Page 8 of Forever Yours

Dad and I looked up at the same time when the door to the dorm room was pushed open and in walked who I guessed was my new roommate.

“Oh, hey! You must be Elijah,” he said with the happiest smile stretching his face, his hair so inky black, it almost looked dark purple when the light hit it.

Walking fully into the room, he held out his hand for me to shake, which was difficult to do with the three duffel bags hanging off his shoulders.

I stood up and took his outstretched hand. “That’s me.”

He switched gears and shook Dad’s hand.

“Asahi Hayashi,” he said in greeting. “But my friends just call me Ash.”

“Nice to meet you, Ash,” Dad told him, pushing off the bed to his feet. He turned and pulled me into a hug. One I returned easily. “I’ll get out of your hair. You need anything, call me.”

“I will,” I whispered, squeezing him tightly, not ready to let go.

Once he walked out of this room, I would officially be on my own. It didn’t matter that Highland was a short two-hour drive away, and I could go home every weekend if I wanted to. It didn’t matter if I was already legally an adult in the eyes of the law. The moment Dad left, I would be on my own for the first time in my life. New place. New bed. New people.

Dad briefly touched our foreheads together. “Be amazing.”

Those were his last words before he disappeared out the door.

Ash’s gaze followed my dad and then turned to consider me with understanding. “My mom couldn’t even come up. She started crying as soon as we parked the car.” He shook his head and chuckled as he dropped his bags on top of the other twin bed.

Dumping the rest of my clothes on the new gray bedspread I bought, I zipped up my case and shoved it inside the very tiny closet.

“Do you have any more stuff to bring up?”

Ash placed his laptop on the wood desk on his side of the room. “Yeah.”

“Want some help?”

He smiled, and for some reason, that smile put me at ease.

“Yeah, thanks. Hopefully Mom will have stopped crying. But just in case, you’ve been warned. So, where’re you from?” Ash asked as we joined the hustle and bustle out in the hallway.

“Couple of hours west of here. Highland. You?”

Trying to navigate down the stairwell was much harder than coming up since we were going against the flow of traffic. It was also loud as fuck with voices talking and overlapping with the slamming of doors on each floor.

“Seattle,” he yelled for me to hear him. “Mom and I made a road trip of it. Took us over a week to get here since we kept stopping off at places along the way.”

Once on the ground floor, we took a right to avoid the reception area and exited the back door that had been propped open with a rock to allow students easy access in and out while unloading.

“I’m over there,” Ash said, gesturing at the white Range Rover parked three rows over in the student resident lot.

A tiny woman with the same purplish black hair and dark eyes as Ash hopped out the driver’s side. Her smile was broad and warm when she saw Ash and me approach.

Ash said something to her in what sounded like Japanese, then introduced me. “Ma, this is my dormmate, Elijah. Elijah, this is my mom.”

Ash’s mom bent at the waist in a formal bow. “Konnichiwa. Nice to meet you, Elijah.”

Not knowing exactly what to do, I mimicked her bow.

Ash laughed and bumped my shoulder. “I promise I won’t make you do that.”

“You are definitely teaching me Japanese this year,” I said as I followed him around the back of the vehicle and took the large moving box he held out to me.

The parking lot was busy as everyone seemed to be moving into the dorms at the same time.

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