Monochrome

Battle

"Adam!"

Adam stared at Ingrid, confused, and that's when Ingrid remembered that she had all that eye black on her face. Then his eyebrows jumped up in recognition.

"Lorena?"

She yanked the beanie off her head and let her hair fall out. "It's Ingrid, okay? Ingrid."

He gazed at her in a sort of stupid amazement. "Okay. What the hell are you doing here, Ingrid?"

"What are you talking about? This is my dorm room. The question is, what are you doing here?"

"I . . ." He glanced around the room for a second, and she could see him wracking his brain for an answer. Finally, he said, "I just, uh, saw the lights on up here and I thought I'd check it out."

"You can't see the light from down there. You can't even see the window from down there." That's when she realized that he was holding a plastic bag full of snacks. Chips and energy drinks. She stared at the bag, and then down at the trash on the floor, and then at the unmade bed. All of a sudden, she got it.

"You!" She stabbed a finger at him. "You've been living in this room!"

He actually recoiled from this accusation. "I have not. Why would I be living in the girls' dorm?"

"I have no idea why you would be living in the girls' dorm." She jabbed the finger down at all the crap on the floor. "But this is not the kind of mess a female leaves behind!"

"Now that's just sexist."

"Admit it," she said. "Admit that this is your trash, and your books, and your . . ." She bent down and picked up a black article of clothing from the floor. It was one of the A-Four T-shirts, size medium/tall. She shook it at him. "And your dirty T-shirt!"

He snatched the shirt out of his face. "Okay, fine. I've been living here. No one wanted this place enough to come up here for the last two years, so what difference does it make?"

"You've been here for two years?"

He looked away, annoyed. She could tell it was himself that he was annoyed at, and she laughed.

"I don't care how long you've been here," she said. "Just hurry up and get your stuff out, and we don't have to talk about it ever again. I'm not going to rat on you."

"Why should I get out?" he said. "This was my room before it was yours."

"They assigned it to me, stupid."

"No, they didn't."

"The paper said 335."

"There is no 335! This is a maintenance closet; it doesn't have a number!"

"This is not a maintenance closet!" she said. Did he think she was an idiot? "It's twice as big as the other dorm rooms. It's got nice furniture, and . . ." Now that she thought about it, this room was a suite compared to the dorm rooms she'd lived in before. Maybe a teacher or an RA used to live here. "Anyway, it's not a maintenance closet!"

"So? It still isn't 335!"

"So?"

"So, it's not your room!"

"It sure as hell isn't your room! Unless you've got some boobs I don't know about, and if so, by all means, whip 'em out!"

Adam shushed her and gestured with both hands like he was trying to silence an audience. "We have to quiet down. I've worked too hard to keep the girls from finding out I'm in here. We're going to blow it if we're noisy."