Beth had never really pictured herself being a college person. But then of course, she had never really pictured herself as anything. In her head she was always at the farm, helping her daddy with his practice. Tending to the animals, the garden, her family. Her hopes and desires had never really taken off to some far away fairy tale land. She never had some grand scheme to meet her prince charming, no plans for bigger and better things. She had never imagined moving to the city with her sister, but now here she was moving into Maggie's mostly empty third floor apartment and signing up for classes at the local community college. Leaving her home hadn't really been a decision, it had just kinda happened and Beth went along with it. Just like everything else in her life.

She had never made the decision to wait on college, but the date for applications slipped by when she was going down to the coffee shop and singing at every open mic they had. She had never really meant to go steady with Jimmy, but he kept calling and it just kinda fell into place. She hadn't had some idealistic version of her first love so she let it be Jimmy. He was good, brought her out on dates, bought her tickets to the dances she didn't care about going to, snuck her into his room when his parents weren't home. After graduation he gave her a promise ring and got a job. He never came to hear her sing. She didn't mean to not care. She hadn't meant to break up with him either, she still wasn't sure how that happened. Something at some party that she hadn't gone to or something like that. So when Maggie found out and called to tell her she was moving into the downstairs apartment with Glenn and the third floor of his house would be open, Beth packed up her room, emptied her savings account and asked her father to help her move. He said yes, and if she took at least two classes he would pay the rent. She registered online before the car was packed.

There had been a playlist she had made for moving day but for some reason all the songs about new beginnings didn't feel as good as they had two days ago. She wasn't a Freebird. She didn't have Georgia on her mind. All she had was two and a half rooms full of boxes of stuff that meant nothing to her and a blank slate she wasn't sure she wanted. The idea of cramming all of these old things into her new life left her feeling beat down and overwhelmed. She finally settled on shoving the box of pictures and scrapbooks under the bed before getting in the shower. It was one of those ones with only one knob, the water was too hot and the pressure was awful. The paint on the ceiling was peeling.

Maggie had been in and out of the apartment all day under the guise of being helpful. Really she was just moving boxes from one corner to another and sending Glenn up and down the stairs with the rest of her things while trying to convince Beth to go out with them that night.

"You can't just stay at home all alone and expect to like it here. Come to Rick's, you met him last time you visited. There's always a bunch of people." Maggie was putting away everything in the medicine cabinet and talking over the shower spray.

"Everyone's gonna be older than me."

"Beth, it's not like you're twelve. You'll be twenty-one next month."

She turned the water off and reached for a towel. "Alright, but you have to come over again tomorrow and help me finish here."

"Deal. Get ready, meet you downstairs in an hour."

As soon as her sister left, Beth set about barely doing her hair and makeup and throwing on the first acceptable clean outfit she came across. Maybe this move was what she needed to wake her up out of the foggy dream that her life had become. She kept telling herself that it was the push she needed as she locked her new front door and skipped a little out to the sidewalk.