Chapter Text
Simone threw down her suitcase with a huff and adjusted the backpack strap that was digging angrily into her shoulder. She took a second to take a break from hauling her stuff up the stairs and took the time to examine the door she stood in front of.
It wasn’t anything special. Wood, a golden handle, and the number 236 in fancy golden font painted at eye level.
That didn’t ease her nerves.
She looked down at her hand, fingers curled around a key with a 236 in simple font engraved along the top.
With a low sigh, she tucked the key safely away in her pocket and rapped her knuckles against the door instead, immediately yanking her hand back and shoving it in her pocket.
It felt wrong to just barge into the place, especially when she knew there was someone else living in there, already.
A sophomore, despite the fact that she was only a freshman.
She didn’t want a roommate, especially not one that was older than her, but she didn’t have much of a choice. Guess that’s what she gets for applying later than she should have.
A few agonizingly long seconds pass. Nothing happens.
Her brow furrowed as she reached out and knocked again, louder this time.
The mild annoyance that had sparked simmered down into confusion at the sound of shuffling, followed by a yelp and a thud coming from the other side of the door. A hint of concern compelled her to lean forward to try and get a better listen.
She heard a groan, followed by more shuffling and finally rapid footsteps. She jumped, straightened, and pulled herself back as the door swung open inwards.
On the other side of the door, a woman looked frazzled and honestly a little bit scared. She had short blonde hair that stuck up in every direction and wide, sky-blue eyes. She had glasses that lay crooked on her face, threatening to fall with every movement, and she wore a baggy t-shirt and sleep shorts. Obviously, she wasn’t prepared for a guest.
Simone watched in slight discomfort as her expression shifted to confusion, then quickly to realization. Suddenly, she adorned a wide smile, expression briefly obscured when she reached up to correct her glasses.
“Oh, hey! You must be my new roommate, right?” She asked in a cheery tone.
Simone hesitated.
Her energy was already overwhelming. She cursed herself for not getting a headstart on college applications like everyone around her had been encouraging her to.
Simone eventually gave a slow, stiff nod. She immediately regretted it when the woman’s face only grew brighter.
“Perfect! My name’s Rylie.”
Simone gave another nod, growing increasingly uncomfortable when Rylie continued to stand in the doorway and watch her with a huge smile.
It took a few embarrassingly long seconds for Simone to realize it was her turn for introductions. She cleared her throat and dug her chipping black nails into the pocket of her jacket.
“Simone.” She said simply, her voice tight and quiet.
Her eyebrows knit together and her mouth pressed into a thin line the second she heard her own voice.
She sounded so insanely awkward, but she couldn’t force herself to relax.
She had gotten to campus late by technicality— still a couple days before classes started— after already applying late, it was her first day in a completely new state in a huge school, and she was roomed with what currently seemed like her polar opposite in personality. She had an excuse to be tense.
That’s what she told herself, at least.
Rylie either didn’t notice the tension or she didn’t care. Simone was grateful for that, at least.
“Nice to meet you!”
Rylie held her hand out for a shake. Simone stared at the extended hand and hesitated for far too long before extending her own. The shake was weak on her part and she was quick to shove her hand back into her pocket. Physical touch was never her favorite, no matter how friendly it’s meant to be.
Either way, Rylie looked to be satisfied. She stepped aside and propped the door open for Simone, who grabbed her suitcase and dragged it into the room behind her.
The interior was rather simple; two beds, one on either side of the room, small and with storage drawers tucked beneath. A small desk also sat on either side, and a standing mirror on Rylie’s side. The floor was smooth wood, with a patterned pink rug in the center. She guessed that was one of Rylie’s additions. A giant window with white curtains sat between the beds, open to allow sunlight to stream through.
The view was of the campus, huge and disorienting. There were too many buildings to count and even more people crawling around every square inch. Simone could hear the loud laughing and talking from here despite the window being shut and locked.
It was rather spacious too, for her standards. There was some space to spare, at the least. Her side of the room was dull, with a plain white bedspread and a cream wall behind it. Not that she expected anything else.
She looked over at Rylie’s side. It was a stark difference, to say the least.
A few articles laid across the floor, gathered around an overfilled clothes basket. The desk was cluttered in papers and textbooks and notebooks, various colors of pens and a few pencils scattered around the surface. She had a few decorations, mostly small, colorfully painted and handmade ceramic critters and some action figures of characters she didn’t recognize. The walls were littered with posters and her bed had hastily tossed aside sheets decorated with different planets and stars. A pair of wired headphones and a phone with a heavily cracked screen protecter laid beside them, still plugged in.
Simone blinked at the disarray of it all.
That only made her all the more worried they wouldn’t get along well.
While she set her stuff down by her bed, Rylie rushed to clean up the few stray articles of clothing and tucking them away.
She was acting like she was sprung with a roommate out of nowhere, but she’d already realized who Simone was at the door without a single word to spark her memory. Simone found the contrasting actions rather concerning. She was hoping to have gotten a competent roommate so that she could selfishly use their knowledge to guide her through her first few trimesters of classes.
She clearly had no such luck.
She pretended to shuffle around in her suitcase to avoid having to interact.
Honestly, she’d packed pretty light, though most of that was thanks to a lack of having many personal items in the first place.
The suitcase was almost entirely essentials, with the acceptation of a few things from home, and her backpack was already overstuffed with school supplies.
She had put the more personal items into a separate pocket so as to keep away from prying eyes, and she avoided that pocket like the plague as she unpacked her clothes and folded them into the drawers under the bed.
Her wardrobe consisted of a lot of dark colors, graphic t-shirts and tank tops, and jeans. The outliers were mostly pajamas or things that often went months without fair use. She unpacked her small jewelry collection and set it on the desk, where she began to set out her textbooks and double-check that she was truly ready for her first college days to begin.
It took her a while to realize that there was a set of eyes on her. The second she recognized the feeling of eyes burning into the back of her head was the instant that the realization became impossible to ignore.
With as subtle of a head tilt as she could manage, she peered over her shoulder.
Sure enough, Rylie was watching her with a curious gaze, standing awkwardly near her bed and picking at her fingernails, painted in the same shade of blue as her eyes.
Unfortunately, Simone’s glance wasn’t subtle enough. Rylie was quick to avert her gaze, clear her throat, and pretend to adjust her glasses.
Simone’s head snapped back to the desk as she looked through her jewelry; mostly necklaces with a few pairs of earrings and miscellaneous studs, lots of which were missing their other half. She was only granted one blissful moment of silence when she heard Rylie starting to step closer.
Her hands slowed as she examined the spread on her desk for what must’ve been the third time.
Despite her best efforts to make herself seem preoccupied, Rylie still walked up beside her. She watched Simone with a careful smile and Simone felt about ready to jump out of the window to avoid a conversation.
“So, Simone. What are you studying?”
Simone was honestly more keen on the idea of chewing her own arm off over speaking.
It wasn’t any fault of Rylie’s, of course. She just felt so insanely overwhelmed that, if there wasn’t another person sharing the space with her, she’d jump in bed and cut off the outside world and spend every second before her first class listening to her favorite playlist and trying to keep herself from bursting into tears.
That still didn’t sound fun. Still infinitely better than trying to force out a response in her current mindset.
She dug her nails into a half-filled sketchbook she’d hastily tossed onto the desk and pretended to find a better home for it at her bedside as to avoid eye contact. She hummed before coughing out a reply.
“Uh… majoring in environmental sciences and minoring in engineering.”
That was most of the truth. Those were her goals, at least. For now, she had to focus on suffering through her prerequisites for the classes she actually wanted to do.
Predictably, Rylie didn’t catch onto the quiet uneasiness of her tone. Instead, she took this as an opening.
“Oh, cool! I’m studying biochemistry, but I’ve been thinking about looking at molecular biology, instead. I like what I’m doing, but I think…”
Simone stopped listening while Rylie continued her blabbering. She didn’t ignore her with intention, but she didn’t try to tune back in when she realized, either.
It took her mere seconds to give in. She threw her sketchbook onto her bed with more force than needed and spun around on her heels.
Rylie tensed up and stopped talking, instead staring at Simone, still with a small and crooked smile.
Simone immediately felt bad about her little display of annoyance, if you could call it that. She meant to seem firm, like she was shutting down a conversation she didn’t feel like having and leaving an impression on a new face.
Instead, all she could force was a frown and a voice that gave away her exhaustion.
“I’m… going to get something to eat.”
Her frown only deepened at how pathetic she’d managed to make herself sound.
Rylie’s eyebrows rose and she gave a hum of acknowledgement. Luckily, she either caught onto the tension sparking from Simone or decided on her own accord not to pursue the conversation, because she didn’t invite herself along.
Instead, her smile widened and her expression softened into something more sympathetic that made Simone’s skin crawl. The last thing she wanted from an older dormmate was being treated like an incompetent fool just because she was tossed into a new environment.
“Okay! Let me know if you need help with navigation.”
Simone mumbled a thanks, double-checking that her key was still secure in her pocket before rushing over too the door. She swung it open, hurried out, and shut it before Rylie could get in another word.
After clicking the lock shut, some of her unease subsided.
At least she’d managed to get moved in.
She tucked her hands into her pockets and moved slowly through the building.
Her campus was undeniably beautiful, with endless brick buildings made bold using old architecture and lots of areas of lush, green grass.
She was overwhelmed the second she stepped outside, nonetheless.
The relentless summer California sun beat down across her face as she stalked through the crowded walkways.
Everyone was outside, socializing and making new friends while there was still a day before courses began.
Simone was not a fan of crowds, especially on hot days at the tail end of summer. She’d much rather be inside with a fan on full blast while she occupied herself with whatever came to mind.
Guess that was on her. She decided to go out on one of the last free days and right in the prime of the afternoon, while it was still warm and the sun was out.
She tried to make herself smaller as she shoved through the bodies. She saw a few long glances cast her way, but she didn’t bother herself with them.
Her plan was to find the cafeteria eventually. Looking around at how massive the campus was, she came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be anytime soon. Definitely not soon enough.
By the time she had actually puzzled her way through the maze, most of the students had retired to their dorms or each other’s dorms, the sky was tinted orange with the beginning signs of sunset, and it was much less overwhelming. She almost enjoyed the atmosphere now that she wasn’t being shoved around by some douchebag that lacked all sense of special awareness.
She felt displaced the second her hand settled on the door handle, but she pulled it open and stepped inside anyways.
The dining hall was huge, with a triangular roof and support beams crisscrossing overhead. There were a few large chandeliers that she believed were overkill, with the schools’ banners and colors plastered along the walls.
It was nice in here, sure, but a little over-the-top. She walked over to the food, slow and hesitant, and looked at the selections.
They had their dinner food out by now. She didn’t care. She was deliberately sluggish in her travels, passing multiple maps with only a quick glance over before moving on. It had been a good way to explore campus.
Not to mention that she wasn’t actually that hungry. In fact, she only grabbed a meager fruit cup and a soda for dinner, which she sat down to eat anyways.
By the time she got back to her dorm, it was well into the evening. She unlocked and opened the door as quietly as she could manage. She let out a relieved sigh when she saw that Rylie didn’t await her on the other side.
Once safely inside, she tossed the blinds shut, threw on her pajamas, and flopped onto her bed. It wasn’t luxury living by any means, but the mattress was comfortable enough for her to settle. The exhaustion that settled into her bones was immediate. Her eyelids were already dragging despite it being just past six.
For once, she let herself relax early.
It had been a long few days of travelling from small-town Delaware to California. She’d dragged herself between far too many trains, buses, and taxis to get here, and she’d hardly had a chance for a good night’s sleep since she left home.
As far as she knew, this was her last chance to really relax before she was out for summer or graduated. She didn’t yet have a clue how good of a roommate Rylie would end up being, but she could only pray that she’d be comfortable in her presence one day.
For now, though, she’d take full advantage of her isolation. She only briefly wondered where Rylie was off to at this hour.
With one last yawn and flip onto her side, she drifted into a blissful slumber.