“Hi, er, I have a package?” you hesitantly ask the clerk at the mail office window.

He looks up from his comic book and gives you a glower. But nonetheless, he pulls the keyboard toward him and clears his throat.

“Name?”

“Amber. Amber Liu.”

The clerk types in your name, his fingernails clacking against the keys. You nervously look behind you as more students trickle into line. This is your first time in the student mail room, aside from when you came in during orientation. You’ve never gotten a package before, yet last night the mail center emailed you notifying you of a delivery. So, you pulled up a map of the school, located the mail office, and now here you were.

“Hm…I don’t see anything for you. Could it be under a different name?” the clerk asks, squinting at the bright screen. Behind you, you hear someone’s foot tapping impatiently against the linoleum floor. The sound drives itself into your eardrums and you want to crawl inside of a hole.  

“You know what, forget it,” you stammer as you pick up your ID and try to get out of everyone’s way. You hate holding up people.

But the clerk reaches out with his hand and says, “hold up, I think I’ve found it. Wait right here.” He disappears into the back and you’re forced to apologetically bob your head at everyone waiting behind you. You think some students scowl at you, but maybe you’re projecting. The clerk hurries back into the window and shoves an electronic signature machine at you.

“Sign on the line. This one’s big, you’ll have to pick it up through the back door,” he orders as he points to a humongous box behind him.

You quickly scribble a signature and book it out of there. The students’ stares seem to bore a hole into your back as you exit the office and circle around to the back. The clerk’s already waiting, the box on a dolly.  

“I wonder who sent this to you,” he mutters, looking at the receipt.

“Me too. Thanks,” you reply as you lift the dolly and start wheeling it back to your dorm.

“Yo don’t steal that! Bring it back after you’re done with it!” he calls after you.

You give him a thumbs up and concentrate on not spilling the box into the street. The hot summer sun bakes down on your head. Beads of sweat collect on your skin, rolling down as you huff and puff down the road. But finally you manage to get the whole package to your dorm room. Fumbling with one hand, you slide the key into the lock and collapse against the door.

“Man, this thing is heavy.”

You sigh and plop yourself down on the floor to catch your breath. Was it really last year that Krystal and you had moved everything of hers into your room? You two had spent the night together at the fanciest hotel ever, but after that night she disappeared. You came back to an empty room—apparently her sister had hired movers to take her stuff and put it in a dorm in the North Quad. Or at least that's what Moonbyul said when you cornered her after class one day and asked about Krystal. You had no idea how they even got into your room, not that there was anything worth taking. But still. It had felt like a huge invasion o