“Why aren’t you taking notes?” I hiss, sounding like a nag.
He pulls a face. “I took a picture with my mobile?” He holds up his cell, flashing me the screen. “Isn’t that what everyone does?”
He has indeed taken a photo of the notes the TA has popped up onto the wall with the projector.
Oh.
Well.
I guess that would make life easier—much more so than painstakingly writing it all longhand like my mom had to do when she was in college.
I blush, embarrassed by my own naivety.
I’ve always done it this way, never once having considered taking a picture of the stupid board at the front of the room so I wouldn’t have to take actual notes.
Ashley snickers behind me.
Ashley: Hey.
Me: What?
Ashley: Have you looked into breaking your lease with the university?
Me: Um. Not yet.
Ashley: Good thing I googled it for you. Figured you’d be lazy about it.
Me: Gee thanks.
Ashley: I wasn’t wrong tho, was I.
Ashley: All you have to do is put it in writing and fill out a termination contract 30 days in advance, and they have to approve it. There are fees, but they’re not horrible. I could knock those off your first month’s rent.
Why is he doing this?
Why does he even care?
It’s almost like…now that the idea is in his head, he’s not going to let it go and he’s hell-bent and determined to make it work.
Me: Um. Is that it?
Ashley: Other than cleaning and going through the checklist. Seems pretty cut and dried.
Ah. Well then.
Easy for him to say—he’s not the one potentially moving. He’s not the one who has to tell his parents he might be moving in with a guy.
My parents…
Completely forgot about them and how they’d react, although they trust me so it might not be a big deal?
I’ve never been boy crazy. Spent most of my time concentrating on sports and school rather than my love life, which for the past two years has been virtually non-existent.
Freshman year I briefly dated a Calvin but broke things off when he began pressuring me to have sex with him.
Freaking Calvin—just couldn’t let things progress naturally.
Jerk.
I won’t be making that mistake again, and I can’t be distracted. God forbid I get stuck at this university longer than necessary because I allow myself to lose focus.
Tragic.
Ashley: The fees would be worth it to be temporarily broke for a bit and to live in an actual house rather than stay in the dorms.
I spin around in my seat to gawk at him. “Could you stop googling things that pertain to my living situation?”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“No, you’re trying to help yourself to a new roommate.” I don’t want to tell him I cannot afford rent and fees on top of that if I move out of the dorms. The words are too embarrassing to say out loud.
Ashley is privileged—anyone with a set of eyes looking at him can see that, and it’s not just the proper speech. It’s the posture and the mannerisms and now that I’ve been to his house…
I don’t know what kind of life he leads back home in the UK, but it’s certainly different than my middle-class upbringing.
“No, I’m trying to help you.”
Why is he so stubborn? And why does he care if I live with him or not? It’s not like we know anything about each other, even though I’ve fed him and gone to his house.
Perhaps he’s like a stray cat—once you feed them, they keep coming back.
“Stop arguing with me,” I shoot back in a hushed hiss.
“Do you want to live with me or not?” he grumbles, readjusting himself in the cramped chair space.
“How would I know? I didn’t get the grand tour—I was only in the foyer and the kitchen.”
I didn’t even use the bathroom, though I had to pee when I was there, afraid I’d fart or something and stink it up, and what girl needs that reputation?
“Come over then and I’ll show you around,” he whispers, leaning so he’s in my ear. “What are you doing tonight? I have time.”
Priya nudges me with her knee, still staring straight ahead, pretending to be listening to the professor when I know she’s been eavesdropping on us this whole time.
What sane girl wouldn’t?
“I’m supposed to have dinner with Priya and Nalla, sor—”
I get jacked in the ribcage by a pointy elbow.
“She’s good, we’re not doing dinner tonight—no one is hungry,” my new friend informs us in a rushed run-on sentence.
Not doing dinner tonight? “Since when?”
“Since no one is hungry.”
I gaze at her oddly. What is she doing, playing matchmaker?
We aren’t going to date, Ashley and I. We are potentially going to be roommates—there’s no need to throw us together.
She’s being so weird.
“Maybe tomorrow we can do dinner instead, yeah?” She sets about ignoring me, not-so-subtly passing a note to Nalla old-school style, on a sheet of torn-out paper folded into a triangle.