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“—I feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks, dude!”
Yvonne balanced a case of brightly-coloured beads, scissors, and string in one arm and an energy drink in the other, precariously lowering herself to the floor with her supplies.
Joshua was sprawled out on the bed next to her, arms tucked behind his head, and the bandana he usually wore to keep his hair out of his eyes abandoned amongst her nest of neon sheets. This was the first time he’d been able to get a proper look at her new dorm room, and despite the new location, it was welcomingly almost identical to her room at home.
The move into both their dorm rooms and the subsequent settling into new routines had been hectic, and they hadn’t gotten the chance to exchange more then waves at each other on campus and sporadic pictures of their new living situations since the semester had started.
Joshua would shamelessly admit that he missed spending time with his best friend and was quite disappointed that all of their classes and dorm buildings seemed to be on opposite sides of the campus from each other.
A month into the semester, when their schedules had finally lined up, he’d jumped at the opportunity to spend a weekend afternoon catching up.
He chuckled, turning on his side and resting his head on the palm of his hand as he watched her unravel the string and pull out the beads of her choosing. “You kind of haven’t. Miss me?”
Yvonne scoffed. “You wish.”
It was easy to feel a smile growing on his face, reassured that just because they were in college now, nothing about their dynamic seemed to change.
“So,” He watched her thread several beads onto the string, her long, colourful nails pulling them along. “How’s the settling in going?”
Yvonne shrugged, unbothered by Joshua peering over the side of her bed to watch over her shoulder.
“Eh, it’s going. I gotta say the bigger room is sick, but it feels weird not to constantly have a bunch of little twerps barging in and asking to borrow my makeup.”
Yvonne was the eldest of four girls, sisters with whom Joshua had grown close with over the years spent over at the Marley household. He’d been an only child his entire life, with frankly boring, average parents, so something about the fast-paced bustle of Yvonne’s household made him feel at home.
“I miss your mom's cooking,” He sighed wistfully, earning an eye roll from the girl next to him. “She’s gonna send you tamales for Christmas, right?”
“Knowing her, she’s probably going to send some specifically with your name on them.” Joshua wasn’t the quickest language learner, but he’d picked up on Ms. Marley’s affectionate use of flaquito fairly early on.
“Score.” He whispered triumphantly, already looking forward to the savoury meals wrapped in corn husks.
“What about you?” Yvonne glanced over at him, years of bracelet-making guiding her hands without a second look. “You said they fucked up which dorm you were supposed to be in?”
“Oh, yeah! It’s no biggie, I guess they miscalculated how many dudes they could put in a dorm, ‘cause I got this letter saying they were moving me to a dorm on the bottom floor with one other guy.”
Yvonne raised an eyebrow at his nonchalant attitude, curiosity piqued. “What’s he like?”
The blonde paused, several moments of silence stretching on. He hummed as he thought, lips pressed together. “To be honest……I thought he was a little weird at first.”
He rolled onto his stomach, pulling himself into a horizontal position across the bed to face her. “His name's Sydney, and I tried to ask him about where he’s from and his major and stuff, and he totally looked at me like I’d pissed in his Cheerios.”
He’d immediately been taken aback by the darkness of the man's eyes. Not in the sense of malice, but the shade of brown so nearly identical to his raven black hair, that it was like looking into the starless night sky out in the city. He felt the same feeling of being mesmerized as when he’d stood under the dark expense, yet somehow he’d captured it perfectly in his gaze.
“He’s got his door shut all the time, and the one time I knocked on it to ask if he wanted anything from the store, he called me a future cracker barrel reject.”
Yvonne let out a dry laugh. “Wow, he sounds like a dick.”
There was nothing he could count on Yvonne to tell him more than her honest opinion on just about anything. He’d grown to appreciate it, but something in him urged him to frown.
“I mean, he’s a little outside-the-box, but you’re my best friend, so……..” Even with her body turned away from him, he could see the amused curl of her lips.
She bit down on a piece of string, tying and pulling it simultaneously as they replied with a muffled “Mhm?”
He wasn’t totally unaware of the irony of their friendship. Boys he knew in high school were quick to tease him for hanging out with a girl whose choppy short hair and unique makeup made her an easy target for their volatile comments, but he’d dropped those friendships fairly quickly after.
He took her focused silence as an opportunity to speak freely, letting thoughts tumble openly in the enclosed safety of Yvonne’s room.
“I guess–he’s a little cold. But he’s…really funny, actually.” It had taken Sydney a few days to grow accustomed enough to Joshua’s presence to feel comfortable cracking his dry, quiet quips, but his timing was effortless. “He just says stuff–stuff that makes my stomach hurt laughing–he’s like the funniest guy ever, and no one’s ever around to hear it!”
“And, get this, he’s an artist. He left his sketchbook out on the counter once–and I definitely didn’t look or anything–but he had these killer drawings, of all sorts of stuff. A lot of cats, people, but it was really talented stuff.”
He’d always held a fascination for people who could pick up a pencil and seemingly create something so lifelike out of nothing but lines. Things like sports came easily to Joshua because he never had to question the rules of the game. He played the way he did because that’s how he was told, and that’s what worked.
But art seemed so lawless. He’d thought about going out and buying a sketchbook, but the thought of opening a blank page and prompting himself to think of an idea seemed deceptively difficult.
His mind wandered from Sydney’s hands twirling a pencil between his fingers, to his face. “I think you’d like the makeup he wears. It’s the really goth stuff, with the big eyeliner and pointy lip thing. I think it’s, like, cool, or whatever.”
His voice grew quieter as he realized Yvonne had turned to face him, the elastic string between their teeth. They bit the end off, letting the tied bracelet fall into their lap. “Josh?”
“Yeah?” He cocked his eyebrow.
“Do you have a crush on your roommate?”
Joshua immediately choked on the non-existent spit in the back of his throat, making him cough into his elbow indignantly as blood rushed to his cheeks. His summer tan did little to hide the shade of red his face turned, making her room suddenly feel suffocatingly warm.
“Pssh, No! Not at all! I’ve only known him for a month! That would be ridiculous!” He sputtered, punctuating each exclamation with a wave of his hands.
Yvonne gave him an unimpressed look, not an ounce of belief on their face. “It’s okay if you’re into dudes being mean to you, I don’t judge.”
Joshua threw his hands over his face, muffling his embarrassed noises. “I’m not–....Am I?...Fuck.”
Yvonne placed a hand next to his where his elbow was planted, subtly raising her eyebrow. “Okay, well, is it like-like? Or is it ’I just found out I like dudes senior year of high school, and now I need to fool around with one just to make sure’ kinda sitch?”
Joshua groaned, peaking his eyes above his hands. “I know I like guys.” Yvonne was the only person he’d confided in so far about the recent revelations about his attraction to men, and to her credit for what was a near-impossible task for them, they’d been mindful of holding off their teasing while he’d sorted out where he might fall on the spectrum of sexuality.
It seemed that enough time had passed that it had successfully entered the realm of acceptable teasing material, as Yvonne smirked at his bashful admittance.
“I just keep thinking about these…moments. Sometimes, when he thinks I’m not looking, he drops the whole mysterious, tough guy act. He laughs, every once in a while. And he talks like he isn’t smart, but he notices stuff I wouldn’t even dream of. Maybe I could…get him to go to a party with me, or something.” He sighed wistfully.
“Why don’t you just ask him out? You’ve never been shy about that with chicks.” Yvonne pointed out, looking up at him.
“...I think he’s got a boyfriend.” He muttered, slumping against his arm.
Yvonne barked a laugh at him. “Ha! Your loser roommate has a boyfriend and you don’t–” They suddenly realized what they’d said, stopping abruptly and hiding their laughter with an awkwardly-placed cough. “I mean, wow, that’s a real bummer.”
He frowned, giving her a I can’t believe you’d laugh at my suffering look. “I-I’m not totally sure. But it feels like he’s always over. I mean, they’re usually in his room, but last week I walked into the kitchen, and I don’t think either of them noticed me, because Jedidiah–”
“Pause, his name is Jedidiah? How much do you have to hate your child to name them that?”
“–was totally all over Sydney! I probably have no chance with him.” He huffed defeatedly, letting himself fall face-first into Yvonne’s sheets.
She let him soak in his sulking for a moment before giving his elbow a nudge. “Shit changes all the time, though. At least you know he’s playing for the same team, and if they ever break up you can swoop in and sweep him off his feet.”
He slowly picked his head up, rolling on his side to face her. “That’d be kinda hard–he’s usually in a wheelchair.”
Yvonne snorted. “Get creative then.”
The man let his eyes wander over to the little squares containing Yvonne’s vast collection of beads, an idea slowly coming to fruition. “Hey–can I make him a bracelet?”
“Of course,” She scooted herself a few inches over, leaving Joshua enough room to swing his legs over the side of the bed and slide down to sit on the floor beside her. “You gonna slip it into his locker with a love letter?” She teased.
Joshua was already diligently picking his colours, though. He picked black first for the colour of his clothes, followed by green and purple, which were just guesses as to what he’d like best.
It wasn’t much, but Joshua had always believed in the principle of opposites attract.