Going After The Wrong Guy

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

Jen needed to slow down time by busying herself. So she decided to try out for the music team.

It was Week of Welcome, and the stands crowded the campus quad. Myriads of people were wandering around, and club presidents were pandering to undergraduates to get them to join their club or team. This was unlike James, who stood behind his music team stand, wearing thick black framed glasses with his nose in a book. A preppy blonde girl stood next to him, and then there was a short guy to the right of the blonde.

Students threw quick glances at the stand where James stood, not daring to approach them. But Jen, feeling unusually brave, signed up for an audition.

"We'll call you," Meg, the blonde girl, said, stretching her mouth into a smile. James didn't flinch.

Not until her audition for the team.

Jen ended up auditioning the same day at 7 PM.

The audition room was dramatically large, with rows of red theater chairs extending from the front of the room to the back and the dress circle. The three music students sat together in the front red seats. Jen took a deep breath and approached the piano, feeling the smooth surface of the keys under her fingertips as she took her seat on the bench.

She decided to diligently play Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. With only fifteen minutes to impress, she didn't want to waste any time. She played the first movement slowly, with delicate grace, almost like a whisper. It was as if she was playing in gentle rain. She preferred to start the first movement this way, and as she progressed, her tempo grew faster and her playing became louder.

Jen took multiple summer classes, where she studied classical pieces. She knew every melody, tune, and note by heart. And she played with heart.

When Jen finished her audition, she looked at James first. For once, she was able to pull out an expression that wasn't a cold-stone face. He had a Montblanc pen pressed to his chin, looking down at the orchestra stone floor like he was trying to find some kind of loophole. Jen was promptly dismissed, and ten minutes afterward, she received a preppy email from Meg that she had been accepted into the team.

***
Jen was prancing around in her room like a maniac. She grabbed James's unwinded laundry load from her chair and threw it onto his desk before she sat down and sighed in relief.

Surprisingly, twenty minutes later, the door pinged open. Jen turned around to see James. He closed the door.

"I didn't know you played," he said, nonchalantly.

"Oh, wow! So now you're talking to me?" Jen said, standing up with her mouth open, faux shock written on her face.

"Can you blame me? You wanted to tell me basic shit like your name," he shot back.

"It's human decency!"

"And that stupid sign that you put on the back of the door? What the frick am I supposed to call you?"

"My real name is Jacques," James shrugged, as if it was general knowledge.

"Anyways," he put his hands in his pockets, "what did you have? A hired second pair of hands? An attached self-playing keyboard. A pre-made audio?" he investigated. Jen was now pissed off. This dogmatic lunatic wants to falsely prove that she's secretly talentless with insensible claims. She crossed her arms over her chest.

"I've taken summer classes. I don't need unethical strategies," she gave him a faint smile

James chuckled. She's a freshman. All they do is spitball. She's not ahead in the curriculum.

"Interesting. Summer classes, you say? Catching up?" His smile didn't reach his eyes.

"No, actually! I took it for fun. I already had a 5.8 GPA. Could have gone above that, if they let me," Jen mimicked the same smile.

James's body tensed and he took a step back to prevent himself from passing out. He had a 5.8 GPA. He took piano classes out of necessity and she took it for fun. Despite his unreasonable accusations, he couldn't deny that she just played one of the best performances he'd heard in a while. Moonlight Sonata, with none of the notes missed. And to top it all off, she didn't even know who he was. James scoffed loudly in her face, "like you would have a 5.8 GPA."

Jen was boiling now. This jerk thought he was God's gift. She'll triple-check what she puts on the roommate requirements next time. He's a complete asshole. Forget being nice.

"Are you seriously that pathetic?" Jen said, "If you didn't believe it, then you wouldn't be here right now." The words spilled out of her mouth apathetically.

James froze and pressed a hand to his chest like he was on the verge of breaking into two. Did he hear her right? She just called him pathetic. James and pathetic didn't belong in the same sentence. He was the opposite of that. He was the golden child of this school. Professors rewrote syllabi for him, prodigious nerds bowed to his academic knowledge. He was a finance major, and yet music majors begged him for help. How dare she. He mentally argued with his own pride, with his lips iced shut, and he stood there, a victim to his thoughts.

Jen rolled her eyes, still quietly fuming. "I've honestly wasted enough weeks trying to be nice to an idiot like you," Jen said, before she turned on her heel and began walking out of the dorm room where James stood with a dumb blank look on his face: hair messed up, and eyes wide. The second distinct expression she'd seen of him so far.

Jen didn't know where she was going. But she didn't need James to know that. She just needed to get as far away from him as possible before she rolled his beautiful strawberry blonde curls between her fingers like they were dental floss and ripped it out of his scalp. She was a freshman and she didn't know much about college life. But she knew one thing. She hated James du Bellay. And she wouldn't call him Jacques either.

Her sudden exit left James in a trance state. She had gotten the last word and he didn't stop her. He couldn't stand it. How dare she call him an idiot. This was his school, she was egotistical. She was a monster. She was a threat to the palaces he had built on this campus and he needed her gone.

He had to knock her down a peg quickly. But he didn't have a clue how to yet.

It was written in broad daylight. He hated her.