The Root Beer Kegger

It was my first day of college and I was already injured.

Like actively bleeding, injured. Bleeding from the face.

Move-in day was hot and chaotic to say the least. It was my first hour in the real world on my own. I just said goodbye to my parents and my boyfriend, and now I was standing alone in my dorm room, trying very hard to act like a person who belonged there and knew what to do.

I unpacked my final bag and opened my closet to put my janky suitcase on the top shelf when suddenly the metal bar fell from between the perforated ceiling tiles and sliced open my face, missing my eyeball by less than a millimeter.

I was cut from the inner corner of my eye all the way down my cheek, and there was blood everywhere.

My roommate wasn’t there yet, and I was too embarrassed to tell a rando, let alone the RA. I ran to the bathroom and blotted my face with wet paper towels, looking like I was cleaning up a crime scene. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and tried hard not to cry.

I didn’t know what to do. I panicked thinking of trying to meet new friends with this new face of mine. I didn’t even want to meet my roommate yet looking like this, so I did the only thing I knew how to do. I went to find my best friend, Ben.

Ben and I were inseparable since we were 3. In preschool we showed our first signs of codependence when I’d crawl onto his rug during nap time and he would let me. From then on, we graduated nearly every milestone together, minus the years in elementary school where his parents made him be more Catholic than me for a bit (it didn’t work).

Junior year in high school, we faced one of the biggest decisions in our lives: where we would go to college.

We were on probably our 5th college tour when I turned to Ben and said confidently, “Here. We’re going here. To TCNJ…The College of New Jersey.”

We spent months applying to and touring schools in different states hours away and dreamed of leaving our families and old lives behind. We visited schools we’d never be able to afford. We didn’t have the slightest clue what we wanted to do or who we wanted to be, but if we had any chance of finding out, it would be together.

Ben agreed this was our best choice. We would be damned if college was going to be the first time we were apart, so when the housing questionnaire came, we filled it out together. We answered all sorts of questions so we could be paired with the perfect roommate. Suddenly, a light bulb went off.

“Should we try?” I asked.

“Why not?” Ben said.

We each wrote a letter to the housing committee, righteously thinking we were really sticking it to the man by insisting boys and girls could actually be best friends and should live together if they want to. We knew it was a long shot, but when we opened the letters, we couldn’t believe it.

“They honored it,” Ben said with disbelief. “Okay so, not the same room, but the same dorm. On the same floor.”

It was such a huge relief to know Ben would always be close by if I ever needed him, and that everything would always be okay.

Until of course, I got impaled by a piece of my closet and Ben was nowhere to be found.

I pressed the paper towel to my face and knocked on Ben’s half-open door, trying to act calm.

“Excuse me,” I asked his roommate who looked petrified of me, rightfully so. “Do you know where Ben is?”

Without looking up from his own unpacking, he said “he went to the Root Beer Kegger.”

That motherfucker was not there when I needed him.

I laughed maniacally. “What the fuck is a Root Beer Kegger?”

He shrugged his shoulders and pointed out the window to the tower where most freshmen lived. “He went there. With Lisa.”

Who the fuck is Lisa? I wanted to say, but instead I said thank you and left.

The sweltering August air surrounding me like soup on my rage-walk to the Towers, only making matters worse. Not only was I showing up to the Root Beer Kegger bleeding, but sweaty.

Last time I ever fucking follow this guy anywhere, I thought as I walked into the common room of the Towers and looked for Ben.

The Root Beer Kegger was TCNJ’s attempt at an alcohol-free mixer for incoming freshmen, the kind of thing Ben and I would never go to. I didn’t drink at the time, so that didn’t matter to me much, but what did matter was—I fucking hated root beer and Ben knew it.

I found Ben standing with Lisa. Rather than introduce myself like a normal human being, words spilled out of my mouth uncontrollably. The day had totally broken me, and one quick glance from Ben or him asking me if I was okay would push me over the edge.

I looked to my feet and rambled on like a child. “…and then the suitcase hit the ceiling and this metal thing fell down and slashed my face and I was bleeding and it wouldn’t stop so I tried to find you and you weren’t there and then some guy named Brad said you were out Lisa at a root beer kegger, and I was like who the fuck is Lisa? And I hate root beer. You know I hate root beer.”

Silence.

Fuuuccckkkk. I thought to myself. I’ve done it. I couldn’t read Ben’s expression for the first time in my life.

Lisa was the one to break the silence. To my surprise, it wasn’t with a patronizing comment like I anticipated. It was a laugh. A roaring, contagious laugh that bordered on tears. Ben followed suit.

“Oh my God,” she said, pushing Ben on the shoulder. “You’re right. I fucking love her.” Lisa lunged forward to hug me.

I can still remember the relief I felt in that moment. I wouldn’t just be okay. I would be more than okay. I instantly found my new best friend who seemed to know me and get me already, and I didn’t even have to try. I just had to show up and be me, the hot mess that I was, and I knew she would be perfect for me because Ben found her first.

Lisa and I were inseparable from that day on and even chose to move back into the same dorm our Junior year for some final, sick grab at nostalgia before the building was deemed unlivable and to be knocked down.

Ben chose instead to move off campus sophomore year. Since then, we’ve remained about 10 minutes from each other in every city and state since then. We don’t talk every day, but I can’t imagine going through any stage of life without him as a constant. We are now fully functioning adults with families, and the craziest thing of all is Ben married my freshman year roommate, so maybe it all happened for a reason, if you believe in that stuff.

So, on my first day in of college, I learned a life lesson that would stick with me forever.

I always thought safety and security meant continuity—the same people, same places, even the same shitty dorm. But things change. Life changes. And that can be beautiful and scary at the same time. It doesn’t mean people no longer matter just because they are not right by your side.

Sometimes the very thing you’re terrified of losing makes room for something you didn’t know you needed. Sometimes your future walks into a Root Beer Kegger wearing a stranger’s name that will soon become second nature. Sometimes, the day where everything feels like it’s falling apart (including the ceiling) is actually the day something better begins.

But then again, some things never change.

I still fucking hate root beer.