Oh My God They Were Roommates

Introduction

Shayne's knuckles were white upon the granite kitchen counter. He gazed down towards the sink, breathing deeply as he tried desperately to calm down. A downward spiral that reminded him of a desire that he'd promised to never tell anyone had forced him from his room and into the shared kitchen for some space and a deep breath. He couldn't continue to have these spirals and dreams, and he certainly could never speak of them. The dreams usually weren't lude in any sense, and neither was the dream he had just awoken from, but still, the existence of them in any form could prove to be problematic, as they were often times the direct cause of his 'spirals'. Suddenly, he felt a set of arms wrap themselves around his torso from behind, and a pleasant weight fell upon his back.

"What's wrong?" The owner of the arms asks, mumbling semi coherently through her words.
"Oh nothing" Shayne replies. "Just, uh, exam stress and everything".
The owner of the arms chuckled slightly.
"I've helped you study for psychology for two years, Shayne, I know what exam stressed Shayne looks like."

Shayne gulped. She knew him too well for his own good.
"But if you don't want to tell me what's actually bothering you, we can pretend it's just exam stress and then I could do something else to make you feel better?"

Shayne sighed. Perhaps her knowing him so well was actually a good thing.
"Yes please. How has film studies been going?"

He often did this when he felt stressed, just ask her to talk at him for a few minutes. Her voice was so soothing, yet when she would speak of something that impassioned her, it seemed to breath life back into Shayne.

"It's been really interesting actually! We've been doing some research recently on gender performativity in music videos, with specific reference to David Bowie which has frankly been illuminating for me personally. I'm also really excited because next week we'll be going into..."

She kept going for a few minutes, steadily soothing Shayne in the process. She was entirely aware of how this helped Shayne, so she was happy to indulge him. Eventually, she paused, asking "Are you feeling better?"

Shayne nodded his head gently and slowly turned around to see Courtney for the first time that evening. He couldn't help but notice how her long blonde hair framed her face perfectly, and how her tired smile lit up her visage magnificently, making her breathtakingly beautiful as always. He delicately wrapped his arms around Courtney and brought her into a hug. She did the same with her arms, nestling her head into his shoulder.

"Thanks Court, I needed that. That David Bowie project your doing next week sounds really interesting. Let me know if you need help with it. Obviously you know more about it than I do, but I know you struggle with rhetoric sometimes."

"Thanks Shayne. You know you can talk to me about anything right? We're best friends, and if you don't want to tell me something, that's fine, but I hope you know that I would never judge you"

Shayne suppressed a sigh. "Yeah, I know". Little did Courtney know that them being best friends was his problem. He yearned for, no, needed more. He wished he had realised how head over heels he was for his roomate long ago so that he could suppress the feeling. That surely would reduce the frequent spirals of his where he would think of the possibility of him and Courtney ending up together and watch the likelihood shrink and shrink in his mind. He was so in love with Courtney that the thought of not being by her side was enough to bring despair.

But perhaps if he had known how his hug affected Courtney, if he knew the shivers it sent down her spine, if he knew the static feeling it shot through her entire being, or if he knew the pleasant burn that spread from the skin on skin contact, or the safety that Courtney felt in his arms, his spirals could be prevented a different way.