1.
Amelia tossed her bag on the bed and looked around the tiny room. She sighed as she placed her hands on her hips and shook her head. The room was like a prison cell: one small twin size bed with a worn looking blanket and one pillow, a desk with a statue of the Virgin Mother looking lovingly down at the Holy Bible in front of her and an uncomfortable-looking chair to sit at. There was one small window that could not be opened on the same side as the bed. She noticed two doors to her right and walked to the one closest to the bed. It was an extremely small closet which already had two uniforms hanging up. These would be her prison clothes for the next four years, or however long she would be forced to stay in this hell hole. Behind the other door was a small bathroom: a toilet, sink, and a stand up shower hardly big enough for someone to turn around in. She was happy that she at least got her own bathroom and didn't need to share a community shower with the other girls here.
She sighed as she walked the three steps it took back to the bed and picked up the schedule, thinking for a brief second how it was her mother even found this place. She scoffed at the thought; her mother had probably planned to send her here no matter what and she used what she had seen as the excuse to make it all Amelia's fault. As she shook those thoughts from her head, there was a knock on the open door. Amelia turned to see a girl standing in the doorway, her arms folded across her chest.
"You might want to get your uniform on before one of the nuns sees you."
"I just got here."
"I know, they don't care."
The girl walked further into the room and stuck out her hand. Amelia took it and the girl smiled, "I'm Bev. I'm the one who is supposed to be in charge of this dorm when Sister Kate isn't around."
"Amelia. What do you do to be in charge?"
Bev laughed and shook her head, "I'm basically supposed to snitch girls out for not following the rules but I don't give a damn what you do. This is my last year, and I'm out."
"What are the rules?"
"You will learn them at orientation. Just know that I don't care but the girls who are here because they want to be will snitch in a heartbeat and you never know when Sister Kate is going to pop up. So just be careful. Also, my room is that one."
Bev pointed to the door diagonally across from Amelia's room.
"If you have a question just knock but as you will learn there isn't a lot of time for socializing around here and the nuns hate to see it."
Amelia nodded and sighed, thinking that this place was going to be worse than she thought.
"Oh and two more things, since they won't tell you at the meeting: They will make you give them your phone. They will put an app on there so they can track all of your activity. So, don't think you can text whoever and whatever you want. And if you brought your own computer, kiss it goodbye. They will issue you a laptop and that will be the only one you can use. They won't give you the password to the wi-fi or anything. Again so they can monitor what you're doing."
Amelia rolled her eyes. This place had to be worse than prison, "are there cameras in the room as well?"
Bev laughed and shook her head, "thankfully no but, boy, I bet they wished they could do that. Okay, you need to change. I will walk with you to orientation. They make everyone go."
As they walked to the chapel set in the middle of buildings meant for housing and classes, Amelia looked around. The grounds were pretty and well kept with gardens and well manicured trees along with outside spaces to sit. She looked at the girls. Some wore looks on their faces to show how unhappy they were to be here. Others looked elated to be here, wearing the white veil over their head and simple black habit indicating that they were novice nuns. She also noticed other older people scurrying with wheeled carts behind them. She pointed to them and asked Bev, "who are those people?"
"Professors."
Amelia looked at Bev confused and she laughed, "not all the professors here are priests and nuns. They really only teach our mandatory theology classes. The rest of the professors are regular people."
Amelia nodded and her eyes swept the other way. She almost tripped as they landed on a man talking to a priest. Her body had an instant reaction when she saw him. He stood, looking down at the priest intently as he spoke. A cup of coffee in one hand and packets of papers in the other. She couldn't see his features very well from where she was but the way he looked at the priest and the way he stood caught her attention immediately.
"Who's that?" she took her eyes away from the men and looked at Bev.
"That's Monsignor Bryne."
"No, not him, the other one."
Bev looked again, "Oh! That's Professor Thomas. I've never had him so I don't know much about him at all. I have heard his classes are really tough though."
Amelia nodded and looked over at the two men again before going into the chapel. Bev pointed to the left, "since you're new you will be over there."
Amelia smiled and nodded then went to find a seat. She said, "hi," to a couple of girls around her. They gave her the cursory nod and smile but nothing else. She sighed thinking that it was going to be difficult making friends here with so many of the girls hating the fact that they were here. She didn't want to be here, either, but a friend or two would make the experience better.
She drew her attention to the Monsignor as he walked up to the podium. He welcomed everyone new and congratulated the ones that would be graduating this year. Then his tone turned serious as he began going down a list of rules that all girls would follow. Most of them were pretty obvious, especially if you had been in catholic schools your entire life like Amelia had, but some she thought were outrageous. All girls had to be in their rooms by 9 p.m., no exceptions, and whichever sister was assigned to that dorm would do a room check to make sure. He pointed out the obvious, that this campus was in the middle of nowhere and there was no leaving the grounds unless it was your turn to go into the city with the nuns to volunteer at different places. All girls had to volunteer. It was mandatory. All girls were also assigned a job that was to be done Monday through Friday. They would get their assigned job when they came up to get the rest of the things they would need. Each girl would go to her job after her classes were over for the day and stay there until dinner, which was served between 5:30 and 7:00. If you missed getting to the cafeteria on time you missed out on eating until the next morning. Afterwards, all students would have time to study, collect resources from the library, or go to the on-campus gym until it was time for everyone to be in their room.
Amelia sighed and shook her head as the list of rules continued. This really was like a prison and not a college at all. She got up and followed the other girls as they went to the front to collect books, their laptop, and their work assignments. She looked around to see if she could find Professor Thomas in the line of staff members but she didn't see him. She collected her things and headed back to her room. The Monsignor had given them the day off to get acquainted with the campus but classes and work assignments started the next day.
She didn't feel much like walking around but she figured she should probably figure out where everything was. She dropped her things off in her room and peeked in to see if Bev was in hers. She wasn't, so Amelia went wandering around the campus on her own. She found the gym, cafeteria, library and the rooms and buildings her classes would be in. She had tossed the paper with her work assignment on her bed and forgot to grab it but she remembered what building it was and found that for tomorrow. The paper didn't say what she would be doing just where she would be doing it. On her travels, she didn't see many other girls and the ones she did see ignored her. She decided to go back to her room and wait the night out. Maybe as the girls got more familiar with their surroundings they would become friendlier.
Amelia hoped that Bree would stop by but she never did. At precisely 9, she watched as a nun walked by, looked in and without saying a word shut the door. The loneliness she had felt earlier in the day was getting worse and this was just the first day. How was she going to make it through the next four years?
2.
She got through the first day of classes and headed to the building where her assigned job was. As she came to the door, it was open but she couldn't see into the room. She knocked and heard a male voice tell her to come in. When she rounded the corner, her face immediately flushed. Sitting at the desk was Professor Thomas; he hadn't looked up from his computer screen yet and she was glad he hadn't. Her body gave off an immediate reaction, not only had her cheeks flushed but she felt a small tremble run through her. She didn't understand why she had such a quick response to him. He was handsome, tall and well built. His black hair cut close to his scalp with specks of gray at the temples. But it wasn't really his looks that commanded her body to react to him. It was his presence. Even sitting at the desk, he gave off an in-control attitude. His presence demanded attention. He finally looked over at her and she immediately bowed her head and tucked her hair behind her ear.
"Can I help you?" He at least didn't sound mad. He sounded almost tickled at her standing there so idiotically. She felt so embarrassed which made her flush even more. She finally lifted just her eyes to look at him, "I'm sorry. I was assigned to work here."
He smiled easily, "welcome. Do you have a name?"
She whispered to herself, "fuck." Then realized he could hear her and flushed deeper, "yes, I'm sorry, it's Amelia."
He stood up and came around the desk. She was forced to lift her head so she could look at his face. Her short stature put the top of her head at his diaphragm. He stuck his hand out and she took it. He gazed down at her, "What a beautiful name."
Amelia smiled, "thank you."
There was a look in his eyes that she couldn't quite place. The look made her feel both uncomfortable and intrigued at the same time.
He smiled again and the look left, "pleased to meet you, Amelia. I'm Thomas."
"Nice to meet you Professor. What would you like for me to do?"
That look came back into his eyes for a brief moment before he swept his hand over the stacks of papers on his desk and two others in the room. He laughed, "as you see I'm not great at filing things away so start with that. Where the papers go are on a post-it on top. Just put them in the right place. I will be happy when this school finally switches from written essays to digital."
She smiled and nodded, setting her things down on the couch as she got to work on the stack closest to the filing cabinet. He went back to his desk and they worked in silence. She would sometimes glance over to look at him, feeling that low tremble in her body every time she did. She could feel him looking at her sometimes and she wondered what he was thinking. She was glad her back was to him since her thoughts kept making her blush. She was finally able to calm herself enough to focus on the filing and jumped when he broke the silence, "it's 5:30."
"Oh okay. I hadn't realized."
He chuckled, "you seemed really focused on what you were doing."
