Emily felt that there really was only one worse than not being able to paint. She was sculptor, and a pretty darn good one at that. Bensen University must have agreed, because on one chilly November day they sent a very nicely worded letter to her house in Colorado. Of course, the letter mentioned nothing of accepting her (though she had not even applied to the school yet) and nothing about providing her with a scholarship(though the letter put a particular emphasis on Bensen’s generous scholarships available to artists(Bensen has money, shocking story)That’s not the point), but the postcard HAD given her a waiver to apply to the school for free, and with a personal application to boot. Emily didn’t have that high of a GPA in school, she averaged a 2.0 even after the weighted average kicked in. She didn’t go out partying, she rarely ever hung out with her friends. It wasn’t because she was anti-social, to the contrary she was on very good terms with her entire school. Living in a small town in Colorado just means that social dynamics functioned a bit differently than they did on Long Island, or Long Beach, or any other populated area with “Long” in the title. The closest friend to Emily was twenty miles away geographically, and Emily’s family only had one car.
So, Emily had more than enough time to study. But she didn’t want to study, not one bit in the slightest. That didn’t exactly make her a unique little snowflake amongst her peers(and indeed amongst most kids in the nation), yet Emily felt she was justified in slacking off her studies. For every second she didn’t study, she slept, ate, or sculpted. That wasn’t an exaggeration, she didn’t watch television, she didn’t read, she hardly ever gossiped with her friends. When it came to sculpting, well, it wasn’t that Emily spent endless hours working with clay, that would be a bit too much even for her. But when her biology teacher attempted (some would say in vain) to communicate the principle of mitosis to her, Emily would be too preoccupied to listen to the lecture, instead directing her thoughts to conceptualizing a new piece of art, or how to best do a touch up job on an older work. One lesson Emily did actually remember was from her music class.
Her music teacher, Mr. Toto, taught her that there were no “natural geniuses” in the world at all, and that all so called “prodigies” were actually just people who spent ten thousand hours practicing their chosen passion. Emily wasn’t too good with mathematics, but she figured that with all the time she spent sculpting, she had to have had at least nine thousand hours under her belt, if not ten. And although Emily never bragged about her skill, it seemed to have paid off. The Colorado Art competition had consecutively given Emily first place in the sculpting division for the last three years of her high school career. Her artistic ability was a skill she was very proud of, though Emily would never dream of bragging about her talent. Instead, she just let her work speak for itself. To the shock of absolutely no one, Emily was officially accepted to Bensen University on a warm March morning. Just as surprising as Emily’s acceptance to the school was the eighty percent scholarship she received with her acceptance letter. Something that was unexpected, however, was Emily deciding then and there to attend Bensen.
Her mother was confused, because while Bensen certainly was a respectable school, wasn’t there still Harvard to hear from? Did Yale not want to honor Emily’s early admission to the school? Could it be possible that Stanford accidentally accepted too many people? The truth of the matter was simple; Emily felt her artistic ability would develop much better down south than anywhere else. After all, the South had a reputation for its natural beauty, for its more moderate weather, and also because the kids would probably be a bit friendly at Bensen than they would be at the various “Elite” colleges Mrs. Lucion wanted her daughter to attend. After a few months of enthusiastic support from her father and what felt like years of passive aggressive exchanges with her mother, Emily boarded a plane to Charlotte International airport and took a cab over to the town and campus of Bensen. She had expected to receive a single room to stay in, but the residence hall she was staying at only had double dorms available. Yet, things hadn’t turned out too terribly. The moment she unlocked her freshman room for the first time she was assaulted with questions and hugs by an energetic brown haired blue eyed girl wearing spats.
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“Hey, how’s it going?” said the well toned girl relaxing on a bed in Emily’s room. “I’m Danielle, but you can call me Dani. it’s nice to meet ya.”
With a bit of a blush, Emily summoned the strength to match her roommate’s enthusiasm.
“Ha, I’ll do that. My name’s Emily, I’m from Colorado…”
“Colorado? Y’don’t say! Well, I’m from Long Island, New York. I’ll have to get you a bagel sometime!”
Emily chuckled, despite her slight embarrassment. Initially, Emily planned to move out of her room, to get a single as soon as she could. She suffered from night terrors, and chronic panic attacks. As for the night terrors, they weren’t really nightmares. Emily never had a dream about snakes biting her, skeletons chasing her, or classmates laughing at her. No, her night terrors just meant that she would, once or twice a month, wake up screaming, and then go back to sleep. It was a nuisance, not really a crippling problem. Emily only knew she suffered from night terrors because her family had informed her of them after she woke them up one too many times when she was in middle school. Due to how Night Terrors operated, Emily barely ever remembered them, and the ones she did remember were just because she did not fall back asleep, or because her family members had woken her up. So she definitely wanted a single. Getting a single room would save her the embarrassment of having other people know of her condition and would save her roommate precious hours of sleep. (Un?)fortunately for her, Dani wasn’t having it.
“Come on now, y’think I care about you screaming twice a month? I basically scream once a month myself, there’s no harm in letting out a little air. Stay here with me, stay social.”
Emily was touched, but there was still the question of her panic attacks. They were a bit different from Night Terrors, mostly on account of Emily being conscious when she had them. They were not delusions or discomforting visions, they just induced a feeling of heavy anxiety on the young sculptor. Emily’s cure for her panic incidents was just to relax, either on her bed or by talking to her father.
“So just talk to me!” Dani said. “It’s not like it’s any trouble for me anyways.”
And so, despite Emily’s reservations, she stayed roommates with Dani, and grew to trust her. It was odd that an athlete like Dani(she apparently ran track) and an artist like Emily would become such fast friends, but become fast friends they did. Whenever she had a night terror Dani would just giggle a bit and pat the green eyed girl on the back, and whenever she had a panic attack the athlete would spend as much time with Emily as she could, making sure that the artist didn’t take too many of her anti-depressants. On her end, Emily would help Dani out with picking out stylish outfits and made some very pretty banners for the Methodist Marathoner teams(well, sorta. At the very least Emily “produced” some very pretty banners for the Methodist Marathoner teams).
All things considered, Emily felt that Dani met her a bit more than halfway, but only Emily had an issue with this. Dani seemed just ecstatic about everything, even about waking up at six in the morning to run ten miles. Emily was by no means a child of Thanatos, yet she couldn’t help but be awed by Dani’s amazing vitality. This particular morning, Danielle was up and about at ten. Emily groggily sat up in the bottom part of the bunk bed that she and Dani shared.
“Morning, Dani. You running to California or something today?”
“Nah, just going on a jog, as bizarre as that may sound. Hey, would you mind making something artsy for the good old Marathoners today?”
Emily immediately perked up. “I’m always up for that! What do you want, a poster? Or perhaps…” (a slightly malevolent smirk spread across Emily’s face)”Perhaps you might want me to make you a little sculpture?”
Dani grinned and slowly shook her head. “Sorry, maybe another time. Can you paint some posters for the team?”
Emily frowned. There was really only one thing worse than not being able to paint; and that was people assuming that you could.