Room 230: Two Years Later

By Anastasia Pumphrey

It was Friday, August 23, 2019. It was a relatively hot day for just south of Boston in August, already nearing 80 by noon. Michaela Fitzgerald sat in her family’s navy Dodge Charger as her parents drove through the entrance to what would be her home for the next four years. Stonehill College was particularly clad in purple that day. Gardeners and facilities workers were making last-minute tweaks to the iconic green landscape the college boasted of in its brochures and tours; the campus was quiet in preparation for the coming day. Most of Michaela’s class would move in the following day, Saturday, but she was part of a select few students who were to move in early, the Moreau Honors Scholars.

The van drove past a few enthusiastic upperclassmen with signs reading “Welcome Honors Students,” and made a right into the parking-lot-turned-basketball-court behind Cardinal O’Hara Hall that was now being used for semi-permanent trailers that were to house sophomores the next day. Mike and Michelle Fitzgerald stopped the van, and their kids got out. Michaela’s older brothers were here to move her in as well, Matt having graduated that past May, and Drew who was about to begin his junior year.

The family went around to the front of the long brick building, which sported a white, freshly painted entryway and four massive pillars that framed the porch and front door. They opened the doors to reveal a brand-new common room, complete with crisp white walls, new furniture including a large high-seated table in the middle of the room, and another smaller table set up with students who were checking the first-years in. Michaela stated her name, and was given her key in a small manila envelope, just big enough for the brass room key to fit in. The number of her new room was inscribed on the envelope, as well as her name. “Room 230,” she said. “That must be on the top floor.”

***

“Yeah, I have 12% of our grade on Snapchat right now. Even more on Facebook,” Morgan Walter laughed. She looked down at her phone to check the time. It was almost 8 p.m. It was two years earlier—the first Saturday of the year, September 2, 2017, and music was already wafting through the halls of O’Hara Hall. Morgan went down to the first-floor common room whose wood-paneled walls and blue furniture were already filled with other first-years. She pushed past a few athletes who were arguing about the McGregor-Mayweather fight that almost the entire campus had been tuned into the past Sunday. No one had figured out how to use the flat-screen TV in the common room, so nearly thirty men had crowded into the common room that night, all focused on one student’s 13-inch MacBook Air screen.

Morgan opened the front door and gave the pizza delivery man the money for her Domino’s order. She turned to go back to her room before waving to her friend and fellow first-year Drew Fitzgerald who was sitting at one of the tables with other students in his grade. This residence hall was for first years only, and housed in particular the honors program students, of which Drew was a part of. He waved to Morgan, recognizing her from orientation back in June, and she darted back up the stairwell.

“I’ve got food!” Morgan said, reentering her room. Brooke was Morgan’s green-eyed, brunette roommate, and was sitting on her bed to the right side of the room. Morgan’s was on the left. The girls had decorated their room in matching colors, Stonehill purple and teal, each completing the look with a wall tapestry on either side. Their TV was already on and plugged into Brooke’s Wii. Morgan set the pizza down and turned some music on just as there was a knock on the door.

“Stacia!” She yelled, opening the heavy blue door for her friend. The girls hugged, and Morgan opened the door for the four other boys that followed.

Stacia introduced them to her friends. Matt Leppanen was the dark, curly-haired one who wore glasses and a smile too smug for his stature. She explained that she had known him since high school, and Morgan couldn’t tell whether that was a friendly fact or an apology for how he was already hitting on her, not five steps in the door. Brian was next, the same height as Matt, about 5’6”, 7 on a good day. He was fair-skinned with short black hair, and fingers with calluses that only a musician could create. Morgan gave him a smile.

“This is Peter,” Stacia said as she introduced the last friend in their entourage. Peter was a Greek former high school athlete. “I met him at orientation, we were in the same group.”

“Group four!” Peter responded.

“Sorry we’re late, we weren’t sure which room you were in,” Stacia said.

“We’re calling it ‘Dirty-230’!” Brooke said, laughing because the room resided in the oldest dormitory on campus, which had and would continue to be home to thousands of students through the years. Morgan offered them pizza, and they turned on a game of Wii Bowling as more and more people showed up. That night, they all exchanged contact information, and although there were many that night who came through Dirty 230 to say hello or grab a slice of pizza, Morgan and Brooke had a good feeling about these four people in particular.

***

“Drew, can you hand me that?” Michaela asked her brother from across the room. She was setting up her bed on the left side of the room. Her brother handed her a roll of tape, and she climbed down. Drew Fitzgerald was the coolest of the Fitzgeralds, with sleek gelled hair fresh from the salon, a green Ralph Lauren tee-shirt and all-white Adidas sneakers. His black, thick-rimmed glasses were the only giveaways to the fact that, like his other siblings, he was actually a bit of a nerd. As a physics major and a chemistry minor, he kept busy as a junior. He had been to campus a few times in the past week already, visiting his friends Matt and Jacob that had moved into their suite early. He and his roommate Will Fraser were set to move in the next day, Sunday.

When he had first seen the number on Michaela’s room assignment, his eyes had almost bugged out of his head. Morgan was an old friend of his, and despite the rest of his friends’ disdain for her, some more than others, he never really minded her. They were always friendly in the common room when they would see each other, and two years later he often wondered what she was up to, despite still keeping in touch over social media. The sign above the door that read “230” was still the same, dilapidated and browning, despite the recent updates to the building. The blue door was still the same, its paint on the verge of chipping, and the florescent lights steadily buzzing like they used to his freshman year. He hadn’t been up here much, as he lived in the basement back then and had been dating a girl from Bridgewater State who would have skinned him alive had he set foot into another girl’s room. He hadn’t spoken to Elena much since he last saw her, back on November 1, 2018. Almost a year ago.

Drew looked out the window, down at the O’Hara courtyard in front of Shield’s Science Center, where new anxious honors students and others moving in early were bustling along with their families and belongings. The pavement was fading and cracked already, scorched by the record-breaking heat they had had that summer. Michaela called for his help again.

***

Sunday, September 3, 2017. “Did you hear what happened last night?” Matt said. Stacia shook her head no. He explained to her a jumbled story that included something about Morgan having feelings for Brian, but he couldn’t be sure. It had only been a week, and she and Matt were surprised that love stories were already starting to form. The walls of room 230 were getting thicker by the minute.

Stacia’s phone buzzed, and she saw that she had a text from Brian. She furrowed a brow looking down at the text message explaining the rumor, and she wondered why he wanted her to know the true story so bad. Stacia believed him, but she and Matt went over to Morgan and Brooke’s room anyway, as per his request, to see what was going on.

When they got there, Brian was already in the room, as was Peter and Brooke. Brian was in a chair next to Morgan’s bed and Peter was sitting in Brooke’s bed. They all looked tired from the night before, and Brian looked particularly wiped out. There was an awkwardness to the air already as Brian briefly pulled Stacia aside to explain the rumor that he and Morgan were something of an item.

The four on Morgan’s side noticed Brooke and Peter getting particularly cozy on Brooke’s side. This would be a pattern that would continue for the next three weeks, and little did they know, would end up being the end of their friendship and relationship as roommates. The drama was just beginning.

***

September 9, 2017. Six days later. In these six days since the first time he ever texted her, Stacia and Brian had spent a grand total of all six days together— going to the library and listening to music, getting chicken tenders at the campus pub The Hill, doing homework, and staying up at least until past 2 a.m. every night. Already something of a love triangle was beginning to form, however the lid on all of this stayed shut, despite the Stacia and Morgan’s friendship straining more and more with each passing day.

Room 230 was experiencing another form of closeness as well, as Peter had been over every day as well. Although he lived in Corr Hall, almost entirely across campus, over the red bridge he went every day to see Brooke. He would often stay late into the night, well past when Morgan would go to bed. Suddenly Morgan found herself somewhat ostracized. She could sense the bond between Brian and Stacia and could feel her roommate and her distancing.

The Stonehill Skyhawks football team was playing Southern Connecticut State that day, and the weather was cooling down. Autumn was well on its way at 63 degrees, and most fans had to bundle up in Stonehill sweatshirts. Brian and his roommate, Brandon Haffner, were all set to attend the game with some girls they had met in the last few days. Brian had secretly hit it off with one of them in particular. Alyssa was a thin girl with brown eyes and happened to be taken with Brian as well, or so he thought. Stacia, Morgan, Matt, Brooke, and Peter decided to go to the game as well, planning to meet up with them. As the game began, so began a classic case of a love triangle not even a month into school. Brian sat with Alyssa, and Morgan and Stacia sat together on the other end of the row, each wondering what to do about it all.

During the game, Morgan went to use the ladies’ room, and while washing her hands, saw Alyssa. Morgan struck up a conversation with her, and eventually Alyssa asked about Brian. Morgan left the restroom with the impression that Alyssa was not as interested in him as he thought she was, and she relayed that to Stacia once back in her seat.

Later that night, Peter showed up in O’Hara 230 to meet a game of Cards Against Humanity and more Wii. Stacia had brought a full-size air mattress with her to college, as per her insistence she would need one for possible nights like this, and they blew it up in the middle of the two beds, creating an entire room full of sleeping arrangements. They sat in a circle on the floor to start their game and in the midst of it all, something happened that night despite any tensions that made them all feel like who they were sitting with, in this very room, would last forever. Was it the secret handholding between Brian and Stacia? Brooke and Peter’s flirty playfighting? Morgan making everyone laugh so hard they couldn’t breathe? Years later each of them would remember this in different ways, having different emotions about it all, but most of them would agree this night became their rite of passage as a group. The six of them made a promise that night, that no matter what they would stick by each other as friends, always. They formed an official text group-chat, called “Dirty 230,” and agreed to meet for dinner together every day at 5:30, just like a family does.

Two years later, Stacia and Brian were still sitting at the very same table, only on opposite ends, ignoring one another. They had dated for six months and had one of the nastiest falling-out’s imaginable. Matt was still there as well, surrounded by some other friends they had picked up along the way, including Drew Fitzgerald, who had been in a class of Brian’s and a long-time friend of Morgan’s. Morgan was 53 miles away at University of Massachusetts Lowell, and Brooke and Peter were nowhere to be found. Those who left had been replaced by Jacob, who also had been a friend of Morgan’s; Brian’s roommate Brandon; another friend Scott, and more each semester. None of the newcomers ever knew the reason why they all got dinner at 5:30 every day still, or what truly happened between Morgan and the rest of the original group. Even the original six all had different stories, but all with the same ending. It was etched into the walls of the room like so many other first-year stories had been since O’Hara’s first occupants in 1961, forever a ghost of the past that whispered the words “friendship is fleeting.”

A day after, on the 10^th, the lid would burst. Brian would storm 230 and yell at Morgan louder than he’d yelled at anyone about allegedly tormenting Brooke and Stacia by obsessing over him. 17 days after that, on September 27, Brooke’s things would all be moved out, signaling the end of the dying flame that thought it would never burn out.

In the span of three weeks, what was once whole was suddenly shattered, its remains left only in the walls of that room to tell. There was a memory associated with every square inch of the room, from the stain on the carpet where Stacia spilled her soda to the mirror that the girls got ready together each morning at. There were sleepovers, study nights, yelling, singing, crying, fighting, and laughing all confined within four walls that month—a clown car of emotions. What was left of the group thundered on after that, collecting more and more unforeseeable turns of events, but September, and room 230, was barely spoken of again. Until 2019.

***

Drew walked back up the stairs of O’Hara after visiting Stacia in Notre Dame Du Lac, his new home for the year as a junior. She had just moved in early, and he and Jacob wanted to say hello. It was almost time to say goodbye to Michaela, so he hurried up the stairs. Even years later, the smell of O’Hara was the same. The echoes in the stairwell that his shoes made were the same, and it all felt too familiar.

His mom, Michelle, handed him a few things that Michaela wasn’t going to use in her room and that they were going to take home for her. As he passed by the number on the door, he still chuckled.

“Hey, what were your friends’ names that used to live in this room?” Michaela said to her brother.

“Brooke and Morgan, why?” Drew answered his sister. She pointed behind him. The door was propped open with a brick, so the hallway was in plain view. Directly across the way was another blue door, identical to this one. Sure enough, the names on the door tags read “Morgan” and “Brooke.”