exhaled through my nose. This was the one exercise I’d learned from my second therapist that sometimes actually worked.
Be good and be safe, Cara, my mother’s voice echoed in my mind. As if I needed the reminder, after everything.
I took another deep, quiet breath, and then reached for the origami paper. I used my nails to separate a small square sheet from the rest of the pad, and then dug into my pencil case for my paper folder: the one thing I had bought for myself over the past two years. It was smooth and creamy white, like a flattened bone. I glanced at Floris to make sure she was still sleeping before carefully folding the diagonals across the origami paper, revealing the blue and yellow floral pattern on its other side with each fold.
I’d folded the pinwheel so many times I could do it with my eyes closed. I matched the rhythm of my breathing with the careful strokes of my paper folder, feeling every fiber bend beneath my rounded blade.
With the small pinwheel finished and my heart rate had slowed, I left the small creation on my desk, stripped beneath my towel, and grabbed my shower caddie before heading for the showers.
I liked how the motion sensored lights flickered on when I walked in, like I was entering an untouched space. I turned the corner to the showers and caught my reflection in a mirror over the sinks. My hair stuck out in odd directions, and I had the pattern of the bed sheets' stitching still etched into my cheek.
I giggled out loud, surprising myself, then actually laughed, my voice bouncing around the empty space. I smiled at my reflection, then frowned, then laughed again, poking my fingerat my cheeks as they lifted into little apples beneath the corners of my eyes.
They’re going to like you, I told my reflection sternly, And you’re going to like them. And you’re going to be so, so happy.
