Hey, if she needed someone to do some dick-punching, I’d do it. Gladly. I was guessing the one who approached me first was named Dean. I had no idea who the others were, but that last one…oh, that last one was definitely my type. The others? Not so much.
Mel was slow to approach me, tugging at the hemline of her shirt as she scooted in the chair opposite me. “Did they try to talk to you?” she asked.
I nodded, waiting for her to ask her next question, because surely there was more to it.
“What did they say? Did they see you with me?”
“I don’t think they saw you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I told her, meaning it. “The guy in the middle though, Dean? He seemed like a grade-A douchebag, so I might’ve told him off a bit.”
Mel simply blinked, as if she couldn’t believe what I told her. “You told him off?”
“A little bit, yeah. I don’t like douchebags. He’s definitely not my kind of guy.” I ran a hand through my hair, recalling that last one. I hesitated to call him a boy, because he was most definitely a man. He might’ve been tall, dark, and broody, but his face was perfectly chiseled and his body defined in all the ways that screamed muscles.
“Those guys, I’d stay away from them if I were you,” Mel said. “Nothing good happens around them. They’re…bad.”
Bad. Right. Very descriptive, wasn’t she? I let it slide, not wanting to pick the bone much. Besides, it was my first day here. There were bound to be bunches of other guys I could drool over and distract myself with. In my classes, even in the same dorm building.
“Gotcha,” I said. “Since you didn’t tell me what you wanted, I just ordered a plain pizza.”
“I’m not hungry anyways,” Mel muttered. She was a thin girl, and I hoped that wasn’t because she starved herself. Me and her would get along great, provided I didn’t see her trying to hurt herself like that.
Women had it bad in today’s society, being told how to dress, how to act, taught from an early age what to expect from a man and to always carry your keys as you would a weapon. We drew the short end of the stick, definitely. It sucked ass.
“You’re going to eat,” I told her.
And that’s what I made her do. Once the pizza was done, I made her chow down on it right then and there. We didn’t even bring the pizza back to the dorm. I made her eat two pieces. Yes, two pieces, and the way she muttered under her breath, you’d think I was the devil himself for making her eat.
The more I looked at her, the more I thought she was too skinny. It wasn’t just her height. I bet she weighed less than I did, and that was saying something. Then again, I grew up around Ash, and that girl was just as skinny as Mel. I was always the curvier one of the two of us, ever since we were kids. I never lost my baby fat, it just went to my hips and my ass.
Once we were done with the pizza, I tossed the box and we walked back to the dorm. We took our good old time walking, too. I told Mel a little about me. We were roommates, after all. We’d get to know each other fast, spending a lot of time with each other. It didn’t sound like Mel went out much, which was why she didn’t have many friends. She had people online she messaged, but in real life, she didn’t have anything. Vague as she was about it, she said after what happened last year, everyone pretty much abandoned her.
God, I really wanted to ask her for the details, but I knew better. Baby steps to not overload her. I didn’t want her shutting down and refusing to talk to me the rest of the year. That would make it a hell of a long year, and it was already going to be long without Ash here.
Ash was supposed to be here. It was supposed to be her and me against the whole fucking world, but luck was on her side. I guess she deserved it though; her luck had always been pretty shitty, so it was about damn time things started to go good for her. Frankly, I was just jealous. Jealous that she’d gotten a huge scholarship, jealous that she was chosen out of thousands of applicants, jealous that she got to go and I didn’t.
I…I didn’t want to be the kind of person who never moved away from their small town. I didn’t want to be one of those people who returned home and kept visiting the high school and their old teachers. I wanted to move on, up and up to bigger and better things. Was that wrong of me? Was I overstepping the path life had given me?
I guess I’d find out in a few years. For now, I wanted to enjoy myself. I wanted to be carefree and live it up. College was supposed to be fun. It’s when you were supposed to play games and make mistakes, do all the things you wouldn’t be able to do once you had bills and a daily grind.
By the time we made it back to the dorm building, it was dinner time, so most of the students were out and about, discovering campus. Some parents still lingered, but most were gone. I utilized the calm scene to take my first shower in the communal bathroom.
Yeah, I know. Gross, but that’s what shower shoes were for.
Okay, so I might’ve just worn my flip flops while showering, but still.
