The Last July: A New Adult Romance

by Breanna Mounce

  My dad and I unloaded my dorm stuff into my room in about thirty minutes. There were some RAs who offered to help us, but Dad refused, and I think that’s because he wanted to be able to spend more time with me. I didn’t have much though. The heaviest items were the mini fridge and microwave. Everything else was easy: bedding, clothes, laundry supplies, and a bulk box of cheerios Mom got me.

  I was surprised when dad even offered to stay and help me organize my room. Mom stayed home today, and I think she wanted this to be a father-daughter thing. Besides, she had plans on coming up three weekends from now to check in. Dad made sure to connect my TV and Xbox while I put the fresh sheets and comforter on my bed. Instead of putting the matching pillowcase on my pillow, I reached in my backpack and pulled out the one from camp that the girls in my cabin signed for me, a smile spreading on my face.

  Dad even helped me make sure my posters were hung up on the wall straight before pulling me in tight for a hug.

  “If you need anything, call me, okay?” he asks, placing a kiss on the top of my head. “Anything, and I’ll be here as soon as I can.”

  “I will,” I promise him. “Same to you, Dad.”

  “When does your roommate get here?” he asks, pulling away and looking at her empty side of the room.

  “No idea,” I say with a shrug. “Haven’t heard anything from her. Might get a new assignment. I know they overbooked the rooms, so there’s a waiting list.”

  “Seems silly to overbook a dorm,” he says with a grunt, turning to the door. “Well, I guess this is it.”

  I smile at him and sort of wish I could see myself through his eyes. Do I look happy, like a girl with her whole life ahead of her, or do I look scared shitless?

  “This is it,” I say. “I’ll see you at Thanksgiving?”

  “For sure, kiddo,” he says. “Be good. Do good.”

  “Do well,” I say, correcting him.

  He shakes his head and chuckles. “No, I want you to do well and do good, but try to have some fun too. Don’t take life so seriously. You tend to overthink things.”

  “I’ll be fine, Dad.”

  He puckers his lips and gives an air kiss before opening the door. Just as he steps into the hall, I hear some guy yell at the top of his lungs that the kegs have arrived at Theta House. Dad gives me one more look before he leaves, though he seems a little terrified.

  “Call me tonight,” he begs, and I nod as he closes the door.

  I go over to my bed and climb up, I literally have to climb because it’s about four feet off the floor, the beds are not bunks like you would expect to save space in the tiny room. Note to self, I need to go buy a small step stool. I lay down and hold my tie-dyed pillow tightly against my chest. I honestly thought I might automatically feel at home here like I do at camp, since after all, school and Camp Arthur are only a few miles from each other.

  I’m not sure what to do with myself.

  I close my eyes and try my best not to cave and contact Sampson. I’m a big girl now, and I don’t need to be calling him the second I get on campus. Besides, he’s probably either not on campus, or he’s busy doing his own thing. I just hope that thing isn’t luring girls to his frat house with those silly signs offering free beer.

  My phone wakes me up with it’s annoying vibration. How did I fall asleep? I jump out of bed searching for it, but it stops vibrating before I can locate it. Finally, I find it at the bottom of a bag with dryer sheets and hangers, no idea how it got there.

  I don’t recognize the phone number but it’s local, and they’re calling me again.

  “Hello?” I ask, putting the phone to my ear, assuming it might be a department here at school calling me.

  “What room are you in? We’ve been trying to find you for an hour now!”

  “Who is this?” I ask, furrowing my brow.

  “It’s your favorite person from camp!” says the male voice. “Now where are you?”

  “I’m not telling you my room, I don’t even know who you are!”

  “It’s Kenny!” says the voice as two other people shout their names at him too. “And Ben and Dora. Now stop playing hard to get!”

  “Fine, fine, I’m coming. I’m in room 306,” I say.

  “Perfect. Open the door, we’re here.”

  Sure enough, when I go to my door, they’re all standing there with smiles on their faces. Dora jumps into my arms and almost tackles me to the ground. It’s so good to see some familiar faces.

  “Let’s go out, it’s time to break you in,” Dora says with a smile. “Drinks on Ben!”

  Ben laughs. “That’s funny, but you do remember I’m just as broke as all of you, right? We worked the same job this summer.”

  “Fine,” Dora says rolling her eyes. “Dessert on you.”

  “There ya go,” he says, lacing his hand in hers.

  Kenny and I smile and follow behind the two of them, Ben and Dora swinging their arms back and forth without a care in the world. I’ll have to get the story later from Dora on how and when her and Ben finally got together.

  Kenny drives us to some bar just outside of town that Ben said never checks IDs. It sounds kind of sketchy, but I tag along anyway, only a little nervous about being caught. What else was I going to do locked up in my dorm alone? Besides, I have the next few months until Christmas break to lock myself in my room and hide from my social life.

  Inside, the bar packed with people, and a good percentage of them are wearing Maryville shirts. There’s not even a table open for us. This place must have a huge reputation for not carding, because almost everyone has a beer in their hand, and a few of them look just as young as I do.

  “Maybe we should find another bar,” I suggest, glancing around the room. It feels like the AC is busted.

  “Nah, there’s got to be a spot here,” Ben says, standing on his toes to look through the crowd.

  “Penelope!” yells a voice over the blaring nineties country music, some guy singing about a storm. I turn just in time to see Carla running to me.

  I almost topple over from the impact of her body colliding with mine, I can smell beer on her breath. “Hey! Good to see you!”

  “Come sit with us,” she says, already pulling me by the arm. “We already have a table and a bucket of beers.”

  I motion for my group to follow me and they do. Hayley is at the table that Carla brings me to and she pats the open chair next to her for me to sit down in.

  “I have some friends with me,” I say into her ear so she can hear over the music. I point to them all and say their names for her. “Ben, Dora, and Kenny. They worked with me at camp.”

  She waves to them and then leans into me. “Where’s Sampson? Is he joining us or did that not…”

  I shake my head. “It’s a long story. I’ll steal some chairs for us.”

  Kenny and Ben go and search around the bar for some more chairs that other tables aren’t using, and after a five-minute hunt we’re all sitting around having a drink. I didn’t expect it to feel this easy to have a college social life. I never pictured myself with a group of friends sitting at a bar and actually having fun. I can’t hear half of what anyone is saying because it’s so loud, but I love my life right now.

  Before I even know it, the bartender says last call and we get one more bucket of beers, and Ben orders one of every dessert for the table to share. Carla and I share a bowl of ice cream and deep fried cookies while Ben and Dora share some pie, and Kenny and Hayley laugh over a huge piece of chocolate cake.

  The bar thins out and we pay our bills, all tossing in enough money to cover everything. We don’t worry about splitting it evenly, it doesn’t matter because everyone seemed to have a blast. I say goodbye to Carla and Hayley and wait over by Kenny’s car.

  It’s locked, so I lean against the half rusted door.

  Dora and Ben walk over, Ben’s arm slung around Dora’s shoulder.

  “Where’s Kenny?” I ask once Dora and Ben get over to the car.

  Th
ey turn to look over at a car a bit further down the lot and I follow their gaze.

  Kenny has a huge smile on his face and he hands his cell phone over to Hayley who starts typing something into it, possibly her number. She smiles and hands the phone back before climbing into her car. Kenny even shuts the door for her once she’s safely inside.

  When he joins us at his car, he still has a huge smile and doesn’t say a word as he unlocks the car to get in. Once inside, I buckle up and then stare at him, waiting for an explanation.

  He looks at me and shakes his head as he starts the engine. “Don’t look at me like that…”

  “Are we going to talk about what just happened?” I ask as he backs out and then puts the car in drive, heading back to campus.

  “Nothing, I just got your friends number,” he says.

  “I thought…” I say and then burst into giggles. I must be drunker than I thought.

  “Thought what?” he asks, the smile fading from his face.

  “What about Winnie?”

  Kenny shrugs his shoulders, one hand on the steering wheel. “We’re two different people. We hung out all night on our last evening at camp. Texted a few times over the following weeks, but I just wasn’t into her and she wasn’t into me either.”

  “What girl would be into you?” Ben asks and then bursts into a fit of laughter.

  Kenny glares at him in the rearview window. “Cool it, dude. I’m not afraid to stop this car and kick you out.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Ben says, shrugging the threat off.

  Ben’s phone rings a loud, shrill song. I recognize it as the theme song for Futurama.

  “Bro! Where are you? I miss you!” he says, answering it.

  “Who is it?” Dora asks, leaning into Ben.

  “It’s Sammy boy,” Ben says, and my heart speeds up.

  “Sampson?” I ask, the name making my heart sing.

  Ben doesn’t respond to me, he keeps speaking to his phone. “Yeah, Dora, me, Kenny, and Penelope were just at the bar. We’re heading back to campus…

  “Yeah, I said Penelope… do you want to talk to her? Okay, well we’ll see ya when you get to school. Later.”

  Ben hangs up, and I turn around in my seat to look at him, my eyes trying to pop out of my head. “What did he say? Did he not want to talk to me?”

  Ben gives me a smirk. “He was happy you got out, but he didn’t want to talk. Said something ‘bout obeying your wishes and planning on running into you on campus.”

  He didn’t want to talk to me?

  “Is he meeting up with you guys?” I ask, curiosity and hurt mingling in my voice.

  “He actually won’t be on campus until Monday. He had some family business to take care of.”

  That makes me feel a little better I say, and then realize I actually said it out loud.

  Dora leans up and puts her hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t you just tell him you want to see him?”

  I shrug my shoulders and look down at my hands. “I don’t know, I thought it would be romantic to just bump into each other out of the blue. I also wanted to give him time to get over Viv.”

  “I hate Viv!” Ben says from the back seat. “Don’t worry about that, Sampson got over her a long time ago, he just never realized it. You’re way better than her, so much more chill.”

  “Uh, thanks?” I ask. “You guys think…”

  “He’s crazy over you, Penelope!” Dora says, moving back in her seat. “Don’t worry your pretty little head over that. We all see how much he wants to be with you.”

  I nod my head in thanks as we pull into the parking lot of the dorm. And wave goodbye before I head up to my room. As I unlock the door and step in, turning on the light, I’m surrounded by towers of boxes and a pile of clothes on hangers covering the other bed. No roommate though. Normally, the clutter would bother me, but I just shrug out of my shorts, flick the light switch to off, and climb up into my bed.

  It feels like I just fell asleep when I bolt upright from the sound of a key in the lock and the door opening, letting in a sliver of light from the hall. A girl comes in and turns on the lights. I quickly put a hand over my eyes to block the light when she notices me.

  “Crap, sorry!” she says, the lights going back off in a hurry. She pulls her cellphone out to light her way back to her bed. “I didn’t know you were here. I mean, I saw your stuff earlier, but I didn’t know if you were coming back tonight.”

  “You’re fine,” I say, laying back down and pulling the covers up to my chin. “I didn’t know if you were coming back. My name’s Penelope. And yours?”

  “Grace,” she says, coming over to extend her hand for me to shake. She has one of those heavy Tennessee accents I’ve come to love. “Freshmen majoring in education.”

  I shake her hand and she goes back over to her bed to hang up her clothes.

  “Nice to meet you,” I say. “I’d get up and help you out, but I misplaced my pajamas, and I don’t think we’re close enough to walk around in our underwear just yet.”

  She laughs and gives up on hanging the clothes, moving them to rest on her desk instead. “It’s fine, I’m too tired to deal with this mess. I’ll work on it tomorrow.”

  She climbs into bed, turning on a reading lamp and pulling out a small paperback novel that has a shirtless guy holding a woman in his arms. “Hope you don’t mind, I’m going to stay up and read for a little bit. It’s part of my night routine.”

  “It’s fine. I’m going to try and sleep. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

  “Night, Penelope,” she says.

  I roll over and close my eyes, holding my blankets tight to my chest. “Night, Grace.”

  SEPTEMBER

  I didn’t run into Sampson the first week of school, or the second. Not even the third. I find it strange, considering that I had been hanging out at Ben’s place with Dora a decent amount on weekends. I was sure Ben and Sampson were close. By my fourth week at school, I gave up looking for him. After all, if I wasn’t in class, anytime I saw a guy wearing cargo shorts, a T-shirt, and shaggy hair, I thought it was him. I was driving myself crazy.

  I tried hanging out with Kenny and Hayley, but they were usually shut into her apartment with a hair tie on the door handle.

  “This is ridiculous,” Carla said one day when we were studying in the student center. Well, I was reading and taking notes, she was pouting. “It’s my apartment too! She can’t just lock me out of there once I go to class for the day. What if I need something?”

  “You could always go in there,” I suggest. “You have a key.”

  She stares at me incredulously, but I ignore her. “I can’t just go in there, I don’t know what they’re doing! What if I see Kenny’s junk? Gross!”

  I laugh. “Maybe you should just talk to Hayley? I’m sure if you explain to her that you need Kenny to be out of the apartment at a certain time, she’d kick him out.”

  “It’s just… don’t you think it’s ridiculous? He’s practically living there. The room isn’t that big. I have to listen to him snoring, Penelope.”

  “I agree,” I say as I flip a page in my sociology textbook. I had read the same paragraph about ten times and still have no idea what it said. “But seriously, you just need to have a talk with her.”

  Carla slumps down deeper into her seat. “I guess you’re right. Why couldn’t we had been roommates? You’re boring and celibate, you’d make the perfect roomie.”

  I glare at her and then glance back at my textbook. “I’ll take that as a compliment. I’m taken though.” Thankfully, my roommate is hardly ever around. I’m pretty sure she’s moved in with her boyfriend in his off-campus apartment. I only see her once or twice a week when she’s stopping by to get a bag of new clothes or something.

  “I have to get to my next class,” she says after a moment. “Mind if I stay in your room this weekend?”

  “I’m actually leaving today after my last class. I start my camp job this weekend.”

 
; She pulls her backpack onto her shoulder. “Think you’ll see the hot ghost boy?”

  Carla and Hayley have taken to nicknaming Sampson ‘ghost boy’ because I have yet to run into him. Carla thinks I’m being ‘ghosted’ by him, but Hayley tries to be positive about the situation. I can only pass so many curly-headed guys and drive by so many old blue pickup trucks before I have to realize I’m getting my hopes up for nothing. I won’t run into him, at least not on campus.

  I heard from Ben that Sampson took an internship at a hospital or clinic and it’s taken him away from campus for the most part. I thought he would have told me he had an upcoming internship, but he didn’t. He acted like bumping into each other would be the easiest thing. I try to shove the thought away that maybe he was just trying to let me down easy, that he didn’t want to be with me.

  “Who knows if I’ll see him,” I say, shoving my book into my backpack and pulling out the current book we’re reading in English. “I’m not going to get my hopes up. He’s probably busy.”

  “He’s an ass, that’s what he is,” Carla says. “I’ll see you Sunday for friend’s dinner then.”

  “See you there,” I say.

  Every Sunday since the first week of school, we’ve been going to Ben’s place for dinner. Dora cooks most of it and, the rest of us bring dessert or a side. Sampson has never shown up. I’m not the only one he’s been ghosting.

  Once I finish my last class of the week, I head straight to my car, excited to get back to camp for a few days. I packed up my car this morning, making sure I wore one of the outfits Mom bought me when we went school shopping. If I will have a higher chance of running into Sampson, I want to look good. I settled on a pair of tan capris and a jean blouse, wanting to look cute for him but job-worthy at the same time.

  The drive over to camp isn’t too bad. I could totally get used to coming back here every weekend, possibly seeing Sampson, being around his mom and her amazing cooking, working at a place I love.