01⎜The Roommate

           “Are you sure that you’ll be fine?” my mom questioned, adjusting the neutral comforter on my bed for the umpteenth time.

           “Yes!” I groaned out at her persistence. “Mom, I’m fine now, and I’ll be fine for the entire year!”

           “I know, but you’ve never lived by yourself, Eric,” she told me, smiling fondly.

           “No, I haven’t, but I swear I’ll be fine,” I promised her, walking over to where she was standing so that I could give her a reassuring hug. She wrapped her slim arms around my torso and began to weep, leaving me to awkwardly pat her back in consolation.

           Out of the three of us, my mom was really taking the change the hardest. My dad was away on a business trip, so couldn’t drop me off, and I was totally okay with everything going on, but then there was my mom, who currently possessed enough pre-college angst to overcompensate for the both of us. I felt bad about leaving when I had gotten into schools less than an hour away from our house, but not that bad. I wanted to leave, and going to Stanford was the exact way to do just that.

           “Even though you’ll be all the way across the country, if you need anything or get into any trouble, I’ll hop right on a plane and come straight here,” she said, pulling away from me. She placed both her hands on my shoulders—her elbows unbent and rigid so that we were a full arm’s length apart from one another. A sniffle emitted from her nostrils as she shook her head and leaned in to kiss my forehead in a way that only individuals in a position of maternity could. “Eric, I’m going to miss you so much!”

           “I know, Mom, and I’ll miss you too,” I returned.

           “If you need anything—and I mean anything, or just want to hear your mommy’s voice, don’t hesitate to call,” she said, breaking down into a stream of continuous sobs that contradicted the image imprinted in my mind my entire life of my mother being this professional woman who was always put together.

           “Okay, Mom,” I sighed, adding a reassuring grin to my words.

           “And even if you don’t need anything, you better still call every day!” she cried even harder as the words flowed out.

           “I’m not going to promise something that I can’t guarantee, but I’ll try, Mom,” I said as sincerely as I knew how.

           “You’re such a good son,” she remarked, more to herself than to me. “I’m proud of you, Eric. You’ve done so much for yourself, and you’re so strong. You better keep it up!”

           “I will, Mom,” I laughed. “Now, don’t you have a flight to catch or something?”

           “Trying to get rid of me so soon?” she joked.

           “That, and you actually have to catch your flight.”

           “I can’t believe my baby’s all grown-up and already in college. Everything has gone by so fast!” She shook her head, wiping the area directly under her eye so that her smudged makeup lifted with the ease of her manicured finger. After repeating the same procedure to the space beneath her other eye, she then inhaled deeply, followed by an equally as intense exhale. Plastering on a light smile, she looked marginally more like the mother I knew with high expectations and morals.

           “I’m going to miss you, Mom,” I said, inching my way into the threshold of a peaceful parting.

           “I’m going to miss you so much, too, Eric!” she said, enveloping me in another tight hug. “I should probably go, right?”

           “Yeah,” I nodded, not wanting the separation to be overly prolonged.

           “Well, I love you, and are you sure that you’ll be fine until your roommate comes?” she asked hesitantly, still attached to me.

           “Yeah, Mom, I’ll be fine,” I assured her.

           “Okay,” she let go, “bye, Eric.”

           “Bye, Mom,” I said, watching as she slowly strolled over to the door of the small dorm room. “I love you.”

           “I promise the second I get back to New York I’ll call you, okay?” she said, as if I was the one who had been worrying the entire time.

           “I’ll probably be sleeping, but okay,” I shrugged casually, stuffing my hands into my jean pockets. “Bye.”

           She sighed, looking me over with pride, and then uttered the farewell phrase yet again, but this time in finality: “Bye, Eric.” With a whoosh of the door, my mom was gone, and I was experiencing my very first period of solitude in California as a freshman at Stanford University.

           I took the opportunity to go over to my neatly made bed (compliments of my obsessive mother), and sat down on it, creasing the top layer of fabric. My eyes began to wander about the blank room, an opinion formulating in my mind as to whether I would enjoy living in the cramped area or just tolerate it. As dorm rooms went (when I had gone through the whole application process, I had seen quite a few of the miniature student habitats), this one was pretty nice.

           Its overall shape was a cube, and had eggshell walls that looked drab and as if a light had yet to be turned on, but they were less severe than white, which I liked. The ceiling was a mixture of squared tiles and a few lights, while the floor was an even blue carpet. There was one centered window against the back wall, which happened to be parallel to the door. On either side of the natural source of illumination were two identical beds. I had taken the one on the left, so mine was adorned in bedding, while the other remained a frame and a mattress. At the foot of each bed was a small dresser of an almost cherry shaded wood, like every piece of furniture in the room. About a yard away from the bureaus—against the same wall as the door—were matching desks, creating a rather symmetrical ambiance to the room that made me feel a sense of tranquility. It wasn’t that bad.

           The only view that could be seen from the window was a large palm tree (not something one generally found in the suburbs of New York) and more buildings from the campus. It was definitely something somewhat motivating to wake up to in the morning.

           When I had envisioned going to school in California, I had pretty much imagined all the classes being on the beach and the dorms being those chill huts stationed on the sand. Stanford wasn’t really a “beach” school. Also, my false expectations weren’t as crushing as I had thought they would be for three reasons: 1) I was at the school to learn. 2) Everything I had originally pictured was completely unrealistic. 3) I didn’t even like the beach.

           As lame as it may have been, I wasn’t the type of person who could spend all day laying out on the beach napping, playing volleyball, swimming, and eating fried food with life-threatening cholesterol levels. That wasn’t me. Sure, I had a great body and damn well knew it, but I just didn’t like the beach. I neither liked how the sand that was too hot from the burning sun felt on my feet, nor the grossness that followed plunging into the salt-infested ocean. Seagulls were worse than pigeons, and while the aspect of bikini-clad bodies may have been alluring, the negatives overrode the positives in the situation by a mile.

           Also, another thing I never liked about the beach was the amount of people. There were throngs of strangers everywhere from all walks of life, and while it was very nice that everyone had a place where they could all universally enjoy themselves, that particular facet didn’t quite appeal to me, either. Normally, I didn’t mind large crowds, but in combination with all the other sucky things that the beach had to offer, the masses were quite the turn-offs, as well. So, basically, I didn’t like the beach.

           “Yo!” an unfamiliar voice greeted suddenly, startling me slightly as the once closed door swung open. I glanced over at the entrance, taking in a boy who I assumed was my roommate. He had an army green duffle bag strapped across his chest and looked like he had just gotten out of bed with his ensemble of flip-flops, sweats, and a T-shirt. With the mixture of his disheveled dark hair of a curly matter and black-rimmed glasses, he didn’t exactly come off as the type of guy who lived for partying—of which I was very glad.

           “Hi,” I said, standing from my bed to introduce myself properly, “I’m Eric.”

           “Seth,” the guy returned, his eyes darting from my face to my shoes. “You’re a frat guy, aren’t you?”

           “Uh, no,” I denied his accusation of me being an individual linked to the fraternity community.

           “Well, not yet, at least,” he laughed, nonchalantly walking over to the empty bed and dumping his large bag in the center. He made no move to unpack, and then swiveled around to face me again. “Where ya from, dude?”

           “New York.”

           “Nice,” he nodded. “I’m a Californian. What sport?”

           “Excuse me?” I said with a gulp, not completely understanding his question.

           “What sport do you play?” he elaborated, turning back to his luggage and unzipping the top. He began to shuffle through it, searching for something in particular.

           “Football,” I told him.

           “Uh huh,” he muttered, continuing to look through his belongings. “Quarterback?”

           “Yeah,” I replied, going back over to my bed and sitting on it.

           “I was a co-captain of a varsity ultimate Frisbee team, myself,” he shared, finding whatever he needed, and extracting it from the canvas container. With a white cord and a silver rectangle in his arms, he strolled over to the desk on his side of the room, and set both objects down. As he began his hunt for what I guessed to be a plug, he continued speaking. “So, are you here to play football?”

           “No, to learn,” I said solemnly. “I don’t play anymore.”

           “Sure, sure,” he uttered dismissively, as if he didn’t believe me. “What? Did you get busted for roids and then get kicked off the team or something?”

           “Or something.”

           “Chill,” he said, finding the spring of electricity and connecting one side of the white cable to it, the other being placed into his computer. “I like engineering. Also, my girlfriend’s here, so when I got in I was pretty much forced to go. You dating anyone?”

           “No.”

           “Are you gay?” he questioned hesitantly. “Like, I’m a nerdy liberal from SoCal, so it honestly doesn’t matter to me if you are.”

           “I’m not gay,” I said, never having encountered someone who questioned about my sexual orientation.

           “Huh. So you’re a straight ex-quarterback from New York who isn’t in a frat—yet, but looks like a bodybuilder and is single,” he listed off all the information he had acquired about me. “I don’t know your story, and I don’t really care right now, but I’m supposed to meet my girlfriend and her roommate in, like, fifteen minutes. Wanna come?”

           Taking a moment to process his many fast words, I finally understood the gist of what he was saying. Warily, I made my first decision in college that thankfully didn’t involve accepting or declining anything moderately illegal: “Uh, sure.”       

           “Cool, dude,” he said, moving back over to his duffle and beginning to rummage about for something else. Suddenly, he stopped his quest and turned back to me, but only for a brief moment, for he then commenced to slowly review the room, as if looking for something in particular. When he didn’t find what he was seeking, he continued to speak and rifle. “You didn’t bring a mini-fridge, did you?”

           “No,” I said, dragging out the word longer than necessary.

           “Uh huh,” he mumbled, throwing a fair amount of the contents of his bag out and onto his bed, meaning that his supply of clothes was now exposed to the world—well, really me, but it was basically the same thing. From the looks of it, he owned a lot of T-shirts and and even more plaid. “This weekend I’ll drive up to my parents’ house and bring one. We need food here, dude. You have allergies?”

           “No,” was my reiterated response.

           “Well, I do. I don’t eat nuts and I’m not supposed to do milk, but that’s BS, so I still eat pizza and shit. Also, my girlfriend’s a vegetarian, and she thinks I’m one too, even though I’m pretty much a carnivore,” he rambled on with a laugh. “If she asks, though, I hate eating dead animals. The things I do for that girl…”

           Not quite knowing how to reply, I chose to opt for the simplest of things to say in the situation, that being a two-lettered word that was reserved for times when nothing else quite sufficed: “Oh.”

           “You drink?” questioned my new roommate, continuing to speak and allowing me to form a conclusion about him. Over the past few minutes, I had learned one very important thing about the guy I would be living with: he liked to talk. A lot.

           “No,” I said, feeling slightly bad that all my answers had yet to really exceed more than a sentence.

           “Crap. Should’ve probably asked first. Hope this isn’t too personal or whatever, but is it against your religion or something? I’m way secular but had a bar mitzvah, so I guess that makes me Jewish,” he took a short pause, shrugging his shoulders as he kept sifting through his possessions. “In Islam can’t you not drink or something? No offense, but you don’t really seem like the Muslim type. That’s totally chill if you are, though.”

           “I’m not religious, and I don’t drink by choice,” I shared, trying to ignore all the excessive information in which he had divulged.

           “Respect, bro,” he commented, finding whatever it was he had been looking for and setting it down on the stripped mattress. “I drink. Not a lot, but I like a beer every once in a while and crap, ya know?”

           “Not really,” I shook my head, not knowing the feeling. Even at my worst in high school, I never turned to alcohol. I had tasted the substance before, but just didn’t like it. Drunk was a state I had only ever encountered twice, and I intended on keeping it that way.

           Instead of going into further details in regards to my habit of not drinking, he went on: “So, if we’re going to go meet my girlfriend and her roommate, I should probably prepare you. She’s, uh, a little…different.”

           “What do you mean by ‘different’?” I inquired, internally wondering why I had even agreed to go with him in the first place. So far, he didn’t exactly seem like the type of guy with whom I would normally associate. It wasn’t even his exterior, but rather personality. I tended to mesh well with calm people who were able to get along well with everyone. This dude just seemed slightly wired up in a totally intense way, and not even from nerves. It was just who he was.

           “Like, Noa—that’s her name—is the type of girl who preaches feminism and doesn’t do the whole ‘G-d’ thing, and she’s an activist, and way too smart for her own good. You’ll like her,” he went on to say. “She’s crazy, but everyone can’t help but like her. It’s one of those things that not even science can explain.”

            “How long have you two been together?”

           “We met in freshman year back in high school,” he recalled affectionately, as if the incident was something he could never forget—which it probably was. “We hated each other, became mortal enemies because we were both smart, and then I kissed her one day when we were juniors, and she kissed me back, and now we’re stuck with each other. Funny how things work out, isn’t it?”

           “Uh, yeah,” I agreed stolidly, thinking back to my own past relationships, and wanting nothing more than to pack the memories away in a box and then bury them deep in the depths of my mind.

           “We fight a lot, but at the end of the day would never breakup because this dumb thing called ‘love’ that still doesn’t make sense to me,” he shook his head at the emotional concept shared between two individuals. “Ever been in love, man?”

           “Yeah,” I gulped uneasily, seeing no point in lying to the guy I would be living with over the next few months.

           “Considering that you’re not going in detail, I’m going to assume that it didn’t end well. Meaning…” he trailed off slightly, pondering an explanation, “that you either had a tough break up, got dumped—which I can’t imagine happening with a guy like you, or she died. Sorry if she’s dead, dude. That must totally suck. I’m way sorry.”

           “Uh, she’s not dead,” I corrected his inaccurate deduction.

           “Oh, she’s not? Well, at least we’ve established the gender. Cool. I’m going with breakup, then,” he altered his speculation slightly.

           “Actually, I was dumped,” I said, truly unsure as to why I was telling him. I wasn’t required to tell him about the past I didn’t want to revisit, so didn’t know why I elected to do just that. All I had wanted to do was distance myself from the history of my life, but within the first ten minutes of meeting my roommate, I was already talking about it. Knowing me, I would try as hard as possible to not make it a routine.

           “You were dumped?” Seth stated in an incredulous manner, his dark eyebrows raising a considerable amount.

           “Yeah,” I confirmed with a single word.

           “What’d you do, dude? Run over her pet bunny? Kill her dad? Tell her she looked fat?” he speculated still in a dubious fashion.

           “I didn’t do anything,” I sighed, “and I’d rather not talk about it, if that’s all right.”

           “Yeah, totally, man,” he nodded, discerning that the territory was a no-go one. “I totally get that.”

           My relationship with Mackenzie Collins had ended when I was a sophomore, almost three years ago. I had no issue verbally communicating it, because it was over and had already happened. What I did have an issue doing, however, was thinking about it. All the feelings I had had during that dismal period in my life came rushing back, and I remembered a time when all I could do was lie on my bed, pondering what I had done wrong, or punch my fist against a plaster wall in anger. At the time, I couldn’t fathom that the problem wasn’t me, but rather her. Mackenzie had her own agenda, and I was never really a part of it. For a girl who probably never even spent a moment contemplating me, I wasted way too much of my own time on her. I let her affect me too much, and suffered significantly because of it.

           “So,” Seth went on to say, “we should probably go head over to my girlfriend’s dorm or she’s going to kill me. And I’m not exaggerating. She knows how to shoot a gun and could probably get away with murder if she really wanted. No joke.”

           I laughed lightly, the action seeming right at the moment, as if fitting into the puzzle that was interaction. That was one of the things I was good at—puzzles. Well, not literal puzzles (I sucked at those), but social puzzles. Like, what to do or say when and when to not. It had always been a strength of mine, and not something I struggled with a great deal. Socializing came relatively naturally to me. I never needed to process, for my instant response was always the correct one. In this situation, for instance, considering that Seth grinned at my vocal display of amusement, I had done as standard.

           Without another word from my new roommate (surprisingly) or me, we left the room, securing the door behind us. The silence only lasted about thirty seconds, for Seth then began to ramble on about California and the pros and cons of living in the state, his girlfriend’s parents, or something about his computer. I zoned out for the majority of his speech, just looking around at the dull scenery of the halls that would consume my eyes over the next few months. It wasn’t the suburbs of New York with which I was familiar, and it wasn’t the glamour most commonly associated with The Golden State. No, it was better. It was Stanford.

A/N: "Noa" is the same as "Noah," just spelled differently, and is pronounced "No-ahh." Hopefully that makes sense and y'all liked this. Thank ya for the support. REALLY excited about this story. Seth? Eric? Thoughts thus far?

-Sophie