FaceTimed me with Michelle on the phone at TJMAXX, growing Kolby and I’s envy. My new roommate, Kolby, from Kansas, I had only met once before the move. I had never seen Kolby shop at that point, but I was getting a feeling she and my mom could go for hours leaving Michelle and me in the dust. Everyone agreed the rug was perfect, it was light but not a deafening white and it had a nice subtle pattern so you wouldn’t go mental from motifs in the morning.
In the fall semester, I would see that rug from the ceiling, I had a lofted bed. Taking a minute to settle into my newest, momentary, home I would prance around that rug grabbing trinket after trinket. I would migrate up there after leaving my shoes behind the door. It was like my own room. I claimed that spot for the rest of the semester when we had our door open. We had the rug, the boys would claim, and for the girls a pop-up chair, a toadstool, and an ottoman. I had the best view, I would always promise myself because I could see all with a buffer.
Come rain showers and blooming peonies, the rug had become merely a shield from the cold tile. The room had transformed to a tundra controlled by the AC I felt I didn’t deserve control of. I had left the rug in the arctic for two months. I am now automatically colder as well, metal in the body does that. The rug and I are both colder than when we started.