The snow was falling, and I was walking to class. Shoulders hunched, head down. My feet were cold, but I was almost there. Was I going to be late? Would I miss the test? Would I-

"Hey, you used to live in Bigelow Hall, didn't you?" he asked, interrupting my thoughts. He stood in my path, looking me straight in the eye. Bigelow Hall. Hadn't heard of that for a long time.

And the memories come soaring back.


Three years. It had been three years since I left the dorm. And four years since I walked in those double doors for the first time. I was a small town boy, from the kind of place that didn't have a Walmart, or a Walgreens, or ANY kind of big-box store.

Bigelow. My home for a year. Room 330. Third floor. Second on the right. The TV I had back then. The crusty mirror on the wall. The loft. The memories come faster and faster. The public bathroom with it's moldy shower curtains. The bean bag chairs. And not just the material things, no. Where I had had my first drink. Where I had had so much fun. My first shot of alcohol. Where I had lost my virginity, and eventually myself.



Long hair and drunkeness. Drugs. Depression. Suicide. The feelings that came that year. At first it was nothing. Skipping class a little here, a little there. Before long, I was skipping class a lot. I was too lazy to get out of bed in the morning. Too lazy to do much of anything.

I came home twice that year. I had closed the doors on my family, and they didn't recognize me anymore. My hair covered my face completely, and in a way, I liked it like that. I felt safe, secure in the fact that no one could see me.

And the girls. Different ones every night. If I knew their names, great. If I didn't? Great. There was that one, though, ol' Miss Whats-her-name, who first showed me how to take a shot, and it wasn't long before I fell in love, but that's irrelevant, because by that time I was high on just about anything I could put my hands on and I just didn't feel like myself anymore and my hair grew longer and the drinks got taller and the classes disappeared and then the girls did too and after a while I couldn't take anymore and that was when I bought the knife and went into the shower with the moldy curtains and turned the water on and just stared for a long time before-


"Bigelow Hall," he says again, "Did you used to live over on the third floor?"

"No," I say, shrug my shoulders, and walk through the snow to my class.