Boys

CW assignment: short story. I based this one on an actual experience with s****y roommates and a boyfriend who was (well, still is) hated by them, even though I've moved out of that apartment.

Will and I met during our very first semester of college. He lived a few rooms down the hall from me, and he was the first person to stick his head in my open door and introduce himself. I was immediately charmed by his outgoing personality, but not in the romantic sense. I was eager for a friend, and I could tell he was too. Starting that day, we began a ritual of going to lunch together every day, and it didn’t take long for the other dorm kids to ask if we were dating. We’d always laugh and exclaim “no way!” at their ridiculous assumptions. That was what I liked most about our friendship. We were never romantically interested in each other, and it allowed us to completely be ourselves.

            Will was like every guy I’d never been friends with in high school. He was loud, obnoxious, opinionated, and kind of dumb (okay, really dumb). But for some reason, rather than being annoyed or put off by his childish ways, I found them endearing, and simply rolled my eyes when he got out of hand. Usually he’d laugh with me, and I think that was perhaps why I kept hanging around him. He laughed all the time.

            Towards the end of that school year, we made a new friend. Will had gotten some macho security job somewhere, and met Pat, a college drop-out now in the Army Reserve. The three of us soon became almost inseparable and at the very end of the school year, we found a three-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of town. We moved in and became a small, misfit family. They were like the brothers I’d never had, and never passed up an opportunity to give me a hard time about silly things or assure me they’d always be there.

            Fast forward a little, to that whirlwind of a summer. These boys were the typical College Doods; they loved drinking, they loved hot chicks, and they loved talking about both of these for hours on end. A typical conversation usually started as such:

            “Kate, there was this chick today at –“  Will would start.

            “Will, I don’t care if there was a hot chick somewhere…”

            “No, you have no idea. She was smokin’!” Big grin.  “Wanna have a party tonight? Pat and I were thinking of picking up some Coronas and some Captain Morgan,” He’d continue, still smiling like an idiot. But, hell, I usually had nothing else going on, so we’d have a party.

            That first summer, we had a lot of fun. The three of us threw parties, and invited everyone we barely knew. We had fires in the backyard and toasted forever friendship. Pat and I got totally twisted on Jameson and smoked cigars on the roof. Everything was fun, carefree… and superficial. But still, it was working, and we were happy. By the time school rolled around (for Will and I, anyway) we felt fully partied-out and ready to take on another year. I couldn’t imagine better friends. Then, something got in the way. I met a boy.

            Fast forward to real time, to when this was all still happening. Take a closer look.

            I’m almost late to my world religion class because I can’t find the damn classroom. It’s on the top floor of a building that’s behind (but still inside) another, down a couple of hallways, and finally around a corner. I arrive out of breath and sort of stumble through the door.

            I am a master of first impressions. Luckily, I’m apparently not the only one who’s lost because right after I gain my composure, another student throws open the door, out of breath. I haven’t gotten out of the way yet, so he slams into me and drops his skateboard on my ankles. What an a*****e. I turn around to give him a look, but when I do, I can’t say anything. He’s gorgeous.

            “Woah! Hey, yikes,” he says. “I’m wicked sorry!”          

            “Oh…uh…no worries, dude,” I say. I want to introduce myself, but instead I opt to just find a seat. Like I said, master of first impressions. I halfway hope he’ll sit near me, but he takes a seat at the very end of my table and rests his skateboard against the wall. I spend the remainder of class sneaking sideways looks at him, sort of hoping I’ll catch him doing the same.

            Two weeks later, I’m sitting in the campus center with Will, and I happen to catch the skater kid’s eye as he heads towards a nearby table. He gives me a little wave, so I decide to take the opportunity to find out his name, at least. I’ve lost my history homework anyway, and I need the test questions so I can do it over. I tell Will I’ll be right back. He’s pretty absorbed watching Family Guy on his laptop anyway.

            “K, kiddo. Where ya going? Talkin’ up a hot guy?” he teases. I smile.

            “Yes, actually. I am. Be back in a jiffy!” I get up before I lose my nerve and grab my notebook and pen, just in case things get awkward.

            “Hey,” I say hesitantly as I slide into the empty seat across from him. He looks kind of startled, but smiles at me.

            “Hey, how’s it going?” He’s got his history book open, and in my head I congratulate myself on good timing. That’s when he notices my history notebook, and I chuckle.

            “I lost the test questions, and I was wondering if you had them by any chance?” I try not to sound like a total space case, which is a problem I often have. He laughs, too, so I know he doesn’t think I’m a complete loser. He digs the questions out of his backpack and as I start to copy them down, he asks what other classes I’m taking. Soon, we’re talking about everything and before I know what’s happening, he asks for my number. I just blink and say the first that that pops into my head.

“I don’t even know your name yet,” I say, and tilt my head at him. He grins.

“Daniel,” he holds out his hand, and we shake, both laughing at the situation.

“Kate,” I say, and hand him a small piece of paper with my number written on it. I tell him I’m free the following night, and he nods.

“Well, Kate, expect a call sometime,” he says, and smiles. Before I melt, I excuse myself to get to my literature class. I wink for good measure as I walk away.

            I get back to Will and start to pack up my things. He looks up and asks who I was hanging out with.

“Daniel.”

“Who’s Daniel?” he asks, and I can tell the name sounds familiar to him. This probably isn’t good.

“See the kid with the black beanie? Sitting in the – “ and I can’t finish, because Will knows exactly who I’m talking about.

“I HATE that kid. Are you kidding me? That’s the guy you have a crush on? He’s such a d-bag,” says Will, suddenly all amped up on rage or annoyance or something unpleasant. As usual, I shrug it off.

 “Alright, well, I gotta get to class. I’ll see you at home,” I say, tentatively. Will simply nods at me and goes back to whatever he was doing on the computer. I’m surprised at his sudden change of character, but decide it’s just his protective big brother act, and hurry to class.

            I find out later that Will hates Daniel for calling him out on being obnoxious in a class they have together. I try to see Will’s side, but to be honest, this makes me even more interested in Daniel. If he can stand up to Will’s arrogance, there’s got to be something good about him. So my new interest and my best friend and roommate hate each other. That’ll smooth over, right?

            The rest is history. Daniel calls me that same night, and I end up at his apartment until four or five in the morning. I’m totally in lust. Two days later, he meets me after work and I take him home with me. When I walk in, Will and Pat are in the living room, watching some show about guns or the military or something to that effect. I try to introduce him to Pat, but Pat just grunts. I don’t even have to ask to know what happened.

            One thing I should explain about Will and Pat is that they both go along with whatever the other says, no matter what. Will wants to shoot his paintball gun out the window at trees, so does Pat. Pat wants to drink Coors Light until he passes out, well then guess what? So does Will. Will hates Daniel, so naturally, Pat hates him as well. I try to convince Pat to form his own opinion, to try to like him because I do, but there is no changing his mind. Not by me, anyway.

            As the months go by and Daniel and I become serious, I can tell Will and Pat think I’m a different person. They start treating me differently, and snapping at me for little things. I try to ignore it at first, but feeling unwelcome in my own apartment is starting to take a toll on my ability to keep my emotions in check. I try to show them that I’m still their friend, that I still want to be close with them, but it seems that they can’t be bothered to care. They start to push me away, and I start to hate them for doing so. We begin to bicker about stupid things, always both of them against me, no matter with whom it was that I started the fight.

            All of our frustration with each other finally came to head in late August of our second year in the apartment. I had told them I was planning to move out in September months ago, and they’d found another roommate, their friend Jackson, to move it. I’d cited reasons like ‘I want to be more in town’ or ‘I want to be closer to school’ but inside I was screaming ‘I’m sick of your immaturity and your arrogance! I didn’t even do anything to you two!’

            So this one particular night caught me completely off-guard. I had asked Jackson to pay me the equivalent of one week’s rent, along with the security deposit, since I was moving out a week before the end of the month. Somehow, they had all gotten confused and were under the impression that rent was paid at the end of every month, rather than the beginning. I wish I were kidding, but they all really were just THAT dumb. This night, I was trying to explain to them, again, why Jackson would owe me money, and not the other way around.

Before I knew what was happening, Will had leapt towards my door with Pat right behind him. He started to unleash a rant on me, and I was paralyzed. His face was red, his fists clenched, and his eyes wide. There was no reasoning with him. Pat jumped in every few words to emphasize what Will was saying. They were yelling about me being unreasonable, about trying to rip them off, about being ‘retarded’ and not understanding how rent works. There was no reasoning with them; I could tell this was not simply an argument about rent. It was about Daniel, and there was nothing I could do.

The fight ended with them yelling at me as I walked out the door and into my car. I drove around for two hours before ending up at Daniel’s apartment, where I cried until sun up. When I returned home two days later, Jackson was sleeping on our couch and all of his s**t was in a pile in our living room. They were literally pushing me out.

The day that I did move out, I did so with the help of one friend who had a truck, and I got everything out in one trip. I wanted to be gone as quickly as possible. A week later, Daniel and I were settled in our new place and my new life started to come together, my life without ‘friends’ who hated me.

That was years ago; Daniel and I have long since moved away from that college town and our early twenties. Sometimes, I come across an old picture from the college days and wonder how those boys are doing. Mostly though, I put the picture right back where I found it, and tell myself that if it was worth it to try to put the pieces back together, it would already be done.

Reviews

[Skai]

Aww!! *huggles you* This was f*****g amazing. It made me happy and terribly sad at the same time. Those a******s. All because of a boy. That is pretty f*****g retarded. I felt like I was there. You used really great imagry. Wow. Everything about this was amazing. It made me go through the feelings that were being portrayed in the story each time. Ugh you are such a great writer!

[ink]

i love this! i had great mental images throughout, which kept me engaged the entire time. the only thing that bugged me was your lack of physical descriptions of your characters- you've got their personality down pat, but no clue towards what they actually looked like. Calling someone "hot" is really subjective, so if you just give slight details we can fill in the rest for our own personal hot guy :p

"and tell myself that if it was worth it to try to put the pieces back together, it would already be done." well good god. Talk about a perfect ending.

great job :)