24&29

The truth is that I did find Mikey mental – at first. I mean, seriously. He was standing there, looking outside the door, and then he turned around and started messing with the receptionist.

He was disturbed. He was pretty damn cool.

He swung the door open (I didn’t really expect him to be the gentleman type) and I was sent gawking. Mikey wasn’t kidding when he said we had a beautiful room.

I walked straight in and stared open-mouthed at the high ceiling, at the marble floor, at the wide window, at the four-poster beds. I dropped my miniscule duffel bag – much smaller compared to Mikey’s duffel bag that looked quite intimidating sitting atop the first poster bed, as if claiming dominance over it – to the floor. I felt my right hand fly to my mouth as I stared at the room in awe.

“Pretty amazing, huh?” I heard Mikey say behind me.

I looked back at him, blinking tears back. I nodded really quickly and looked back at the room.

A small, unexpected sob escaped from my lips.

Mikey scoffed. At least, it sounded like a scoff, but there was a hysterical edge to it. “Frank, are you… are you crying?” he asked.

“No,” I answered him sharply. He stayed quiet. I sighed. “Yes,” I relented.

“You’re crying because of a room,” Mikey remarked flatly. It wasn’t a question.

“This room is bigger than my house,” I said softly.

He remained silent. “Oh.”

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. My heart felt heavy and I felt an extremely strong urge to give Dean Kenton a hug. “I need to… I need to sit,” I mumbled, feeling my knees wobble.

Mikey grabbed my arm and swung it around his shoulders. He wound an arm around my waist. He walked me to the second four-poster bed that looked like it was on a higher ground compared to the first bed. Mikey sat me down gently and sat beside me, a few inches away. We both looked out the Spanish-styled window. Cars passed by, waves crashed against the shore, the Ferris wheel on the dock was turning… The scene was stunning.

Mikey broke the silence. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

I looked at him and smiled. I nodded. “Y’know, I’m here on a full scholarship. I never thought it would be this… this…” I couldn’t find the right word.

“Grand?” Mikey supplied. “Majestic?”

I laughed. “Yeah.”

“If you want, you could take this bed. I like the first one better anyway,” Mikey said.

I smiled at him. “Yeah, that would be great.”

“So, let’s unpack our shit now, yeah?” Mikey suggested. He got up and offered me his hand. I took it and pulled myself up.

He jumped the three steps down and made his way to his bed. He unzipped his duffle bag and began taking everything out.

I got bored watching him so I decided to do the same. I didn’t see why Mom told me to bring a couple shirts and a couple pairs of pants. St. Dominic’s Academy had a uniform, but then she told me that I would look really stupid walking around Santa Barbara wearing a uniform.

I unfolded my shirts and neatly folded them again, and I set them aside in the closet in front of my bed (Mikey had his own, but his was on the wall near his bed). I took my pants out and hung them on the hangers that the school had kindly provided. I took my toiletries and my black, leather school shoes out of the duffel bag and then it was empty. I closed the closet doors and looked back at Mikey.

He seemed to have brought his entire wardrobe.

“Uh, wow, Mikey,” I said. “You’ve got a lot of clothes…”

He grinned. “I like dressing up.” He looked at me. “Where are your clothes?” he asked.

“In the closet, neatly folded.”

His mouth formed a perfect ‘O’. I laid down on my bed, my hand behind my head. I stared at the ceiling and pictures of my mom and Jenna spilled over and under my thoughts.

“Hey, Frank?” Mikey’s voice chased away my reveries.

I shook my head, as if to shake some sense into me. “Yeah?”

“Could you… could you help me fold these?” he asked, pointing at his clothes.

I smiled. “Sure, Mikey.” I made my way to his bed and sat on it, so now, Mikey and I were opposite each other. So we began our group shirt-folding session, and I helped him stack it all in his closet.

I thought he was done unpacking, but he wasn’t. Turned it he didn’t bring his entire wardrobe.

He brought his entire room.

He took CD after CD out of his bag. And then he took out nearly thirty different posters. I gawked. “Do you really expect you’ll be able to put those up here?” I asked.

He grinned at me. “Nope.”

He left me staggered. “So why bother bringing them?”

He just shrugged and grinned some more.

So I just laid on his bed, watching him unpack. I was getting really bored really quickly. Mikey noticed me yawning.

“This is why we need a TV,” he muttered. “Life is so fucking boring without a TV.”

“Well, I grew up without one,” I told him. “I used to explore the neighborhood when I was bored.”

Mikey seemed interested. “Where are you from?” he asked, stepping on a chair so he could reach the bookshelf.

“New Jersey,” I answered.

He almost fell off the chair and dropped his comic books. “Holy shit! Are you serious?” he screamed.

My eyes widened. Did he have this thing against people from NJ? “Yeah, why?” I kept my voice low.

“I’m from Jersey, too!” he squealed.

I let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, all right. From your reaction, I thought you had this mad desire to kill anybody from NJ,” I explained.

He laughed. He finished putting his comics on the shelf, and he stepped down from the chair. He sat cross-legged on the bed. I straightened up, hugged my legs to my chest and rested my chin on my knees. We started talking about Jersey.

An announcement on the PA system broke our conversation. “Good afternoon, students. Lunch will be served in the cafeteria in ten minutes. Thank you.”

Mikey looked at his watch and cursed under his breath. He looked at me. “Do you know where McKinley Place is?”