Going After The Wrong Guy

Chapter 2: R/help: I Can't Stand My Roommate

Jen soaped her face up, careful to touch her lips, scared to wash him off. It was a gift to her and it came in a pink bow box before she unraveled it. What happened was delicate. It was special.

She washed her face off with the surprisingly soft shower water.

How do you fuck someone? She's already getting shy because she's naked, and she's thinking about a real man who had just kissed her a few hours ago. How can you trust someone to see you like this? Every single imperfection or insecurity that you can only hide with clothes. How do you even reach that point? Does it just happen?

Jen turned the shower valve down. She stood in the middle of the shower floor, breathing heavily as droplets of water fell down her cold body. She saw Chad for a few seconds. She saw scenes that she had never experienced, and then he disappeared. Just like he did at the union today.

She reached for the towel that was hanging across the shower rod and swiftly patted herself dry before she put on her pajamas, making the hem of her pajama pants uncomfortably wet due to the water on the shower floor. Shoving the curtain aside, she gathered her products, shower caddy, and towels, then walked back down the hall to her dorm room. Their door was closed.

He probably went to grab something and accidentally shut it, Jen thought. She grabbed her ID from her shower caddy and put it in the slot of the door. The door opened for Jen to discover that the lights were already off and James was cuddled in bed, hugging his pillow tight to his chest like an infant. With the dorm hallway light shining into the room, James angrily turned to his other sleeping side, away from Jen's bed. Maybe he just didn't hear her earlier. Genesis didn't want to bother looking for the rest of her skincare while James was lying down, so she closed the door, got in bed, and went to sleep.

The next day, she woke up, looked to her right, and James was gone. That's it, he's an early bird. James must have had something important to do today, and Jen was taking too long in the shower, so he went to sleep. Jen smiled, happily swung her legs out, and jumped off her bed as she stretched her arms out, yawning. She carefully stepped over to the shower caddy she left on the floor last night, avoiding the expensive royal blue chessmen not picked up yesterday. She slid on her pink shower shoes, and just as she was about to open the door, she saw a paper taped on the wood.

Do not stand closer than 8 feet from me

Do not call me by any nicknames (including James)

Do not take down any of my stuff

Do not look through my personal belongings

Do not invite a guest over WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!

DO NOT TOUCH MY STUFF OR ME

Okay. No excuses. Something is genuinely wrong with this guy, Genesis thought. Don't call him James? What the hell am I supposed to call him? And more stuff was on her desk. Containers. Jen moved them so they were on top of the photo prints from last afternoon.

A picture was stuck between one of the latches on a container. A blonde girl with a short bob, and a boy with blonde chopped layered hair, hugging each other tightly. Around the age of eight, they both smiled brightly at the picture frame. Jen absentmindedly stacked the container on top of the other ones, and the picture flew down under the crack of her desk.

This pattern continued. Each morning, Jen would wake up, to find James gone with new items mysteriously appearing on her desk. Jen would go to class, come back, and there would be an eclectic mix of decor on her side of the room. Jen would go to her second and third class, come back to her room, practice on her keyboard, and then fall asleep with his closet light on until James popped in close to midnight. Jen's mind ran in circles so much over it, that she almost forgot about Chad. The semester is fifteen weeks long, not including finals, and they are already in the third week. She couldn't believe it. The days were mashed together.