Why did they have to do it here? Couldn’t they just go back to Logan’s dorm instead?
I felt lucky that it was the weekend already. The last time they did something like this had been the evening before I needed to be up ridiculously early to attend an early morning class, and I’d dozed throughout the whole class and even got in trouble with the lecturer over it.
I stretched out under my covers then rolled around, blinking my eyes open. I was facing the other side of the room, and I was surprised to find Dana’s bed empty. I searched under my pillow for my cell and squinted at the screen, surprised to note the time.
Shit. It was a few minutes to eleven in the morning. I rarely ever slept in this late.
This is all their fault, I thought with resentment.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d lazed around outside of the room before I thought it was safe to go back, but I did know it was quite late. Then I’d spent some time just pacing in front of my door, trying to work up the courage to even knock. After about twenty minutes, I managed. I knocked, then waited for a long moment. I’d been about to knock again, when the door opened, and I jumped back as if something frightful was in there.
Logan walked out of the room with a satisfied grin on his face, doing up his belt. I’d looked at him in horror, and he’d winked, then smirked at me and sauntered away. When I walked inside, Dana was lying on her bed with a dress slipped on, but it was so thin that it showed off her hardened nipples. She didn’t have anything on underneath the dress.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what those two had been doing in there, and it brought back the trauma from the time I caught them fucking. I’d been hesitant to get inside the room, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go, anyway, so I went in. My computer had been closed down, but I couldn’t bother about it. I kept my back to Dana the entire time, and got in my bed, under the covers to get away from the musky smell in the room, with my cell and power banks, and didn’t come out. I didn’t fall asleep for a long time, so I ended up reading books online until about five a.m. in the morning when I finally felt tired enough to sleep. Even then I had sexual thoughts and I knew it was because of the smell that was lingering in the room. I should have just got up and opened the window, but I was too lazy to do that.
“The next time they try and do that shit here, I’ll kick them both out,” I promised myself with a shudder.
I hoped Dana would be out for a while, and I slid out of bed to go to the bathroom. Every floor in the dorm had shared bathrooms, in opposite directions for the different genders so people wouldn’t be sneaking in where they weren’t allowed. It was left to everyone’s discretion, so I didn’t know how useful a measure that was. Everyone had to watch themselves.
After a quick shower, I wiped myself down and hurried back to my room, happy to find I was still alone. I locked the door, so I could get dressed, then hesitated before unlocking it again. Dana was still my roommate, even if she hadn’t been the most thoughtful lately, and locking her out of the room wasn’t right. Technically, she had her key so it wasn’t like it would be locking her out, but she rarely ever carried her keys, because I was almost always in the room. Hence, why the door stayed open.
Not that long ago, we used to hang out in the room, but thanks to Logan’s influence, she was going out a lot more recently. It meant I got to keep the room to myself, but I was a little lonely, too.
Anyway, it’s good she’s out. Let me see if I got a few more hits.
A while back, one of the girls in the dorm had told me about this campus dating site. I didn’t remember how we got onto the topic, there was a group of us in the lounge, and Dana had been there which was why I was sitting in the lounge, to begin with. I’d never really tried dating sites before, but I was curious about it.
Besides, this one was restricted to our campus, so it should be somewhat safe if only to experiment. I hadn't tried dating since the disastrous incident in high school, and now that Dana was busy with her dating life again. I didn’t need to be dating to be happy—I was perfectly fine the way I was—but I was interested in trying again.
After I wiped my hair, I sat down at my desk. My laptop was where I’d left it, and I turned it on, setting my cell close by in case I got a call or notification. I bit my lip, feeling anxious butterflies fluttering in my stomach as I waited for it to start.
The screen had just come on when I heard the door opening behind me. I grimaced and looked over my shoulder. Sure enough, it was Dana coming back, and I quickly sent her a smile before turning my back to her.
“I was surprised to find you gone this morning when I woke up.”
“Yeah. I took a shower and went to see Logan afterward.”
“Okay,” I murmured. “Cool.”
She closed the door and moved to her bed to sit down, and I could already feel how awkward it was going to be in the room. I heard her moving around on her side of the room, and I was surprised when she spoke up again.
“Hey, did you finish the assignment for Wednesday’s class?”
I looked around at her. “Um, I did. I already sent it in already, though. Do you still want it?”
Our school had an online portal where we could submit some assignments, though others had to be handed in during class. Once the assignment was in the system, it would be easy to tell if someone copied off someone else’s work instead of working on their own, so it was easier to do your work instead of losing points for trying to cheat. I’d heard there were people still dumb enough to try, and everyone involved had their marks cut off besides just getting a zero.
“It’s fine,” Dana said with a sigh. “I’ll do it myself right now.”
I nodded and turned back around to face my computer, the room delving into silence once more. On my computer, I typed in my password, and the page opened up to my home screen. There didn’t seem to be anything out of place from how I’d left it yesterday, and I nodded in satisfaction as I pulled up my browser.
“Hey, thanks for closing my computer for me yesterday,” I called back to Dana.
There was a long pause, then she hummed. I didn’t think anything of it, assuming when she started typing again that she was just preoccupied with her homework.
I opened the dating site and logged into my account, tapping my fingers on the desk as it loaded. The site showed my home page, and before I could look over the recommendation list, or see if I’d gotten any replies from the messages I’d already sent, I noticed the notification icon was lit up. My breath caught in my chest before I grinned.
Joining a dating site was a bit of a gamble for me. But I wasn’t good at going up to people and talking to them. It wasn’t like guys didn’t want to talk to me, either, but I usually made excuses to walk away quickly and avoided them when I saw them again. I didn’t know how to go up to someone and talk. I was sure it wasn’t socially acceptable to stop someone just to ask them what their likes and dislikes were to see whether we matched.
In that aspect, online dating was perfect. Since everyone already had their interests listed out, all I had to do was find whoever had the same interests I did.
Only so far, I hadn't been so successful.
Yeah, I’d seen a few hopefuls. But it was hard, even online, to find someone that liked most of the same stuff I did. The closest I got were profiles that liked the same books and music, but most of the ones under that were female profiles, and once I locked them out of the search, there were only a few guys.
Dating should be a lot simpler than this, shouldn’t it?
I knew people didn’t have to have the same interests to date. My mom, for example, had dated plenty, before and after my dad, and she’d told me that few of the guys she dated had things in common with her, besides that they liked being around each other.
That piece of advice wasn’t really useful to me, though, because I didn’t usually stick around people long enough to tell whether I liked being around them or not.
I already knew that anyone I could find on th
e site was a long shot from being my perfect match, but a girl had to start somewhere. Even just talking to someone online might motivate me to try and talk to someone in real life later on.
So, I clicked on the lit up icon, biting down on my lip. I’d sent an invite to a few profiles already, but none of them had replied. Maybe my profile put them off? But then I checked my message and felt my breath stutter in my chest. I slammed a hand over my mouth to hold back a giggle.
Someone sent me an invite!
I had been on the site for a couple of weeks already, and this was the first time it happened! I couldn’t believe someone wanted to know me better. I’d been thinking recently that my profile was a bit geek-ish. Being an X-Men fan, I might have written a little too much on it, but it wasn’t just the recent movies that I was into but the whole franchise.
Replying to the invite, I checked out the guy’s profile. He was another X-Men fan, and he liked one of the books that I did, Game of Thrones. Under favorite music and bands, there were some I didn’t know, but I did see my all-time favorite, Coldplay.