It's all true

Round 33: June 2037 (Winter)

last update/Jessica's next update/next update

Kit Royce is 77, Max Nihill is 50, Zaria Royce-Nihill is 49 and Jessica is 17.
(Josh is 23, Veronica is 20, Noah is 19, Emma and Louisa are 17 and Lauren is 16)

Narrated by Jessica Royce-Nihill

I just found out that I’ve been accepted into Suffolk University next year. I was so excited; I think I called everybody I know!

I’ve been working really hard and it’s paid off. Mum, Dad and Grandma are all very proud of me.

Dad even took the night off work so we could have a family dinner to celebrate. That’s rare enough that we made sure Josh came over too.

Josh used the opportunity to introduce us to his girlfriend Veronica, who he’s been dating for a few months now. I already kind of knew her, since she was a few years ahead of me at school, but the rest of the family hadn’t met her yet.

Veronica is in her junior year at Suffolk, so she’ll be a senior there by the time I start. She was saying how she could watch out for me when I get there but I wasn’t sure she was someone I’d want to spend a whole lot of time with.

Dad was quite stone-faced and very quiet during dinner, so I don’t think he’s so fond of Veronica.

She’s sort of a know-it-all, which is a trait that tends to get on Dad’s nerves, probably because he can be a bit that way himself.

As they finished washing up after dinner, I heard Dad mention to Mum that he thought Veronica was a bit “mouthy”.

I was talking to her though and she actually reminds me a little of my best friend Emma.

Emma can be very abrasive but if you get to know her or if the conversation is about something she’s really interested in, she can be like a completely different person. I think Veronica might be the same way.

Emma is still waiting to hear back from Suffolk but she’s very confident that she’ll get in. She works just as hard as I do and she's not worried at all.

So we’re talking under the assumption that getting in to uni is a done deal for the both of us. We’ve both applied to Moretti Hall, where Josh lived when he was a student, rather than Novak Hall.

Moretti Hall is smaller, quieter and best of all, they’re all private rooms so you don’t have to deal with roommates. I could room with Emma but there’s no guarantee we’d be assigned to the same room.

College is all we talk about these days. I’m doing culinary arts and Emma will probably be doing a fine arts degree.

Louisa only just recently decided what she wants to do. Previously, she had no clue what she was even mildly interested in.

We have compulsory careers counselling through school though and now she has it all sorted out; she wants to study psychology, with a view towards going into counselling once she’s done.

That is so perfect for Louisa. She’s always been so sweet and she genuinely cares about people. It seems like a good way for her to get paid for something she’s already good at!

Lauren is going to follow her mother into journalism. Seeing she’s a year younger than us though, she’ll have one more year of high school while we’re all off at college.

I hope we can all still hang out next year. Us all being away at college, plus Lauren still being underage might make it hard.

Lauren doesn’t seem too worried about it. She has ideas about getting a fake ID and using that to sneak in wherever we happen to be going.

I don’t know if it’ll be quite as easy as that but I guess we can worry about that next year. I’m sure we’ll still be able to hang out together anyway; it’s not like we’ll be drinking and going to clubs 24/7.

When I first started applying to uni, I was more excited at the prospect of spending more time with Noah than with my friends. Now, that barely even crosses my mind.

We’re already six months into the year and I’ve barely seen Noah at all. He’s staying at his parents’ place for winter break at the moment and this is the first time I’ve seen him since Easter.

It’s not just Noah’s fault. There have been times when he’s called and asked about getting together and I either wouldn’t feel like it or I’d have already made plans.

And it’s not that we don’t enjoy our time together, when it actually happens. We do, but it’s not like it used to be. It’s been much harder to keep this relationship going than I thought it was going to be.

I feel weird talking to Emma about Noah, so I’ve been talking it out with Mum instead. My head always feels clearer after talking to her. She knows exactly when I want advice and when I just want someone to listen.

She really helped, once again. I came to realise that breaking up with Noah might be the best thing for both of us. I’d like to stay friends with him and if we go our separate ways now, it’ll give us six months to settle into being apart before we have to start seeing each other on a regular basis again.

I invited Noah over, after telling him on the phone that we needed to talk. Usually, “we need to talk” doesn’t mean anything good but I didn’t want to completely blindside him.

I think it worked because Noah was disappointed and sad (as am I, really) but he didn’t seem too stunned. We haven't been as close as we once were and I think we’d both been feeling that.

Like me, he also wants to stay friends. Things are a bit awkward between us now but I’m hoping that will get better with time.

Notes:

• Title is from It's All True by the Lemonheads.
• At the moment, Veronica seems quite devoted to Josh. Her panel was full of romantic wants for him...which is a first. We'll see how long it lasts!
• I wasn't expecting Jessica and Veronica to get along but seeing she obviously gets along with Emma, it makes sense that she'd warm to Veronica. Max, on the other hand, did not care for her at all. In game, I don't think they share many interests, so conversations between them just don't go well.
• Jessica earned five scholarships and will start at Suffolk in 2038. She almost got a sixth scholarship - she just needed one more mechanical point! - but she was more interested in her friends than studying this round. ;) I guess she figured she was in already, so why bother working any harder!
• And yeah, Jessica seems to have lost interest in Noah. She had the fear of breaking up with him at the start of the round and that rolled away by the end. :( I didn't really ever see them lasting as long as they did and four years is a decent run for high school sweethearts.
• I did have a little extra bit written in about Declan (who, if you remember, has quite the crush on Jessica) at the end but my game crashed just as I was loading the community lot. Argh! So instead, I'm going to save that for the high school update this round.
• Camilla and Charlie's wedding is coming up in the very next update! Now that I have everything all planned out, I'm even more excited about it and I hope you guys will enjoy it too. :D