Wake me

9: Roommate

"Sweetie, are you sure you are going to be okay?" Mother asked, smoothing my hair. I lay on my dorm bed, which mother had made for me while father helped me get out of my little turn. He gave me three pills, and Mrs Elliot had offered me some water, tea or coffee, but I refused all. Now, I lay in my dorm, the fan blowing on me. Mrs Elliot stood in the doorway, her arms folded, her face showing an emotion that looked somewhat worried. "It must be the heat!" She exclaimed, turning the fan on a higher power, "It's normal, lots of new students here aren't used to the roaring sun! There's plenty of water in this jug for you." She had put a glass jug on the bedside table for me to drink, but looking at it made me feel ill. I managed a smile, and kissed my mother on the cheek. They were going to head off now, as they had to drive back home before nightfall. "Phone me everyday! You have your phone," Mother began to give her usual speech, by father stopped her. "She'll be fine!!" Father exclaimed, patting my back.
After the goodbyes were said, Mrs Elliot walked the down to their car while I lay sweating on my bed. The bed on the other side of the room was unmade, and I presumed the girl who stayed here had not yet arrived. My bags and cases still had to be unpacked, so I set an alarm on my phone for half an hour rest and then to get up and start unpacking and making the dorm look a bit better.

I fumbled with the blue pin, but pushed it through the old Polaroid of Tina, and stuck it on my notice board next to the bed. I dusted my hands- there. I had decorated my side of the dorm with some unread books on the shelves, sketch books, sketch pencils and a cabinet where all my text books and stationary were in. The small, wooden desk supplied to us was laid with a neat tablecloth and a jug of water. It started to look a little bit homely. Just then, the door was pushed open and a girl walked in, a fumble with all her brown leather bags and backpacks. "You know," she was talking on the cellphone, "Don't even come fetch me at the end of the semester, because you clearly don't care." She ended the phone call and dropped her cases on the floor. She seemed unperturbed that I sat on the bed alongside her, and she quickly typed a text on her phone, fingers furiously typing. She had long, dark auburn hair that reached her waist, and a slim body frame that was covered in jeans and a black tee-shirt. Her eyes were a similar shade to her hair, and her nose was decorated with a few freckles. She had a slightly pointy nose and big eyes, reminding me of a cat. She looked up, and smiled. "Oh! Sorry about that, I didn't even see you there. You're so quiet! I'm Anna." She shook my hand nervously, putting her cellphone away. "I'm Grace." I returned a nervous smile.
"Wow, you've already decorated! I wish I was that organized, I probably didn't even bring books for all I know." Anna laughed, brushing the hair off her high cheek bones. "Are you new here?"
"Um," I mumbled, "Yes, to this block. I used to be in another block, I can't remember which one."
"Oh!" Anna looked surprised, "I haven't seen your face around here. I got here a month or two ago, I can't remember either. College takes it out on you, huh?" Anna laughed again while unpacking her bags, taking out posters upon posters and charcoal drawings and photo albums.
"It sure does." I said softly.
"What are you here studying? English?" Anna asked.
"Yes- how did you know?" I asked, curiously.
"Well, I can see all those books on your shelves! Dead giveaway." She chuckled bubbly. I smiled and chatted with her while she unpacked all her clothes into the cupboards. She had simple clothes, mostly shorts, jeans and branded tee shirts and a jumper or two. She pulled out some hockey gear, and rested it on her desk.
"Do you play hockey?" I asked.
"Yes, I do. I'm not good, though. I don't know why they even bothered to put me in the B team when I should be in the Z team or something. They said somebody dropped from their B team, so I had to take their place." She shrugged. I kept silent, knowing that the person that had 'dropped' was in fact myself. When I didn't reply or ask any other questions, Anna asked, "Do you know where the cafeteria and bathrooms are? In this block, I mean. I wouldn't go using the other blocks bathrooms or cafeterias." I shook my head slowly. "Come, let me show you around. We even have a cute little study place."
Reluctantly, as I would have much rather liked to sit in the room to myself, I stood up and followed her out of the dorm room, down the sickly smelling corridor, listening to her chatting her head off about class and parties. We walked down the echoing stairs and she showed me into a very large room that had small, dirty white tables squeezed into it. There were a few people, about five, sitting at different tables reading or shoveling sloppy looking mince into their mouths. "It tastes better than it looks," she grimaced, and showed me to a separate block on a floor above that had toilets, showers and two very yellow-looking, greasy bathtubs. "If I were you," she whispered, "Don't use the tubs, have you seen the amount of Vaseline in that thing?" She gave a fake shiver and pointed to the showers. "Use those, but not the last one on the left, it's got a plumbing problem and all the water sort of sprays out." I nodded, and she quickly showed me the study room near the library. Nobody was in there except for a librarian whose thin glasses were perched on her upturn nose. She eyed us with beady eyes as we walked down the rows and shelves of books and magazines, my feet dragging across the carpet, which seemed to irritate the librarian even more. Finally, after I had been given my guided tour, I headed back to the dorm room and collapsed onto my bed, unwrapping a cereal bar from my bag. "Don't you want to go to the cafeteria and grab something? Or we could drive to MacDonalds, it's not far from-"
"I'm fine." I said abruptly, shoveling the bar into my mouth.
I felt bad, Anna seemed rather taken aback by surprise of my abruptly response. However, she shrugged it off and told me she was going to see if her friend had arrived yet. I was quietly thankful that I had some time to myself.

I spent this free time doing absolutely nothing that would ever be called constructive, such as cracking my knuckles, plucking my leg hairs and deciding whether the curtains looked better open or closed. After about twenty to thirty minutes of my fumbling around, I told myself to head on out for a walk around the grounds. I took my phone, in case I needed help or got lost somewhere, and walked as quietly as possible down the hallway.

It was rather nippy outside, despite the fact that the day had been rather hot. I looked around me, and recognized the hockey field out in the distance. My heart seemed to flutter at the thought of my hands running down the smooth hockey stick, the smell of wood wax in my fingers, the wind blowing my ponytail as the smell of freshly cut grass wafted through my nose. I shook the thought off- those days were by far over.