Link Up ✔️

Chapter 55

Why did I feel suddenly free?

After telling Diallo I only wanted to stay as friends, it was like my energy shifted. I remembered why I decided to attend Mizzou and what I wanted to accomplish. This was not about meeting some boy and falling in mad love. This was about me.

And maybe I just had to kiss some frogs, as Angel said.

I attended a meeting on our floor with our Resident Assistant welcoming us back and trying to get us to plan floor activities. Gay and I were not the only new residents on the floor. This time I was on an all-girls floor and I must say it was refreshing.

Our RA was named Samantha Elliot and she was a sophomore and seemed pretty cool. One of those girls I was sure was a cheerleader at some point. Super bubbly, always happy and always smiling.

"I'm so glad you two ladies are on my floor!" she greeted us, grabbing us both in an awkward hug.

I looked at Gay, she grimaced at me. She should know better than to invade our personal space. They were trained on things like that.

"We now have some diversity on our floor."

Oh, and there was that. Gay and I were the only Black students on the floor. There were two Chinese girls, but we were it for as far as diversity. Good thing I had no problem with that, in fact, I needed it. I came from a high school that was a hundred percent Black, so I needed to be able to work around all people.

"And as such," Gay stated, "What are we doing for Martin Luther King Day? For Black History Month? The day isn't just about us it's about making others aware of our struggle."

"Oh," was all Samantha could say, sitting back down in her chair. She looked around at the others at the meeting, sitting on the sofas, laid out on the floor, or even standing around, as if they would protest. No one said anything. It got really quiet in the meeting.

"Not only that, let's celebrate all minority groups, even if they are not represented on our floor," I added.

"Great, that's a great idea," Samantha stated as if she had come up with the idea herself. "You two can be in charge of that."

"I'm down," Gay stated.

We were in the common area on our floor and there were not many residents that attended the meeting. Of the maybe sixty residents, there were fifteen at the meeting. I attended one meeting in my previous residence hall. Diallo did not have any outside of our first meeting. Samantha was planning things for us to do every week.

"Don't worry, she's not as bad as she seems," one of the girls said to us after the meeting.

"Better than where I came from before," Gay said. "Not that I had a bad RA, I just had a bad roommate."

"And I had a...fine RA," I added with a giggle. "I mean, he is fine."

"Ugh!" Gay said, elbowing me.

"He is!"

"You had a guy RA?" the girl asked, pushing her glasses back on her freckled face. Cropped short red curly hair too. I could make the Orphan Annie joke about her, but I was better than that.

"Co-ed floor. It was not too bad. My suitemates on the other hand...messy." Why was I talking to this girl as if I knew her? "Oh, I'm Rayvn and this is Gay."

"This school is so huge you can go a whole semester and not meet everyone," she said. "I'm Chandler. Yes, my mother named me from that God-awful show."

I tried so hard not to laugh, but I was about to bust at that. Gay could not hold her laugh in. She did so right in her face.