Page 2 of Ticket to the Stars: Part One

Chapter One– Maggie

“I can’t believe the closets at the dorm are so small,” my best friend Alexa whined. We were in her bedroom, and she was trying to narrow down what she was going to bring while I lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling.

It was our last summer before we went to college. She’d planned on going somewhere else, but I got her to apply to the same school I was going to last minute, and she got in. We’d be roomies soon enough, and it was going to be fun. Like a slumber party every night.

But she was right. The closets were freaking tiny. Online, the school had measurements of the room and the furniture that came with it—let’s just say the only way this particular room was even semi-useable was because both beds were bunk beds, allowing the space underneath to be used for something else.

A futon and a TV, obviously.

“My closet is going to be so full of shit,” Alexa huffed, collapsing onto a pile of her clothes. She lay back, resting her forearm against her forehead in a dramatic gesture. “You might have to let me have some of your closet space.”

“What? No way.” I propped myself up on my elbows to glare at her. Just because I had less clothes overall didn’t mean I wouldn’t use the space myself. What I figured, that tiny two-foot space would not only have to hold all of my clothes, but also my shower caddy and the laundry basket.

Yeah, I wasn’t going to have any space to give her.

Alexa sat up and let out an annoyed huff. “Don’t they know that’s not enough room? And what about my shoes?”

“I think they don’t care. They just want to pack us in like sardines so they can get as many of us in there as they can. It’s all about the money.” I, myself, was well-aware it was all about the money. My mom, being a single mom working multiple jobs just to keep a roof over our heads, couldn’t afford to chip in. Every dollar would come from a loan in my name.

Alexa was lucky. Her parents were still together, and though they didn’t have great jobs, they could still afford to pay some of it for her.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Alexa agreed, and then she returned to sorting her clothes into three separate piles. The yes pile, the no pile, and the maybe pile. After a while, it was obvious ninety percent of her clothes were either going into the yes pile or the maybe one… and that told me she might not be ready to do this yet.

We still had a week. One week before summer vacation ended and we were forced to go back to school. At least it’d be different than high school. I knew a few others from our grade who were going to the same college, but most of the people we’d meet would be new.

I was ready. I liked new people. I could do this.

Maybe if I kept repeating those three sentences to myself, it’d start to sound true. The truth was, I wasn’t ready, and I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready. As for the new people part… well, let’s just say I was one of those quiet people in class, the introverted person everyone made fun of for being so quiet.

It wasn’t that I was quietallthe time. If I liked you, if we were friends, I could be just as loud and annoying as the rest. That’s the thing most people didn’t understand about introverts: we weren’t silent twenty-four/seven. We were just pickier on who got to really see us.

But back to the list of three, the whole I could do this part. I didn’t know if I could. I guessed I was more of a realist than most other people. Personally, I didn’t think going to college was even smart these days, with how expensive it was. There was also no guarantee you’d get a good job once you were done.

What else was there to do, though? Being a realist, I knew I’d never be able to do the one thing I really wanted to.

Sing.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Everyone with a semi-decent voice wanted to be a singer at one point in their lives. I was one of those kids that got home from school and ran around the house, putting on an imaginary show for no one, and when my sister graduated from daycare and started to go to school too, those imaginary shows moved into my bedroom.

I’d tried to do a YouTube channel once, I’d also tried to get into reels and other social media sites, but those things required me to be outgoing and social—because if you didn’t promote yourself, no one saw it, and then it just stung.

And once you got older, everybody’s dreams got more realistic. Girls who wanted to be ballerinas and the president decided they wanted to be nurses and teachers instead. Nothing wrong with that, but the dreamer part of me never died, and that was why I was going into freshman year as an undecided major. I didn’t know what to do.

Alexa was my opposite. More outgoing, louder. We had other friends, but she was the only one who could ever really bring me out of my shell. She was taller than me by quite a few inches, had less curves overall, and somehow was still skinnier than me. Short black hair and dark brown eyes; she was literally my polar opposite.

Me? I was a whopping five foot three, one hundred and twenty-five pounds, with blond hair so long it fell halfway down my back and blue eyes I’d inherited from my mom. Oh, and let’s not forget the boobs that, depending on the day, were caught between a C and a D.

The only thing Alexa and I had in common was the fact that neither of us had had a boyfriend. She’d done a lot of stuff with a lot of guys, but nothing ever serious for her. If guys could play the field, she’d told me time and time again, why couldn’t she do the same? I guess I understood where she was coming from… sort of.

Me? I hadn’t even had my first kiss yet. And that wasn’t to say I hadn’t tried. I’d gone out on an ice cream date with Rob Turner one day late spring last year, but by the end of it, I’d decided he wasn’t my type.

The guys I tended to like I liked from afar.

I stayed over Alexa’s house until it was time for me to go home and prep dinner. Mom would be on her way home from her first job, and she’d pick up Cleo on her way home. By the time they got home, I’d have dinner pretty much ready. Mom would eat, shower, and then go in to her second job to stock groceries until two in the morning.

Waitress by day, stocker by night. It’s what she had to do all these years to keep Cloe and I fed and clothed, with a roof over our heads. Our dad was pretty much useless; I’d met him only a few times when I was younger. He up and left before Cloe was even born, which was… what? Over eleven years ago now?

I hadn’t seen him in years. He didn’t pay child support, and the courts were useless in going after him. He was as dead to me as any other random stranger could be. I might’ve wished things were different when I was younger, but now that I was older, to him I simply say: whatever. If he could move on, I could, too.

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