Chapter Seventeen
After arriving back at the dorm, Hannah immediately felt empty.
The flight had been long and exhausting, as flights always were.
At least it wasn’t the flight from Heathrow, London, to the airport near the college.
That had been utterly exhausting, and she had had to learn quickly to drive on the other side of the road because the United States insisted on driving on the right.
Then again, she was sure that had more to do with the fact that she had grown up in London and learned to drive on the left side of the road.
Sitting alone in her dorm room, Hannah wondered how the rest of her roommates were getting on on their first day of classes.
She didn’t have any that met on Mondays, and that was slightly on purpose.
She hated Mondays and needed a way to ease into the week.
A way to sleep in and recuperate from the weekend, so to speak. Or her flights sometimes.
After another ten minutes, she got up off the bed.
Wallowing in her sadness wasn’t going to do anything for her.
Instead of trying to heal her heart and think about what Elias was doing right now, she decided to at least eat something.
Her stomach had been growling for an hour, and she’d done nothing about it.
She poured herself a bowl of cereal. As much as she wanted to have a proper English breakfast of baked beans, toast, sausage, eggs, and an English muffin, she did not have the energy to prepare it this morning.
As she was in the middle of eating her cereal, the front door to the dorm opened. Patricia walked in and smiled widely upon seeing that she was awake.
“How did the rest of the summer go? We didn’t hear from you.
We were worried that you had forgotten to write us,” Patricia said as she dumped her backpack on the small couch in the little room that served as their dining and living room.
“Have you had any fun? Did you enjoy it? You look miserable. Did you go to class today?”
“I didn’t have class today. No Monday classes this semester, intentionally on my part,” she shared.
“Patricia, I appreciate the questions, and I apologize for forgetting to write to all of you. I was so busy that by the time I returned to John’s home, I was wiped out most nights.
I laid down and fell asleep a few moments later most nights. ”
“Happens to the best of us,” Patricia said. “We get it. So? How did it go?”
“I think it went well. But… I already regret leaving. I don’t want to withdraw and spend all the money it would take to go back. I need to get my visa situated before I even think about trying to stay permanently, and it all hurts so much…”
“That sounds more like you’re speaking from the heart about someone, not the way of life,” her friend said as she sat down at the table. “Is this about Elias or someone else?”
“Elias, actually,” Hannah admitted.
She then told Patricia all about how she had started to feel about Elias. Patricia listened ravenously, as if she were being fed a great meal, and didn’t want to stop eating. Honestly, she was just glad that one of her friends was interested in listening.
Hannah could admit when she needed a sounding board.
And never before had she needed one as fervently as she did right now.
When she was all done, Patricia sat there for a few moments.
Hannah used this time to put her bowl and spoon in the sink and rinse them off.
They were lucky to have more of an apartment-type dorm than a dorm room that connected to a long hallway that had no business being so dull.
“Well, if I were the expert, Hannah, I’d say you’re in love,” Patricia concluded. “I don’t think you needed to hear it from me since you’ve always known your heart well enough, but why come home if you knew that you were in love with this man?”
“Because I’m a student, and to remain in good standing with my visa, I need to study, for now,” she admitted.
“I need to look into how to get a visa that will allow me to live here permanently without having to be a student or a citizen.” She shook her head.
“But those kinds of visas take years. And I’m not interested in marrying just to get a green card. ”
“You got his address, right?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Write to him and explain everything to him,” Patricia advised.
“It may not help the hurt, but it may at least help him know how to help you, especially if he needs to be involved in the visa process. I imagine they might start asking questions about why you want to stay. Why not be real and say that you don’t want to be a citizen, but that you’d like to stay with the man you love and be where you feel most fulfilled? ”
Hannah pursed her lips. That was certainly an option. She hadn’t thought about it before, but she supposed that being that open with Elias would eventually be encouraged if they were to get married.
She then nodded.
“Then, if you’ll excuse me, I have a letter to write, and my books for my courses to pick up,” Hannah said. “Maybe not in that order.”
She threw on a pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt, then put on her sneakers and headed to the campus bookstore to pick up her books. With that done, she could sit in her room and write a letter to Elias as long as she pleased.