Noelle sat down at her desk, with the intention of getting some of her homework done. She was an Elementary Education major, which meant that she was always completely swamped with work. At this point it kind of seemed like she was doing both the work of a college student, and an elementary school student. Not that elementary school work was too incredibly difficult, but still. It was just another hassle.

She looked over at her roommate, Maisy, who was in an incredibly deep sleep. How could she possibly be able to get to bed so early, on such a regular basis? Noelle thought to herself. She is always able to get her work done too, which just completely blew Noelle’s mind. She, on the other hand, always had to stay up to an unfortunately late time. However, she thought, Maisy doesn’t have a terribly interesting social life. Then again, neither did she.

Noelle wasn’t the type of girl to go out partying very often…or ever, really. She simply didn’t have an interest in doing drugs or drinking alcohol. Was that really such a bad thing in college? Everyone else seemed to think so.

It wasn’t like she didn’t have a lot of friends. How could she not? Everyone who knew her absolutely adored her. Was she a little bit of a push over? Perhaps, but…she was “working” on that.

            Noelle opened up her laptop, and pulled open her email. At this point, it was pretty much routine. Do as many things as humanly possible before trying to do anything involving homework. She had already done this same routine just a few hours ago, but what is a college student if not a procrastinator? Email, Facebook, Twitter, then if it’s a really tedious night of doing things, out comes tumblr, and any other social medium in existence. It totally makes more sense to spend your last few hours of being in a fairly decent state of being awake than it does to be doing homework with a clear head.

As expected, there were no new emails, or messages, or anything interesting happening anywhere.

“Maisyyy,” she groaned at her roommate, “are you awake?”

To her surprise, Maisy rolled over. “Yeah,” she replied, “unfortunately.” Her curly brown hair was messily stuck to her face.

“You look so attractive right now,” I smirked at her.

“I don’t need your sass,” she replied, and rolled back over to face the wall.

I grinned. I absolutely adored having Maisy as a roommate. She was the perfect balance of quiet and sassy. Looking down at my cellphone, I noticed that I had gotten a text message. What could Kim possible want at midnight, I thought to myself when I saw her name. Probably to go to McDonalds. Figures.

Instead, she was asking me if I had checked my email recently. Yeah, I thought, wondering why. I opened it up once more, wondering if there was something new. 1 unread email, it said. I eagerly clicked it, wondering first what Kim was talking about and secondly just because I am addicted to getting emails. There’s something immensely satisfying to me about seeing that that I have an unread email.

The message was from the dean of students, Mary Parkhurst. Great, I thought. I bet she has something extremely interesting to say. Thanks, Kim. I bet she decided to ban something else, like walking or eating. It seemed like those were the only things left that she hadn’t forbidden. The students here at Baylor University would come up with something fun to do, an event or something. Mary would allow it, or not know about it or something, and then once it happened, and everyone had fun and wanted to do it again, she would prevent it from happening again. Some people just hate fun, I guess.

I stared in shock at the email. It was mass sent to the entire college system, students, professors, staff, the whole works. My friend Renee had gone missing. Had I read that right? I read it again. Renee Michaud, nowhere to be found. If anyone had any information, go to the police or the college campus security, Public Safety. What? I had just seen her…when? Thursday was it? If it’s Friday now, and we have class together on Mondays… That’s right. It was Wednesday that I had last seen her. How could she have gone missing? Where did she go?

“Mays!” I shook my roommate awake. “Maisy!”

“Whaaat?” she whined at me, annoyed.

“Do you know where Renee is? When was the last time that you saw her?” I asked her, panicked. “I just got an email from Mary, apparently she’s missing!”

“Renee…like, Parkhurst?”

“Obviously! What do we do? Have you seen her?” My eyes started to water a little bit. Renee was one of the first people I had met at college. She had introduced me to so many people and experiences, and I really valued our friendship.

“Shit…what happened?”

“I don’t know!”

“How do you know that she’s missing? And what do you mean, like, was she kidnapped?”

“I don’t know…” I looked back over at the email, the rest of it hadn’t fully registered with me, not that there was much more. “It just says that she was reported as missing, and they can’t prove it otherwise, I guess.”

“Did they try texting her?” Text message was definitely one of the most reliable ways of getting ahold of Renee. She was generally glued to her phone.

“I’m sure…I mean they don’t just go around announcing people as missing without looking into it at all.”

“Hmm, yeah. Okay.” Maisy didn’t have as strong of a bond with Renee as I had, so I guess the news wasn’t hitting her as hard as it was for me.

“What should we do?” she asked me.

“I don’t know! I asked you that! I’m going to go see Kim, she’s the one that told me to check me email, maybe she knows more.”

“Okay, let me know.” Maisy decided to stay in bed, which surprised me a little bit. Oh well, I thought.

I grabbed some “real” pants, you know, ones that actually cover my butt completely, and put them on. If “real” can mean sweatpants, that is. Wearing jeans in the middle of the night? I don’t think so. I’m all about the comfort of minimal pant-age.

            I opened the door to my suite. It was a little lounge room with a bathroom that 4 rooms led to. Maisy and I live in one of them, and we have 6 suitemates. We see them occasionally, but unfortunately don’t have the greatest bond. We just don’t see them very often. On my floor, there are 3 other suites. Two of them are for men, and the other women’s one, is where Kim lives. I entered her suite, and knocked on the bright blue door, which was outfitted in various glittery objects.

            “Kim!” I called out as I knocked. I heard her shuffle off of her bed. Her roommate, Taylor, was there too, but Kim has a very distinct way of removing herself form her bed. It was extra unwilling.

            Kim opened the door in shorts and a sports bra. She raised her eyebrows and gave me a knowing look.

            “Can you believe it?” she asked.

            “Do you know what happened?” I replied.

            “No idea,” Kim said, “I hope she’s okay, though.”

            “Yeah, me too. What do we do?”

            “There’s really not much that we can do, I suppose. What do you think?”

            “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I felt too shocked to be able to cry, it didn’t seem real.

            “Shit, man.”

            “Yeah.” I excused myself from her room, and returned to my own suite. I sat down on one of the hard couches and sighed. Is this what my whole college experience was going to be like? It was only October, and I was just starting out on my college career as a freshman. So far, it was mostly only filled with stress. It was nothing too significant until now, but it was still enough to be bothersome.

            As I sat thinking about all of the work I needed to catch up on, I heard the door from the suite across from me slam closed. A tall, blond man emerged, heading toward the staircase.

            “Hey Noelle, what’s up?” he cheerfully asked me, leaning around the doorframe to face me.

            “Did you hear about what happened to Renee?”

            “What? No, is she okay?” he asked, concerned.

            “I don’t know…we got an email from Parkhurst saying that she’s missing.”

            “Wow, really? I didn’t see that yet. Huh….I hope they find her! Well, if you need anything, feel free to come by.” My heart fluttered a little bit. He had such a carefree attitude that was somehow caring and gentle at the same time.

            “Thanks, Tyler. Have a good night.” I had the most ridiculous crush on him. I’d known him for only a couple of months, but he was just such a kind and unique person.

            “You too, Noelle.” He smiled at me and continued his journey to the stairs.

            I had met him while having a meal with a group of some of my other friends. He was a year older than me, and one of my friends, Jamie, had been fairly close with him the previous year. I hadn’t really thought much of him at the time. If I recall correctly, I had been in my pajamas, probably making a fool of myself. At the beginning of the year, I told myself that I wouldn’t get caught up on men and dating and I would just focus on my schoolwork. It was hard for me, though, because even today, I haven’t yet had a boyfriend. Or, even a kiss. It was really quite the unfortunate situation, but I just kept telling myself that someday it would happen, and that I didn’t need to stress myself out over it. Either way, I didn’t think it would be much of a problem due to the size of Baylor. It was a ridiculously small University, with only around 3,000, and only a third or so are campus based. So, that didn’t leave too many options for man hunting.

            After talking with Tyler a few times, though, I realized that we had a lot of things in common, and the same type of humor. It was really very easy to hold a conversation with him, which I really struggled with doing in the past.

            Not that any of this mattered, though, because he has a very lovely girlfriend. They’ve been in a relationship for quite a long time, but rarely get to see each other since she moved to Honduras a year or so ago. I didn’t want to be a home wrecker, but I highly doubted that there was even any chance for anything to happen between us. No one “normal” ever seemed interested in me in high school, so why would they be now?

            It was generally something that I tried to keep my mind off of. But how could I when his marvelously sculpted face seemed to be everywhere I was?

            I returned to my room, to now sleeping Maisy. While I too lie down on my bed, I didn’t think that sleep would be able to overcome me. I just had too much on my mind. Regardless, I still set my alarm to 6:45am, just like every other morning, and hoped that I would wake with this being a foggy dream.

            I woke up sweating, having dreamt about the events of last night, but I knew that they had also actually happened. I checked my email again, hoping for some sort of news, but the only thing that was waiting for me were Facebook messages, of people asking how I was doing with this.

            I closed out of all of them, finding no reason to type my mixed emotions out to each of them. Renee’s disappearance still didn’t seem real to me. Instead, I took peeled my sweaty clothing off, and quickly wrapped a towel around my body. I grabbed my shower caddy, and hopped to it.

            The showers in my residence hall were probably the best out of the entire University. The bathrooms had just been redone over the summer, and they actually had two curtains, leaving a little space to change before entering the shower. However, I didn’t like carrying all of my clothes back with me after my shower, so I normally just changed in my room. It was also nice because you didn’t have to do too much thinking about how you were going to let the shower warm up, and spend as little time as possible exposed in the bathroom. It’s always awkward when I go to take a shower in a friend’s dorm, and I walk in on someone shimmying into the shower, naked.

            I let the water pour over me as I stood in the warmth. Showers always have such a calming effect when you’re actually in them, but getting the motivation to do so isn’t always easy.

            After washing and whatnot, I squeezed the water out of my long, brunette hair, and exited the shower. Breakfast at the University dining hall was generally pretty mediocre, but I found it hard to skip a meal. I’ll never understand how some people are not hungry in the mornings. I got dressed and headed out to the dining hall. It was only a few yards away, luckily. One bonus of having such a small school to go to is that everything is generally quite close. Not too much distance is involved, so it makes the community even closer, in a way.

            As usual, there was a selection of cereals, eggs made to order, and not much else. I grabbed a muffin of questionable flavor, and sat down at a small, 4-person table in the back of the hall by the windows. The air conditioning was on for some reason, even though winter was rapidly approaching. I just really liked to be near the beautiful mountain scenery. I peeled the wrapper off of the muffin, and tore a chunk off. It tasted like a mix between dry chocolate and something moist, which was hard to describe. I set the muffin back down, sighing. With my head in my hands, I decided to just relax in the time before it was time for class.

            Suddenly, I sensed someone near me, just as they pulled a chair out away from the table to sit in. I looked up form my hands.

            “Oh, hi Tyler, how are you?” I smiled.

            “I’m good, Noelle, what about you? You seem pretty down. Any word on your friend?”

            “No, there’s nothing that I know of, so far.”

            “I’m sorry,” he said, and sat down across from me. Somehow, he didn’t seem to have a problem with eating copious amounts of the school’s food.

            I stared outside the window once more. I didn’t even really feel that sad, it was more like I was just tired, and I just wanted to spend the day in my bed, cuddled up in the warm blankets. At the same time, I really wanted to keep the conversation with Tyler going, so I asked him about his classes and his life and food and whatever else I could scrounge up that seemed even somewhat casual or naturally flowing into the conversation. He seemed cheerful and willing to communicate, which was really very pleasing. His bright blue eyes would meet mine under his shaggy blond hair, and it was all I could do to not just stare into them forever.

After he finished eating, we walked back to our dorm together. I felt so special walking next to him. It was something so new to me, to have someone generally considered attractive to want to walk and communicate with me. Whenever we would approach a door, he would open it for me. It was the best feeling. We parted in the entryway, as there were two staircases and he lived closest to one, and I the other. There wasn’t much of a space between the two suites, but it still seemed the most appropriate to part there.

“I’ll see you later,” he turned to smile at me before he disappeared up the stairs.

“Have a great day!” I smiled back. I returned to my room to find that Maisy had already left for work. She had a job at the local drug store, doing cashier things. I, on the other hand, worked in the University library. It was a fairly low-key job. Not much was required of me, other than occasionally checking books out to patrons, and making sure that the library wasn’t trashed. I normally worked on Sundays, a decent 6 hour shift. The 6 hours were good if I had a lot of homework in theory, but I frequently found it hard to focus with too much quiet. That’s just a first world problem though, really, I thought. How can I complain about a job that I do little to nothing for, and still get compensated?

I had always admired libraries, ever since I could remember, I considered them a safe haven. When I first applied to work in one during college, I was reminded of when I was seven years old, and it was my youngest sister’s birthday. She had just turned 3 years old, and my mother had made her a decadent Disney themed birthday cake. I remember being in awe of it, and upset that my mother would spend such a large amount of time and hard work trying to please such a young child, instead of myself. Hunter was very demanding, and still is to this day. Don’t get me wrong, she can be the sweetest person ever, but her attitude can get really quite stale.

I remembered being full of rage when Hunter hardly ate any of her cake, and didn’t appreciate it at all, or think to say thank you to my mother. I had just left, grabbing my backpack and going next door to the local library. My mother didn’t care much, it was only next-door, and the neighborhood was considered very safe. I spent the rest of the evening there, just exploring the different sections. I didn’t read many full books, since I was only 7 at the time, but I enjoyed taking in the different cover pictures and colors of the spines that the adult’s books had, and of course, the pictures in the children’s section. I had been there a few times before, but I recall this as a defining moment of when my library love began.

I sat down at my desk, prepared to mindlessly browse through social media once again. I somewhat did that, but found myself opening up a chat message window to Tyler. I stared at it for a while, then decided that I would just ask him how his day was….that wasn’t too pushy or stalker-like, I didn’t think.

We ended up having a very pleasant conversation, which ended in the mutual agreement to hang out sometime. I had little hope that it would actually happen, but the thought alone was enough to keep me hopeful about it. I realized that I had been having a lot of self-doubt, and vowed to work on my self-confidence.

Weeks passed by, and there was still no sign of Renee. The authorities were still searching for her, even though they had nothing to work with. I had grown somewhat depressed, losing one of my newest friends for an indefinite period of time. I still had hope that she would show up one day, though. Tyler and I grew closer as friends. He was always willing to listen to me complain about my insignificant problems, and fears. I offered the same to him, but he remained somewhat detached in that way to me. This was somewhat hurtful, because I really wanted to listen to him. I didn’t think of myself as having many other decent friend qualities other than being a pretty good listener. We played board games frequently, having realized that we both have a secret love for Boggle.

Time went on, and he broke up with his long distance girlfriend. I was thrilled when I found out. He didn’t make a big deal about it, but I was really hoping that he broke up with her for me. Their relationship was on its last threads anyway. I felt bad for the girl for losing him, but it probably was better for her, anyway. Who would want a boyfriend that lived so far away? I casually asked him about it, and he shrugged it off. I wasn’t really sure how to take that, but decided that I would wait a few weeks, and then see how he felt about me. For the first time in my life, I would take initiative when it came to men.

Finally, I felt ready. It was two weeks later, and I had invited Tyler over to my room to do some sketching. We both were taking art classes, and it seemed more fun to do it together than to have artist’s block alone.

“What should we draw?” he asked me.

“I hadn’t really thought about that,” I laughed.

“We could draw you!” he teased.

“No way.”

“Hmm, okay.” He looked around my room as he sat on Maisy’s bed. She was out, doing something for a club for a few hours. Eventually, he just started sketching.

“What are you drawing?” I exclaimed, afraid that he would actually draw me, and then I would have to see myself through his eyes. I didn’t think I was ready to handle that one quite yet.

            “None of your business, Noelle!” he exclaimed, playfully.

            “Well, fine!” I teased back. He looked back down at his drawing, but I just grinned at him like an idiot.

            “Are you done yet?” I asked, after a few minutes.

            “I guess so,” he replied.

            “Well, can I see?” I asked.

            “I guess so!” he shown me his drawing. He had drawn my alarm clock, of all things! It was so amusing, and made me so happy, for little reason. “Now, let me see yours,” he said.

            “No way!” I joked, having had drawn my pet fish, Swimmerson.

            “It’s only fair, though” he smiled. I showed him my poorly drawn sketch. I had been too busy thinking about him to put much effort in.

            “Wow, that’s amazing,” he said as he looked into my eyes.

            “Really?” I raised my eyebrows, “you’ve got to be kidding me.”

            “No, really,” he said, “You don’t give yourself enough credit.” I had wanted to go to school for art when I was much younger, but quickly realized that it’s a degree that’s somewhat harder to do something with. I had also realized that there were a lot of people better than myself. Of course, you’ll have that with most things, but it’s a little harder to fake it with art. At least with teacher, you can pretend you know what you’re talking about.

“Aww, shucks,” I grinned at him. He had taken out his phone, and was playing some sort of game.

“What would you like to do now?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” I was drawing blanks, finding it hard to come up with something to do that he might like too. Mostly, I just didn’t want to embarrass myself.

“Okay,” he said, continuing to game.

“Sorry, I’m pretty boring,” I let my confidence slip away, in need of validation.

“No you’re not, I am!” he said, still looking at his phone. It was a little frustrating, but at least he was there with me.

I was leaning against my pillow, with my knees up, and he had moved over to sit next to me on the small bed. The physical contact, little as it was, made my heart flutter. I took a chance, and reached up to touch his hair.

“Your hair is so nice,” I told him. Really, I didn’t care much about it, but I just wanted to be able to touch him in a way that was somewhat still acceptable without being too weird. I was pretty sure that he liked me, at least a little, because we spent so much time together.