The three of us would gather on my bed, five odd feet from a laptop playing Riverdale.
Sometimes we watched in silence, shovelling Walmart brand chips into our mouths, which my mom had bought me when I moved in a month earlier. Other times, we chatted, talking about everything we did (and who we were) before we met each other. We sat covered in blankets, the warmth almost suffocating, but so welcoming, we wouldn't — couldn't — move.
My dorm was freezing when I first moved in. The thermostat was turned all the way up, but my teeth would chatter as I fell asleep despite being under multiple blankets: my Mamma Mia-inspired duvet, a pink blanket knitted by my mom and a blue heated blanket I’d convinced her to buy me before she left, because there was no way I moved all the way here just to be cold and alone.
I was so desperate for warmth, I turned to Reddit. The strangers told me the thermostat doesn't work if your window is slightly open, and mine was. My room slowly got warmer, and the walls slowly grew covered in posters — the clinical white became homey.
Every night, when it was time, the blinds were drawn shut and the lights turned off as my laptop began to emit its soft glow.
It became a tradition — almost second nature. The clock would strike 9 p.m. and we’d get kicked out of the dining hall. We said our goodbyes to friends who lived elsewhere, and we walked back together. We would split up for exactly 30 minutes to call our families. Then, at 9:40, we would meet, squeeze under the pink knitted blanket and just watch.
Now, we’re older, and things are different. We see each other less. We watch less TV. We haven't watched Riverdale in years. We’ve lived together and apart. We’ve lived 15 minutes away and 40. We’ve fallen asleep on the couch together more times than we can count, and we’ve eaten a million mini donuts, teeny square vanilla wafers and those delicious crumbly cookies from the grocery store. We've drunk hundreds of glasses of San Pellegrino and pomegranate lemonade, and we've made exactly one (1) mess in the kitchen after the unfortunate brie oven explosion of 2024. None of those things happened in the dorm.
But one thing that happened then, still happens now. The three of us, under a bunch of blankets, just watching.
I don't ever feel cold or alone anymore.
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