Cramped Quarters - Love Under Lockdown

With everything else where it needed to be, there was only one last order of business. It was time to claim my territory and make it truly my own. So, I hung up my music and movie posters on the wall and felt satisfied.

What an odd turn of events this had turned out to be. I had been excited to see that Rachel was my roommate, but she clearly didn’t feel the same.

Maybe I had read her vibes wrong and she hated me. Perhaps she found my class notes less than satisfactory once she had had time to read them over. Or it could be that she was shy and old-fashioned and didn’t like having a male roommate. I could understand that.

I doubted she would tell me the reason, since she had run off without talking to me. And that was okay – she didn’t have to share her innermost thoughts with me just because I had moved in.

I just didn’t want things to be awkward or uncomfortable between us.

But I really had no choice but to try to make the best of it, so that was what I would do.

I was going to stay.

This was where I had been put, and I wasn’t leaving. I doubted I could even if I wanted to, what with the university having bigger problems to worry about, trying to re-house students during a pandemic, than any requests to be changed that I might think of making.

But that didn’t mean I was going to be a dick about things.

I could be a respectable, considerate roommate, and I would make sure to try even harder now that I had seen how Rachel had freaked out upon my arrival.

My presence had upset her, and even if I didn’t know why, I had enough empathy in my dark little briquette of a heart to not want to provoke her.

We would just have to steer clear of each other for a while.

How hard could it be?Chapter Seven - RachelI was frozen, my emotions having completely shut down. But I figured that was better than letting whatever might happen out.

The white lights I was focusing on in my mind were getting so bright it was nearly blinding. My body didn’t quite get the memo and the tear had started to fall. I could sense it rolling down my cheek.

I wanted to wipe it away but that would require acknowledging it was there in the first place. Acknowledging my weakness. I had to be brave, even though I didn’t feel it at all. There was no way I was going to give Augustus Graves even more advantages than the ones he already had.

It almost seemed entirely too perfectly coincidental, really. He had just so happened to appear in my dorm room, with the full weight of the campus housing authorization behind him. With a key and all. It all had to be a dream.

Hit with a sudden burst of energy, I had bolted from the hallucination in the living room and shut myself in the safety of my bedroom. I was pretty sure I heard the windows in the living room rattle through the door, though I couldn’t really be sure of anything anymore.

The sting was sharp, ripping into my cheek like a blade, the sound echoing around the big room. I did it again even harder. More tears came as my face started to burn. It wasn’t a dream.

I dropped to my knees, the tears still coming. My mind spun so fast it was making me dizzy. If it wasn’t a dream, that meant it was all real. He was actually there, in my place, boxes stacked, ready to move in. He had a fucking key!

Okay, so, this was not a dream.

If it wasn’t a dream, though, then what was it?

Some kind of sick joke?

I couldn’t really see the humor in it, even in a twisted sense. I didn’t really know anyone in this town or on this campus, and I didn’t think the administration would be involved in such a conspiracy against me. To think otherwise would be downright paranoid.

I was wide awake and there was no conspiracy. Sadly, this fact didn’t make me feel much better. The fact remained that the sworn, blood enemy of my entire family was sitting in my living room.

Reaching out, I took the chair by the leg, pulling it toward me. It was one of those solid wood things with leather padding and a low, C-shaped back. It would do well for my purpose. Using all my strength, I got the chair over in front of the door and wedged it up against the handle. Then I sat on it. I didn’t know how he’d found me, but I’d be damned if I was going to let him hurt me. To be fair, I had no idea what he might do. If he wanted me, he could have done it when I first came out of the shower.