Letters from Maggie: Installment 1

Dear Cassandra,

When I woke up this morning, I was not tired; I was simply missing Lou so much that I couldn’t stand to be awake. I had a dream that he wrote a poem for me on the back of an ABP receipt and I found it and I cried. But I couldn’t find him. It’s silly too, because he doesn’t even go here, but he seems so central to this experience for me. I don’t know how much longer I will last.
You, on the other hand, must be having a blast right now. I know you’ve been waiting for the start of classes so you can see Wendy again. I can’t wait to hear about all the things you’re going to paint this semester. Can I come sit in studio with you sometime? I’m getting sick of Baker.
Have you ever noticed how we take our backpacks everywhere here? I don’t think there’s anywhere I go without my backpack. I took my backpack to Fifth Clyde last night. Sasha from that annoying physics class I had to take last year asked me to come over and help her put furniture together. I think she still remembers how much help I asked for on the homeworks. Anyways, I wanted to tell you about it because something super weird happened when I got home, but I need to give you all the context - and also I met some really interesting people. Sasha’s roommate’s name is Kandace; she’s a CS major and really quiet. We didn’t talk that much, but while Sasha and I were screwing the legs onto this shelf thing she was making, she overheard us talking about Lilly, who was also in our physics class. Lilly is supposed to be away on semester abroad right now — I think in Spain — but Kandace insisted that she had seen her while she was walking to class today. Sasha and I literally pulled up the picture from her instagram of her in Spain, but Kandace insisted on what she’d seen. She said that she’d spoken to her and Lilly said she was living in Gardens this year, which I said was impossible because I was living in Gardens and I hadn’t seen her. I didn’t feel like arguing with her, and then we were interrupted anyway.
There are a couple of guys living in the apartment across the hall from Sasha, and one of them, Heron I think, came over to ask for tape, so we asked him what it was for and he told us he was hanging this enormous poster and did we want to come over and see it. Obviously we walked across the hall and then there was just this enormous poster with a picture of Farnam on it and he couldn’t put it up on his own, so we took Sasha’s tape and we helped him put it up. His roommate Henry came in at some point to say hi.
When I left, it was really late, and I was doing one of those classic trudges across campus at midnight, except that now I was walking across Fifth and the little WQED parking lot. I guess that’s growing up. I still had music blaring in my headphones while I walked, though. Some things never change.
I scanned into Gardens and headed upstairs, and as I was walking to my room, I saw a figure ahead of me. It was Lilly. I said her name, but she kept going, bringing me on a wild chase down the incredibly windy hallways. I was close enough behind her that I could see her stepping into one of the rooms, but by the time I got there, saying her name once more, the door closed in my face. On the door, there were two name plates shaped like frogs. One said George, and the other said Lincoln.
It was so strange but I was so tired again, so I just turned around and went back to my room. Sometimes that’s all I can do here. I am writing this because going to bed feels too anticlimactic. I hope I will not dream again.

Love,
Maggie