THE ROOMMATE

Inspired by "Cat Person" by Kristin Roupenian

The man's cat that he probably doesn't have... It's so cute look at his little nose!

Okay, sorry. I know my story has nothing to do with cats but it was just so cute! Alright, let's carry on.

The Roomate

Sweat beaded on Serena’s brow, soaking her bangs and plastering them to her forehead.

Her arms and shoulders ached from the effort of heaving 16 boxes from her car in the student parking lot up to her dorm room in Mentality Hall. About ready to collapse from exhaustion, she lugged her last box (#17) to the back door of her dorm, balancing it on her hip as she fumbled for the key card in her back pocket that would unlock the door for her. As she was doing this, her phone buzzed in her other pocket.

Serena huffed, blowing her damp hair out of her face as she awkwardly shifted the box to her other hip, nearly spilling its contents of notecards, pencils, pens and a stapler as she did so. She leaned against the door for support as she read the text message from her suitemate Liz.

Just to let u know M moved some stuff into ur dresser.

Serena stared at the text message in confusion.

??? Into my dresser? Y? she typed quickly in reply before putting her phone away, shifting the box to her other hip again, getting her key card from her other pocket, and unlocking the door.

Serena took the elevator up 3 floors for the what seemed like the 20th time that day and followed the hallway to the left until she came to room 317. She kicked the door open and let the box topple from her hands to the floor. Her phone buzzed, just as she slumped onto the ground beside a large pile of all the rest of her boxes.

Idk. She seems... weird

Great, Serena thought. Drama already.

The dorm was empty. Her roommate M and her suitemates Liz and Taylor were all out, so Serena had the whole dorm to herself to unpack her stuff. But it seemed like M had already claimed more than her share of the room.

Sighing with the effort, Serena forced herself to her feet and entered her bedroom. Everything looked okay at first. M had already unpacked her stuff into the left half of the room. Her twin bed was covered in a grey comforter and she had a tapestry of some strange, darkly colored abstract art that vaguely resembled an inkblot hanging above it. Intrigued by the text from Liz, Serena went to inspect the dressers on her half of the room, and sure enough they contained 3 or 4 shirts per drawer. This confused Serena, since it clearly wasn’t so many clothes as to warrant taking up space in her drawers, and not just be shoved into one of M’s drawers with the rest of her clothes. Next, Serena opened the closet. She was glad she was alone, because when she saw what was inside she loudly exclaimed, “What the hell??”

The whole closet, which was supposed to be shared between the both of them, was fully overtaken with M’s clothing, ranging in shades of ash gray to midnight black. To top it all off, the top rack and floor of the closet were littered with black duffel bags, which appeared to be stuffed full.

Perplexed, Serena returned to her own dressers, taking out the clothes that didn’t belong to her and placing them on her roommate’s bed. Then she set to work unpacking her clothes (which featured all shades of the rainbow, like a normal person) into the drawers that were rightfully hers. She considered shoving some of her dresses into the closet, but decided it was a lost cause and just neatly folded them back into her packing boxes and stored them under her bed. When everything was sorted and put away, the two halves of the room looked as different as night and day. The left half was dark grey and uninviting, the other half was pink and fluffy complete with twinkling star lights.

Yikes, Serena thought when she took it all in. This should be interesting.

By then, Liz and Taylor had come back.

“So, who is this girl? Is she allergic to every color except black?”

Serena, Liz, and Taylor had been best friends since 7th grade, so of course they had to be roommates when they all decided they were going to the same college together. Unfortunately their old roommate Anna (who they really had liked a lot), had been kicked out last semester for selling crystal meth to the hockey team, so they were forced to find a new roommate on the fly. Resident Life had matched them with M, who they had never met before, but because the poor girl couldn’t find another group of three to room with, they decided to take pity on her. Though of course, they knew no one would ever be able to replace Anna.

“I don’t know,” Liz said. “She seems really strange and… angry? Taylor and I tried to talk to her last night when she moved in but she wouldn’t say a thing. Then she left and didn’t come back until, like, 3AM.”

After that they hung out in the common room, watching the latest season of Teen Wolf and gushing over how hot Tyler Posey was. Serena always kept her eye on the door, half-dreading, half-hoping M would come back, scared of what this chic would say when she saw that she had reclaimed her drawers, but also not wanting to meet her for the first time alone. At 10 o’clock though there was still no sign of her, so Serena and her friends decided to call it a night.

At approximately 3AM there was loud bang, and Serena was awakened by her bedroom door flying open, flooding the room with light from the common room. A girl with jet-black shoulder-length hair skulked into the room. Shivering with fright, Serena watched through slitted eyes, scared of what M would do once she saw the clothes on her bed. To Serena’s surprise and relief, M didn’t freak out. She only tossed the clothes to the floor and climbed into bed.

Okay, cool. She’s chill, Serena thought, shutting her eyes so she could drift back to sleep. But there was a clicking sound coming from M’s side of the room, and suddenly the room was filled with light again as M’s TV switched on, blaring the music from Law & Order SVU.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Serena waited a few seconds, thinking M would realize it was freaking 3 in the morning and at least turn down the volume, but when Lieutenant Olivia Benson’s voice started booming through the small room, Serena gathered enough courage to meekly ask, “Hey, um, do you mind turning that down a little?”

Through the darkness Serena could see M glaring at her with charcoal black eyes. There was a moment of silence, broken only by the voice of Detective Tutuola, before M rasped, “No,” and turned to continue watching her show.

This was going to be an interesting semester.