beside itâthe highest ratingâfive out of five. âYou must really like that one.â
âItâs so good.â
Khloe flipped through the pages. âYouâll have to be my tea tutor. There are so many kinds! Like this one . . .â She pointed to a tea three-fourths of the way through thejournal. âIâve never heard of red tea. Green, yes. But red ? Is it actually red?â
âIt isâand there are a ton. Oh, Khloeâyou never should have asked me to teach you,â I said, shaking my head. âIâll never stop talking. Youâll run to the dorm moni torâs office and beg for a new roommate.â
Khloe giggled. âChristina,â she acted out. âMy roomieâshe is obsessed with tea! Itâs terrifying . I fear for my life !â
I giggled with her and Khloe looked at me mock- dramatically. âI think Iâll keep you anyway.â Khloe put back my journal and flashed me an Oscar-worthy smile. âSeriously, LaurenâI am so happy we got paired together. Total kismet!â
I smiled. But, âKismet?â I asked.
âMeant to be!â she sang, skipping over to her bed.
âOh,â I said, nodding in fierce agreement. âThen, âkismetâ it is.â
I unpacked the books Iâd brought, taking two of the four built-in bookshelves in our room. Next: my desk. The beautiful white-painted wood desk had a center drawer, two curved drawers on each side, and a hutch on top.
Soon my purple HP laptop, flexible desk light, brightsilver wire pen holder and matching paper holders were set up. I filled one drawer with notebooks and another with an organizer that held a stapler, paper clips, erasers, Wite-Out, and other random supplies. When Iâd bought everything at Staples this summer, Becca, teasingly, had kept three feet away from me at all times, pretending not to know me as I excitedly filled an entire cart with school supplies.
âYou do know that you can buy stuff online when you get to school, right?â Becca had asked.
âBut then, something important might not get there in time. I mean, what if my order of highlighters doesnât get to school by Monday? Then I have no highlighters. I wonât be able to take good notes. Iâll fail all of my classes on the first day andââ
âOkay, okay!â Becca held up her hands in a conceding gesture. âContinue to fill the cart, Canterwood girl.â
The memory made me smile and I tried to ignore the tug of sadness when I thought how far apart Becca and I were now as I finished with my desk. Once Iâd finished, I looked at my side of the room. I was especially pleased with my closet where all of my clothes were color coordinated. Khloe hadnât teased me once about my type A organization.
HOME-TYPE THINGS
BY MIDAFTERNOON, KHLOE AND I WERE BOTH exhausted.
We had put in a DVD from season one of the TV show Sing . (Weâd screamed and jumped up and down when we found out we were both Sing fangirls!) I had all four seasons on DVD, Khloe had a brand-new flat-screen and a Blu-Ray playerâ voilà !
âKismet, once again!â Khloe had said.
Now we were each in our beds, half watching the show and halfâin my caseâreeling from information and sensory overload. My eyes were just starting to go from blink to closed-for-nap when my phone buzzed. The BlackBerry Messenger sign was red.
Ana: I saw ur update on Chatter. The Sweet Shoppe looks so cool!
I sat up, already so happy to hear from someone at home it almost made me teary.
Lauren: Iâm glad you saw it! And, um, HI!!! How are you? Howâs everything?
Immediately, the screen lit up. Ana is writing a message . . . I waited impatiently for her response.
Ana: LOL. Hi, LT!! Nothing has changed since you leftâtrust me. Except itâs Sat nite & school starts on Mon. L Brielle and I r gonna miss u!
Lauren: Itâll b SO weird. Canât