THURSDAY

The next morning, Kate woke up on her own. Groaning, she rolled over at looked at her end table alarm clock. 8:13a.m. “Oh my gosh….” Kate moaned as she tossed the blankets back and slowly slung her feet over the side of the bed. It was definitely a long, hot shower kind of morning. Kate planned on going over the first chapter of her first classes’ books today. A head start was never a bad idea, in Kate’s opinion. But first a shower. Most definitely.

A few hours later, Kate had read and skimmed her way through her first five classes worth of books. The book store that handed out all books for classes gave everyone all the books they would need for the entire year, as to spare them the semester after semester agony. Then, any that dropped or flunked out could just turn them back in on their own.

A loud sigh escaping her lips, Kate flipped shut her human anatomy book and slid it over to the side of her desk. Stretching her arms as high above her head as she could get them, she slouched back down in her chair. ‘Time for some mild entertainment.’ she thought to herself. She stretched out backwards on her bed, her feet resting on her pillows.

Opening up her Facebook page, she scrolled down to see what her friends back home had been up to -- or at least what they deemed important enough to put on Facebook. Glancing at the top, she noticed there was a number 3 in red over the friend requests area. Clicking on it, she immediately recognized the first two names. Amber Madison and Chance Jacobs, both friends from back home.

The third name on the list puzzled her a bit, because she didn’t recognize it. “Pete Peterson.” Kate said aloud. She didn’t know anyone by that name. Maybe it was another person from the tour group yesterday that recognized her by the picture she had (finally!) put up of herself as her profile picture last night after she had returned from dinner with Amanda. Clicking on ‘accept,’ she brushed it off as nothing. Kate shut her laptop and set it on her desk and curled up with her pillows for a small nap.

****

When Kate woke up, the sun was setting outside her dorm window. Sitting up, she picked her cell phone up from the desk and looked at the time. Seven at night! She had ‘napped’ for almost four hours!! ‘Geez, and I thought only cats were that lazy!’ she thought to herself.

Suddenly, Kate’s phone went off signaling a new text message. It was her mom. ‘Hey, sweetie. Just wondering if you would like to come home for the weekend before your busy schedule starts.’

Kate texted her back: ‘Of course! That’d be great! I can leave after a meeting I have to attend tomorrow morning.’ Hitting ‘send,’ Kate set the phone back on the desk.

Looking around her room, it looked like a small tornado had blown through. As she started picking up clothes and papers strung across the floor, desk, and bed, her phone beeped once, and then twice. Two new text messages. The first was from her mom. ‘Great! I will wire some money to your account to buy a plane ticket. Love you!’ The second was from her friend, Megan.

‘Hey lady! When am I gonna get to see your pretty face again? Soon, I hope!’ Kate texted her mom back first.

‘Awww…thanks mama! Love you, see you soon!’ And then texted Megan, ‘You will be fortunate enough to see my pretty face tomorrow afternoon or evening. Mom is transferring money to my account for a plane ticket. I’m staying the weekend.’

After sending both, Kate continued to clean up her dorm room.

Sitting on her bed, Kate looked around. “A pet would be nice,” she thought aloud. But she already knew that pets were a big no-no. She would love to bring her dog, Freckles, here, but he was a huge Dalmatian, and loud! There was no smuggling that dog!

Not a bit tired, Kate opened up her Facebook account to see if anything interesting or different was happening. In her ‘notifications’ area, Kate noticed she had two new ones. Megan had ‘wrote’ on her wall. And so did that Pete Peterson. “Hmm.” Kate said. Megan’s note was: “Glad you’re coming home this weekend! Even though you’ve only been gone a few days, I miss your face!!” Pete’s was simple: “Thanks for the add.” Well, that was harmless enough, whoever the heck he was. Kate noticed he didn’t have a profile picture. Well, he did, but it was just of the ocean at sunrise. Not a facial picture. Strange. “Maybe he doesn’t like having pictures taken of himself.” Kate said, closing the laptop. Time had escaped her, and it was now almost ten at night. Although she wasn’t really tired, Kate thought it was probably in her best interest to go to bed. Her class meeting was fairly early in the morning, and she definitely didn’t want to be nodding off during it. Plus, she had the plane ride and a weekend visit back home, which she was going to try and make the most of.

****