A week before school started, Sadie posted beach photos with captions about new beginnings and endless possibilities. I packed thrift-store sheets and secondhand notebooks into an old suitcase.
By then, our lives were already splitting apart.
The first day I arrived at Silver Lake State, I had two suitcases, a backpack full of borrowed textbooks, and a bank balance that made me feel sick every time I checked it.
Orientation week was a parade of families carrying boxes into dorm buildings, hugging their kids, taking photos on the lawn, promising visits and care packages and Sunday phone calls.
I dragged my luggage across campus alone.
Dorm housing cost too much, so I rented a tiny room in an aging house five blocks from campus. The walls were thin. The heater clanged. The paint near the window peeled in long curls. Four other students lived there, but we all kept different schedules and moved around each other like strangers in a train station.
My room was barely big enough for a narrow bed and a small desk pressed against the wall.
Still, it was mine.
Affordable meant possible.