by Ney, Sara
Me: Yes.
Georgia: Touché, touché.
Me: I’m not jesting.
Georgia: Sorry, you sprang this on me out of nowhere; I’m still not convinced this isn’t a prank.
Me: Do I look like I’d pull an elaborate stunt like this? You’re the one who’s into hazing—I haven’t done it since secondary school.
Georgia: Gee, way to keep bringing that up.
Me: The truth will set you free.
Georgia: I’d only consider living with you if rent was equal to or less than what it’s costing me now, plus utilities. I’m really…strapped for cash.
Strapped for cash.
Is that slang for broke?
Must be.
I’m too lazy to google it though.
Georgia: I don’t know what it comes out to per month, I’d have to do some math. And I’m terrible at math.
Me: Okay.
Georgia: Um. What did you have in mind for rent?
Me: I hadn’t gotten that far ahead in this grand master plan of mine.
Georgia: LOL. Well when you have it figured out, let me know.
Me: Okay. In the meantime, do some math.
Georgia: **eyeroll**
Me: You better cut that out—you’re going to eye roll yourself into another dimension.
Georgia: **winks** See you in class.
Ten
Georgia
I’m chatting with Nalla and Priya when Ashley plops down in a seat behind me, long legs smacking the back of my seat.
His legs are spread—he has to spread them or he wouldn’t fit—his knees so high above my seat back I’d bump my head against them if I leaned back.
Priya nudges me with her foot, brows raised.
Scribbles on a sheet of notebook paper and slides it in my direction.
He’s all up in your business.
I roll my eyes. No he’s not—what would make her say that?
Oh yeah—I left the party with him last Friday. Not that anything happened…but girls and their active imaginations.
When I tell them he invited me to live with him, they’re going to freak.
In the past few weeks since classes started, I’ve gotten closest to these two, not wanting to spend any more time with my teammates than I have to.
When the professor begins her lecture at the front of the room and we all give her our full attention, I’m still well aware of Ashley’s presence behind me.
It’s like sitting with my back to a wall, except one that’s breathing and staring holes into the back of my head.
I know he’s watching because I can feel it.
Me: Stop staring at the back of my head.
Ashley: I’m not.
Me: Okay, what did the professor just say?
I don’t know what she said either because I’m also not paying attention, but he doesn’t have to know that.
Ashley: Something about business.
Ha! I knew it. He’s not listening.
Me: LOL quit staring at the back of my head. Do you think I’d want to live with a creep who does that? I can imagine waking up and finding you in a chair in the corner of the room watching me sleep.
Ashley: That’s fucking weird and wouldn’t happen. Plus all the bedrooms have locks.
Ashley: Maybe I’d have to look out for YOU. How do I know you’re not a pervert?
Me: You don’t.
I snicker. That’ll give him something to think about.
And besides, I’d worry less about me being a pervert and more about me potentially being a murderer. For all he knows, I’m a few screws short of a full tool box.
I sit ramrod straight, staring ahead, doing my best to listen to the lecture. The professor and her TA are giving us an assignment to work on in our groups—we have to take an everyday object that we all use and create a business plan to market it—and I scribble notes.
I don’t hear a pen behind me or laptop keys, so I crane my head around. Does Ashley not care that we have specific things that need to get accomplished for this project?
“Why aren’t you taking notes?” I hiss, sounding like a nag.
He pulls a face. “I took a picture with my mobile?” He holds up his cell, flashing me the screen. “Isn’t that what everyone does?”
He has indeed taken a photo of the notes the TA has popped up onto the wall with the projector.
Oh.
Well.
I guess that would make life easier—much more so than painstakingly writing it all longhand like my mom had to do when she was in college.
I blush, embarrassed by my own naivety.
I’ve always done it this way, never once having considered taking a picture of the stupid board at the front of the room so I wouldn’t have to take actual notes.
Ashley snickers behind me.
Ashley: Hey.
Me: What?
Ashley: Have you looked into breaking your lease with the university?
Me: Um. Not yet.
Ashley: Good thing I googled it for you. Figured you’d be lazy about it.
Me: Gee thanks.
Ashley: I wasn’t wrong tho, was I.
Ashley: All you have to do is put it in writing and fill out a termination contract 30 days in advance, and they have to approve it. There are fees, but they’re not horrible. I could knock those off your first month’s rent.
Why is he doing this?
Why does he even care?
It’s almost like…now that the idea is in his head, he’s not going to let it go and he’s hell-bent and determined to make it work.
Me: Um. Is that it?
Ashley: Other than cleaning and going through the checklist. Seems pretty cut and dried.
Ah. Well then.
Easy for him to say—he’s not the one potentially moving. He’s not the one who has to tell his parents he might be moving in with a guy.
My parents…
Completely forgot about them and how they’d react, although they trust me so it might not be a big deal?
I’ve never been boy crazy. Spent most of my time concentrating on sports and school rather than my love life, which for the past two years has been virtually non-existent.
Freshman year I briefly dated a Calvin but broke things off when he began pressuring me to have sex with him.
Freaking Calvin—just couldn’t let things progress naturally.
Jerk.
I won’t be making that mistake again, and I can’t be distracted. God forbid I get stuck at this university longer than necessary because I allow myself to lose focus.
Tragic.
Ashley: The fees would be worth it to be temporarily broke for a bit and to live in an actual house rather than stay in the dorms.
I spin around in my seat to gawk at him. “Could you stop googling things that pertain to my living situation?”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“No, you’re trying to help yourself to a new roommate.” I don’t want to tell him I cannot afford rent and fees on top of that if I move out of the dorms. The words are too embarrassing to say out loud.
Ashley is privileged—anyone with a set of eyes looking at him can see that, and it’s not just the proper speech. It’s the posture and the mannerisms and now that I’ve been to his house…
I don’t know what kind of life he leads back home in the UK, but it’s certainly different than my middle-class upbringing.
“No, I’m trying to help you.”
Why is he so stubborn? And why does he care if I live with him or not? It’s not like we know anything about each other, even though I’ve fed him and gone to his house.
Perhaps he’s like a stray cat—once you feed them, they keep coming back.
“Stop arguing with me,” I shoot back in a hushed hiss.
“Do you want to live with me or not?” he grumbles, readjusting himself in the cramped chair space.
“How would I know? I didn’t get the grand tour—I was only in the foyer and the kitc
hen.”
I didn’t even use the bathroom, though I had to pee when I was there, afraid I’d fart or something and stink it up, and what girl needs that reputation?
“Come over then and I’ll show you around,” he whispers, leaning so he’s in my ear. “What are you doing tonight? I have time.”
Priya nudges me with her knee, still staring straight ahead, pretending to be listening to the professor when I know she’s been eavesdropping on us this whole time.
What sane girl wouldn’t?
“I’m supposed to have dinner with Priya and Nalla, sor—”
I get jacked in the ribcage by a pointy elbow.
“She’s good, we’re not doing dinner tonight—no one is hungry,” my new friend informs us in a rushed run-on sentence.
Not doing dinner tonight? “Since when?”
“Since no one is hungry.”
I gaze at her oddly. What is she doing, playing matchmaker?
We aren’t going to date, Ashley and I. We are potentially going to be roommates—there’s no need to throw us together.
She’s being so weird.
“Maybe tomorrow we can do dinner instead, yeah?” She sets about ignoring me, not-so-subtly passing a note to Nalla old-school style, on a sheet of torn-out paper folded into a triangle.
Who does that anymore?
“It’s settled then.” Ash nods. “Come over around six?”
The professor ends her lecture and the lights come on, everyone standing to leave, including Ashley and my groupmates.
“I didn’t agree to come over!” I say to his back, Priya and Nalla coming round to stare at me, wide-eyed.
“What are you doing? Be quiet!”
“What? I don’t want to go over to his—”
Nalla rolls her eyes. “Stop it, you do too—you just don’t want to admit it.” She grabs me by the arm and leads me down the aisle from her row in front of me. “Do us all a favor and take the dumb tour. We’re living vicariously through you now.”
I lower my voice. “I am not dating Ashley Dryden-Jones, and I certainly wouldn’t be dating him if I was living with him. You’re both crazy.”
“If you do not go to his house tonight, you are dead to us.” Priya’s nose turns up. “He was googling for you—what guy does that?”
We’re exiting the lecture hall, no Brian, Jamal, or Ashley in sight.
“Who does that? Meddling helicopter friends, that’s who.”
“Oh, so you’re friends now?”
“Can you invite him to the next slumber party?” Nalla laughs. “Better yet, you can invite us to the next slumber party when you have it at his house when you move in.”
“Ugh—he’s not even near enough to campus. I’ll be stuck walking everywhere,” I protest, trying to pull a protein bar out of my backpack.
“Walk? Who’s walking? You can run. Aren’t you on the track team for a reason?”
“Being on the track team does not make me okay with hoofing it to campus from off-campus housing.”
“Um—from your swank off-campus housing, hello!” Nalla laughs again. “Didn’t you just get done telling us how gorgeous it was, and now he’s asking you to move in with him so he’s not lonely?”
“He never said he was lonely.” I feel the need to correct her, though in all honesty, I do believe one of the reasons Ashley asked me to move in is indeed because he’s lonely.
Probably bored.
“Please, we all know he’s bored. Probably anal retentive too if he’d rather live with a girl than one of those buffoons he hangs out with on the rugby team.”
Priya flips her black, glossy hair. “That just means he’s smart.”
“That boy is so cocky he knows you’re going to show up at six even though you said you’re not going.”
“We all know she’s going to show up at six.” Priya smirks. “Georgia isn’t fooling anybody.”
Nalla gasps. “Hey—maybe we should come with you.”
“No! You are not coming with me.”
Nalla snickers. “So what you’re saying is, you’re going to his house later.”
I see what she did there.
“We can say we need to work on the class project,” Priya adds her own horrible suggestion.
I shake my head vehemently. “First y’all want a slumber party, now you want to come do the class project at his house? Y’all are out of your dang minds.”
“Oh my god, I love it when you talk all Southern.”
I roll my eyes and wave when we hit the split in the sidewalk, the two of them going one direction, myself going the other.
My phone pings as I take the first step into the dorms, the place I’ll be calling home for the next several months, and I hesitate, pulling it out of my pocket.
Groan.
Ashley: So, 6?
Me: You’re so annoying. Has anyone ever told you that?
Ashley: No
Me: I find that hard to believe.
Ashley: Is annoying another word for tenacious?
Me: Only you would use a word like that.
Ashley: Only you would be offended by the use of a big word.
Me: I’m NOT OFFENDED.
There’s a long pause between messages, a full seven minutes before he replies again.
Ashley: See you at six.
Rolling my eyes, I scan my keycard and pull open the entry door. I have no mail, but I do need to clean, so I check out the vacuum cleaner at the front desk and haul it up the stairs to the third floor.
Thank goodness I’m in shape.
Ping!
Another message.
Ashley: Do you want to eat when you’re here? I can order something.
Wait.
He’s willing to order me food?
Okay, maybe I could drop by for a bit—it wouldn’t kill me to look around and get a free meal in the process.
A girl’s gotta eat.
I toss my keys on my miniscule desk when I get inside my room, bag drops to the ground, arm coming up so I can check the watch on my wrist.
A few hours until dinner and a tour, perfect time to take a nap. Cleaning will just have to wait.
My shoes get kicked off and I slide onto the bed.
Close my eyes.
They pop open again a few minutes later only to stare at the springs of the bed above me—Ashley wasn’t wrong about the bunk beds.
I sleep on the bottom one, using the top as storage for some of my shit, dumping things there that don’t have a home or take up too much valuable real estate in this tiny room.
Imagine having an entire house.
And an actual kitchen where I could cook and buy healthy food and store it in an actual fridge.
This dorm fridge holds nothing. Nothing but water bottles and small, compact things, when what I really want to grocery shop for is celery and carrots and giant, crisp apples.
I sigh, rolling over on the mattress, staring into my closet—the one that’s only three feet away. Glaring at the pile of shoes, at the four feet of hanging space, at the bath towels folded on the top shelf.
It’s like living in a matchbox.
I’m not complaining, it’s just…I feel too old for this, having lived in the dorms when I was a freshman. I’m twenty-one; I’m not supposed to be going backward. I’m supposed to be moving forward.
But…
Moving in with a guy I hardly know is not the solution.
It would be impulsive and…
And.
And.
I rack my brain, building a case and an argument with myself.
Don’t be sexist, Georgia—just because he’s a guy doesn’t mean you can’t move in with him. Men and women can be platonic roommates. Millions of people do it every day.
Is that the only thing holding you back? His gender?
Fact: if Priya or Nalla needed a roommate, you would jump at the chance to move out of this place! Hell, your shit would be packed and you’d be out the door before they even got the inv
itation out.
So why are you hesitating?
Because deep down inside you’re a huge chickenshit.
I lie here a little longer, texting one of my teammates, Trichelle, who wasn’t there the night of the party when I met Ashley and needs to know what size t-shirt I want for an order she’s putting together with one of the managers.
I regret going out that night.
Things could have been different…if I hadn’t been hazed and they hadn’t treated me like a rookie. If they hadn’t been disrespectful and…honestly, vile—maybe I could have stuck out the year having a little bit of fun with a few of them.
Now I want nothing to do with them.
I go to practice, go to the meets, come home.
Train, compete, repeat.
I stopped socializing with them after that first Friday night. I have nothing to say to them, including the girls who just stood by idly watching. But the truth is, more than anything, I’m still angry with myself.
I should have walked away, but I didn’t.
Should have told them to piss off, but I didn’t.
Should never have gone into that house in the first place.
What kind of role model am I?
If I had a younger sibling, I would be ashamed if they knew how I behaved.
So ashamed.
I’m usually not so mopey.
This isn’t like me at all, and I wonder if I’m depressed about the decision to come here, to transfer—not that there’s anything to be done about it now.
My bed has been made, and I have to lie in it.
I lie here longer, restless, having a million things to get done but no motivation to do them now that it’s been decided I’ll be going to Ashley’s for this so-called tour.
Tour.
Ha!
He could have shown me around the other night, but he didn’t. Then again, he didn’t want me to live with him then, did he?
Must have been the magical way I threw together that macaroni and cheese.
Sexy, I know.
Changing out of the athletic clothes I had on earlier, I swap out my leggings for actual jeans and a hoodie (with a T-back tank top and sports bra underneath) for a somewhat more presentable sweatshirt.
Pink.
Not as loose as the one I had on, less baggy. Pink sneakers and who am I trying to impress wearing cute clothes, a date? Lord.
It’s nearly six o’clock and since I have to walk, I slide a messenger bag over my head, adjusting it across my chest, and pop my keycard and phone inside. Grab a white ball cap on my way out the door, pulling it down over my long, straight hair. I know I look cute, and I know guys like a girl in a baseball cap, but that’s not my motive, I swear.