Dirty Laundry

It’s Sunday morning, about 8am. My BF Peter and I we’re doing our laundry. Most of the time, we spent in my dorm common room, sitting side by side on a red corduroy couch, while our clothes washed, and then tumbled away in the dryer. If you want privacy on a college campus, or to do laundry in peace, avoiding the weekend laundry rush, do it before 10am. "Why do you wear these," Peter asked, pulling and lightly snapping the hairband on my wrist. I pull my hand back, protectively. "If I don’t have a hairband on my wrist I feel out of control." There’s a new me. I’d decided - civilized, unemotional, clear-sighted. "I've got a lot to do before summer,” Peter said earlier, “so I made a spreadsheet.” I felt a shadow pass over me - our future is, at best, undecided. So, I shifted gears, the way the new me is trying to do lately. “A Spreadsheet!” I said, like I approved, and he grinned. I’d made him happy. This is what adults do, I’d decided, they have civilized conversations where decisions were made or avoided - but there was a small, dark thing in my heart. I got a text from our dryer saying our clothes were dry, so we headed down. I love the smell of fresh laundry and the feeling of shaved legs against fresh bed sheets - a luxurious combination no guy will ever understand. I made a mental note to shave my legs later. The last couple of weeks I’ve been working on summer fellowship applications. A successful summer fellowship is one of those things I’ll need when I apply for med-school - like grades, faculty letters, physician recommendations, community service, a great MCAT score, bla bla bla. My mom knows the 200 things med-schools use to cleave away pretenders and she’ll rattle them off upon request and sometimes over groaning protests. What I need, ideally, this summer, are clinical experience hours. There’s not much at stake, just my future, the respect of the faculty, and the begrudging acknowledgement of my pre-med peers. My mom was quizzing me on my progress last night. I confirmed that all the applications were in and I ended with, “I haven’t slept with anyone yet, to gain advantage - but we’re still early in the process.” She was not amused.