The Space Between by Nikki Mathis Thompson

she saw her selection, thrown haphazardly in the drawer, she made a face. Teenage Georgia did indeed have bad taste. She found a semi-wrinkled, she hoped clean, t-shirt with an Atari symbol on the front. She smelled it…clean. Then she laughed, remembering her love of weird screen tees when she was young.  
    She pressed her armpits to her nose. Didn’t matter if the shirt was clean if she put it over stinky pits. Satisfied with her smell test, she threw on the shirt and found a pair of jeans. She scraped something off just below the pocket. Without her mom doing her laundry, her cleanliness had obviously taken a hit.
    Dream G is not only slutty, she’s a slob.
    That thought delighted her. She always kept her girls’ clothes clean and pressed. The kitchen floors scrubbed and the carpet vacuumed. In fact, she was always cleaning something. Taking a break from all of that would be nice. She looked in the closet and found a gray hoodie. She opened a door and found it led to a small bathroom. Two toothbrushes—one red, one yellow. She grabbed what she hoped was hers. Not that it mattered in a dream, but the thought of using a stranger’s toothbrush made her ill. Georgia turned the hot water on and waited for it to steam, then ran the red brush beneath.   It couldn’t hurt.  
    She found a makeup bag on her side of the bedroom. It contained little makeup, but with no wrinkles or creases her skin could go commando. She ran some pale gloss across her lips and put mascara on her lashes and she was good to go.
    But go where, was the question. She grabbed her backpack and a set of keys fell to the ground. One must be to her dorm room, unfortunately neither key belonged to a car. She never had one in high school. But that didn’t bother her because Brady always drove her around. When he’d dumped her, she was left to bum rides from Lucy, or borrow her mom’s car which was a bit embarrassing because it looked like the Titanic on wheels.  
    Georgia started to make her bed, then stopped. She rumpled the sheets again and smiled at her handy work. When Brady started to call her again, she picked up the pace and locked the door as she left.

~Chapter Twelve~

    Georgia made her way out to the sidewalk in front of the dorms. Students shuffled past. There was a hum, a buzz, of conversations and laughter. She felt that hum in her blood, it was energizing. She turned to look at the building she’d just walked out of and had to tip her neck back. It was one of four tower-like buildings that surrounded the center of campus. She knew them well. This, Greene Hall, was in fact the dorm she was going to move into all those years ago. Most students couldn’t live on campus. There were too many students compared to the number of available rooms. Georgia wouldn’t have been able to afford to live off campus, so she’d been lucky to get housing. It killed her to have to turn over such a coveted boon, but no doubt a grateful alternate swooped in to take her place. She’d like to think it was a poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks, or from a small town—praying for an opening so she could attend university. The first in her family, just like Georgia.  
    Dorm room. Scholarship…both left on the table. She hoped whoever received both was now thriving and successful, that her loss was someone else’s gain, someone else’s future secured, not squandered. That made her feel good. It didn’t sting as much now that she had Amelia. But at the time it had been excruciating, and her disappointment visceral. Her mind was plucking the details and past hurts from her memory bank.  
      She never thought she would have the chance to walk as a student, backpack slung over one shoulder, moving forward with purpose. Georgia spun slowly in a circle, taking in her surroundings, feeling the gratitude of the situation. The ability to have a second chance even if it was only for one night’s slumber—she’d take it.  
    One of the main what if’s