4. Sasha

She'd always thought Southern California was sunny and warm. What a myth. It had been raining for three days now, and she'd been forced to buy a coat since hers were two thousand miles away at her parents' house. California was cold. Sasha was beginning to forget what the sun looked like. She was forgetting what warmth felt like.
But, she thought, she'd run in to so many obstacles, it was only fitting that the weather would be a disappointment as well. But now she would just have to buck up and get through it. She was used to doing things without help. She could do this.
She had gotten a stack of forms from the Graduate Office to get her courses approved. She had dropped her course load to the financial aid minimum. She had resigned herself to the idea of a wasted semester, at least in terms of getting credit. This semester would be for Sasha. She had decided to take courses that she would like, since no one would help her find courses she would need. If nothing else, she would have fun.
She was down to four classes, her cello lessons, composition lessons, an experimental music course, and a literature class. She was also being forced to attend a class in sixteenth century musical counterpoint, but the professor was nice enough to let her take it without registering. But the literature class was the candy of the semester. It was one of those classes that had just jumped out of the catalog and into her lap. It wasn't a serious literature class since it was just an intro to fiction course, but she thought it might be fun, and it would force her to read. She liked reading, but it seemed like life was always getting in the way of things that were fun. So far it was her favorite class. She looked forward to moving the desks into a circle so they look at each other while they had discussions. It reminded her of junior high for some reason. She liked getting glimpses of who people were by what they said about things.
Today she sat there at her desk, running her fingers across the grooves that someone had painstakingly carved into it. She stared at the greyness outside. She sighed and closed her eyes. She really wanted to be at home today, even though this was her favorite class. Even though she loved school. Even though this was what she wanted.
She would have loved to do the day in bed, where everything was soft and warm around her. Rain always did this to her. It made her lonely. Which was exactly how she had felt since moving here.
She had moved to Southern California over the Christmas holiday. She left her friends behind in Georgia in pursuit of graduate school, and in the past month she had often wondered why. She had been unable to make friends in the month she'd been in California. It seemed that everyone already had all the friends they wanted, and she was constantly stumbling over her shyness. She was that person in class who always had her homework done because she actually went home and did it. She didn't have any distractions to help her procrastinate. It was a bittersweet sensation to devote herself solely to school. She just had to keep telling herself that this was what she wanted. She wanted to compose music. That was all. It seemed simple. Somehow, it wasn't. But she knew that things never would be.