I waited, surrounded by my luggage, as my father brought my last bag from my room. My nine-year-old brother frowned as he watched me stare at our family photo of our late mom. He was only two years old when—well, things haven’t been the same since. I would be flying to Colorado in five hours, but Dad had always favored being prepared well ahead. I was leaving my home in Paris to attend a university much farther away; I had lost so many people that I loved here, and I wanted to escape. After Mom died, Dad had become deathly silent. They had stayed together for me and my brother, not out of love for each other. Often they weren’t in agreement, but they had managed to find ways to maintain our family, even go out together occasionally when they were on good terms. Anyway, I disliked any place where the weather resembled Paris’s, so I had picked the one place that had sunshine three hundred days a year. I didn’t know how to live in a place where the nights are longer than the days. It’s not that I loved summers, but I had dark days even during the sunniest ones. I just needed light and a lot of it. “Cassandra,” Sam called as he fit a green apple into his tiny hand. “Do you want one?” I nodded as he threw me the apple. It looked as if it were a living creature, breathing maybe. I took a bite and put it on the shelf near our family picture. Dad handed me my backpack. It, and my few pieces of luggage, held my life. “Stay away from trouble,” Dad said, shaking his head. This was the most he could say. If he could, he would have left Paris too; but Dad stayed for my brother. In his calculations, Sam needed to grow up in one place. “You too,” I said. We both had somehow understood one another. Sam on the other hand stood annoyed, looking at us. He picked up a piece of my luggage and dragged it down the stairs toward the car as I walked after him. In the car, Sam’s chomping on the apple was the only sound, making me realize that I had left my apple on the shelf, and I ran back in the house for it right before Dad started the engine. During the drive, Dad was calm as music from some French classic station swirled around us. Sam was seated just behind Dad and stared at me the whole time. “When are you coming back?” he asked, his baby voice cracking and sounding a little older. “I’ll visit during summers,” I said, but then added quickly, “If you like you can visit instead.” “When?” “Next summer,” I assured Sam. Dad didn’t say anything. He was completely focused on driving. I was worried about him. Recently, he had lost his sister and mom. Now here I was leaving him too. “Dad,” I said. “Yes.” He smiled, but I knew he was pretending. “How about you and Sam come to Colorado next summer?” I asked convincingly. “We can discuss that later.” He smiled again while keeping his eyes on the road. “Don’t forget to ask for Elionora in the students’ residence. I texted you her number just this morning.” “Yeah, I know.” About twenty minutes after leaving home, we arrived at the airport, and soon I was on the plane. I had barely slept for the last two days, and I struggled to keep my eyes open as I searched for my seat somewhere at the end. I had a middle seat and luckily, the passengers on each side weren’t chatty. Long after, when we touched ground in Colorado, I was impressed with how the sun shone stronger than I’d ever seen it in Paris. Maybe I was seeing what I really wanted to believe. I couldn’t be sure; my imagination was becoming as real as day. A block or so away from my college campus, I arrived at the building where Dad had rented a room for me. I asked for the landlord, a woman named Elionora, an old friend of my mom’s. A skinny woman in her late thirties, with black curly hair and a white face, emerged from the shadows. When she greeted me, I immediately noticed her Italian accent. Her blues eyes gazed at me, and she wrapped me in a tight hug. I had a feeling that she knew lots about me, way more than I knew about her. “Welcome to Denver, little Miss Kelly.” Her whole face lit up. We made plans to meet together later that evening at the library, and then she asked an old man to help me with my luggage as she handed me a key to room number ten. When I entered, my roommate, a girl of my exact height, greeted me. She had a funny way of talking, pausing in the middle of every sentence. She couldn’t have been a native English speaker. I wasn’t sure where she was from and was hesitant to ask. “Cassandra, right?” She paused. “I’m Sarah” “Right,” I answered. We shook hands. “I suppose we’re roommates.”