All My Days

cheryl and toni's college days

xxx

Toni stared at the letter in her hand. The letter that could change everything as she knew it. Things were going just great until she checked the mail this afternoon. Under any other circumstances, she would be bouncing off the walls after receiving a letter like this. And she was, just last week.

"Toniii!" Cheryl sing-songed as she came through the front door. Her forehead was covered in a thin sheet of sweat from her morning jog, but she couldn't care less. Her ponytail bounced with each cheerful step she took up the stairs, red hair swinging when she burst into her and Toni's bedroom.

"Did you open yours already?" Toni threw the covers off, sitting up to move her legs over the edge of the bed as her girlfriend came practically skipping over.

"No, of course not!" she shook her head, handing her the envelope with her name in the little window.

"This could change everything, are you sure you're ready?" Toni asked, hesitating at the sealed paper lip.

"Better to get it out of the way now, right?" the taller girl breathed, a bit winded from the excitement and her jog.

Toni nodded and started to gently rip the envelope open, watching Cheryl do the same with her own. She could hear her heartbeat thumping in her ears. Once their envelopes were open, the girls locked eyes, hesitating to read their respective letters.

"Whatever they say, it's you and me, okay? We'll make it work," Toni told her reassuringly, seeing the slight fear in Cheryl's brown eyes. The redhead nodded and glanced down at her own paper, biting her lip as a huge smile threatened to take over her face. "You got in?" Toni's grinned with wide eyes, squealing when Cheryl nodded.

"Read yours, read yours," the taller girl bounced up and down eagerly.

Toni took a deep breath and unfolded the paper, another smile breaking out on her face at the simple phrase 'we are pleased to inform you' in the first paragraph. "I got in," she whispered. She barely had time to look up at Cheryl before she was being tackled back onto the bed with her face smothered in kisses from her over-excited girlfriend.

"We're going to college together, baby!" Cheryl squealed with excitement, giggling as Toni kissed her again and again.

They were so happy. It was a week later and Cheryl was still on cloud nine. She was already insisting that they started trying to compromise on dorm decor, despite the fact that graduation was still a month away. What was Toni supposed to say to her when she got home from her coffee date with Veronica?

"You'll never believe who Veronica has a crush on," Cheryl chirped when she came through the doorway of the kitchen, kissing Toni's cheek from behind as she sat on an island stool, but frowned at the solemn silence that surrounded them. "What's wrong?"

Toni was quiet, not looking up from the counter as she slid the envelope she'd received over to her.

Cheryl glanced curiously at the envelope from the University of North Carolina in Wilmington. She knew that Toni had applied to multiple schools, as had she. But they were going to NYU together. Why was she acting this way over another college letter? She unfolded the paper and skimmed over the words.

Oh.

"A full ride? Toni, that's...this is huge," Cheryl whispered, "You should be freaking out right now."

"It's a ten hour drive from NYU," Toni leaned her chin onto her hand, "I'm not going."

"Toni, this is a full ride. They're literally paying for you to go to this school for four years to study photography," the redhead held the paper up firmly, "You're going."