ɪ ᴡᴀɴɴᴀ ʙᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀꜱ // ᴇʟɪꜱᴀ ᴅᴇ ᴀʟᴍᴇɪᴅᴀ

Chapter 1

Julianna

We got to the hotel and immediately started making plans of who was rooming with who. I made my way over to Sandy as coach started talking. "Enough of the 'wanna room with me's' I made a list of who I want rooming together."

Coach got his phone out of his pocket, and we all looked around at each other. "This is mostly for team bonding. Majority of you have a tendency to room with the same teammate over and over. I want this to be an opportunity for you all to bond with your assigned teammate."

He started naming off names, and the whole time I was silently hoping I got paired with Sandy. That ended up not being the case though. I heard Sandy's name followed by Sakina's, and as Coach continued to list off our roommates for the trip, my mind started to drift.

I was pulled out of my thoughts when I heard my name paired with Elisa's, and I couldn't help but feel even more nervous than I already was. Out of all my teammates, I knew the least about her. Sandy bumped into me, and I looked over at her. "Try to actually talk to her. This whole rooming situation is to get us to know each other better. She isn't going to be able to get to know you if you keep to yourself."

I nodded as Coach finished giving the roommate assignments. "Did I miss anyone?" He looked around and we all shook our heads no. "Okay, perfect. The afternoon is yours to do whatever and get to know your roommate. We are going to have a team dinner at six, so make sure you all are back by then, got it." Everyone nodded, and he dismissed us to our rooms.

Elisa and I walked in silence to our designated room, both of us unpacking our bags and settling into the space. I finished unpacking and grabbed my sketchbook from the bedside table as Elisa's phone started ringing. "Oh shoot." She grabbed her phone from her bed and walked out of the room.

I drew for about twenty minutes and decided to text Sandy to see how her rooming situation was going.

-

Julianna:Hey

Sandy:What's up?

Julianna: Nothing. hbu

Sandy:Bonding with my roommate like you should be

Julianna:It's kind of hard to bond with my roommate if she isn't here.

Sandy:What do you mean? Where did she go?

Julianna:Idk she got a call like twenty minutes ago and has yet to come back. Do you want to go out and explore for a little bit?

Sandy:I can't. Go with Elisa when she gets back.

-

The hotel room door opened and Elisa walked in. "Sorry, I didn't mean to just ditch you in here. A friend from home called and she rarely ever calls so I thought something happened." I nodded and Elisa walked back over to her side of the room to finish unpacking.

"So what are your hobbies, Jules?" "I like to read and draw. What about you?" "Probably photography." "Have you taken any pictures this trip?" "Yeah, I've taken a couple. I'll show you some in a minute. What all do you draw?" "A little bit of everything. I mostly like to draw landscapes though." Elisa nodded and grabbed her laptop to show me some of the pictures she had taken on the trip so far. "Sakina sure likes to photobomb." I laughed as Elisa skipped through a lot of the pictures. We finished looking at the pictures and went out to explore before team dinner.

My phone started ringing and I took it out of my coat pocket. "It's Sandy." I hit accept and Sakina and her were both in frame. "Just thought you should know that you both are late for team dinner." "Alright, we're on our way back." Sandy ended the facetime and Elisa and I turned back around, walking towards the hotel.

We walked into the dining hall and made our plates before joining Sandy and Sakina at their table. Coach went over a few things with us and left us to go back to eating and talking amongst our teammates.

Elisa De Almeida

Julianna went to throw away her trash and Sandy started a conversation with me. "How's roommate bonding going?" "Really good." "So your outgoingness isn't scaring her away yet?" "I dialed it back a little bit. I didn't want to come off too strong right away." "What? No! She needs the real Elisa experience." "Listen, it's working. I'm getting her to talk to me in small increments and I'll take it." "It's like you guys are playing a game, the more she interacts, the more points you get." Sakina chimed in and we all laughed before continuing to talk about how our bonding was going.

We all finished up team dinner and headed back up to our rooms. "Do you want to just watch a movie or something?" "Sure." Julianna and I settled in our own beds and picked out a movie.

I felt happy that we were getting along and that the roommate bonding situation seemed to be going smoothly. After the movie ended, we decided to call it a night. I set the alarm and put my phone on charge before turning the lamp off. "Goodnight, Jules." "Goodnight."