How to Survive Your 19th Life [BL]

Chapter 2: The First

Nothing much happened freshman year. I shared a small dorm in East Hall with a roommate named Shiva Dalca. He was a nursing major who always had issues sleeping, which kept me up most the night from his bed squeaking from all the tossing and turning. A nice guy though. He handled it well when I came out to him.

"I wouldn't have guessed," he said, looking hard at me as if my sexuality would somehow be a noticeable trait.

"I'm not queenie, you mean," I said back, a little snappy.

"There it is," he replied with a snap. "Ah, I see it now."

I shook my head and returned to studying for my Introduction to Statistical Learning class. Shiva kept looking at me from his adjacent desk. Our dorm was very small, bunk beds on one side of the room with two desks on the other side, and a mini fridge tucked under my desk.

"I get confused for being gay all the time," he said. I looked at him again. "Nursing major for a guy, you know?"

I nodded. "Well, I don't care what you are or aren't, dude. I just didn't want to make you uncomfortable with having a gay roommate."

"I don't mind as long as I'm the top," he said, motioning to our bunk beds. He was top bunk.

I lightly punched him, and he almost fell over laughing. "Shut up, Shiva."

"So do you have a boyfriend or something?"

I shook my head. "No. Sort of an ex from high school but we only dated for like... five days."

His brows furrowed. "No one else?"

"Nope." I returned to my textbook. "I wasn't equipped with gaydar or any sense of external attraction."

"So you don't know who's gay..."

"Or who likes me," I finished. I laughed, highlighting a full paragraph. "And I don't do dating apps." Staying off Grinder and Tinder was a result of my mom's intense paranoia rubbing off on me. I heard more horror stories than success stories. Traps, roofies, kidnappings, assault... Was satisfying my libido worth risking my life?

"Wait, I can help you," Shiva said right before he fled the room.

I sat in a confused silence for a good five minutes, expecting him to return. I then resumed studying. This class was already kicking my ass and had me questioning my chosen degree. It was notoriously hard for freshman finance and mathematics majors – meant to weed out the weak apparently.

About an hour after I turned down for the night, Shiva returned. He turned the light on, and I fumbled around blindly in the stark light for a few moments.

"What the hell, Shiva!" I exclaimed, sitting up in bed.

Sweat glistened across his forehead and he held a notebook in front of me. The page was scribbled on from top to bottom.

"There is nothing I love more than love," Shiva said. "I went to South Hall to see Joanna. Well, not to see her but to get her to call her friend Caitlynn who is a senior this year. Caitlynn is one of the top socialites in the entire school. Poli-sci major, if you know what I mean. A bit of a psycho if you ask me..."

"Get to the point," I groaned. Joanna was his girlfriend, and best friend too. They apparently were together since middle school.

"I got her to write out a list of who on campus is gay," he said proudly.

"You what?!" I snatched the notebook and looked over the list of names. One name was scratched out, re-written, and scratched out again. "Isn't this illegal or something?"

"Depends if you are going to use it to kill someone," he said flatly.

There were about twelve names on the list. Fergus Osborne. Axel Wallis. Casper Kristensen. I knew Casper from my freshman orientation class during the first semester. He looked identical to his name, like the friendly ghost. Pale white with a child's face. I shook my head and tossed the notebook at Shiva.

"Not interested."

He gave the notebook back to me. "Come on, Sol. I promised Caitlynn fifty bucks for this list."

"You what?!"

"Yeah, we'll just split it 25/25."

I hit my head against the wall behind me and took a moment to breathe. "Okay, fine." I looked at the list. I didn't recognize anyone else. "I don't even know most of these people."

Shiva smiled naughtily and took out his cell phone. "Voila! The power of social media."

Together, we went through the list of names and pulled them up on Facebook and Instagram, except for Casper. I overheard someone call him Ghost Rider when they saw him travelling around campus on his bicycle. I couldn't unhear it, nor could I forget how hard it made me laugh.

There were some nice-looking guys on the list. Seymour Vincent with his carrot red hair and full lips got me grinning. Noah Jefferson had the billionaire playboy look on his IG, like a young Bruce Wayne, but seemed entirely unapproachable. I circled a few of the names of the guys I found attractive and pursuit worthy – even though I had no idea what the next step from here would be.

The last name, the one that was crossed out and re-written several times. Emiel Hugo.

"Why is his name crossed out so much?"

"Joanna and Caitlynn had reservations about him. Well, Joanna did. Caitlynn didn't."

"Why? They didn't know if he was gay or not?"

"He's bisexual. But he has a reputation."

"Well it's the last one, so let's just pull him up."

Emiel didn't have a Facebook page, but he had an Instagram. Mostly there were photos of captivating sunsets. "Is this guy a photographer or something?" I asked.

Shiva shrugged. "His page is boring. No wonder he only has like sixty followers. Hell, I have more than that."

Finally, after some scrolling, there was the photo of him. He was the guy from the baseball field. He was sitting on a couch in what looked like the common area of one of the dormitories. Those hazel eyes were focused on something off camera, and he was laying down with his feet up on the coffee table. A half-smile rested on his face. He wasn't wearing eyeliner in this photo, or any of the jewelry. He looked like a rockstar still, but an off duty one.

"That's Emiel Hugo?" I asked.

Shiva nodded. "The one and only. Joanna drools over that guy. Makes me sick. I mean, yeah, he's mysterious and charming. And of course, he's got that jawline and chin and lips and eyes and neck..."

I squinted at Shiva and he shook his head.

"All I'm saying is, this one has a reputation." He crossed out Emiel's name on the list for me. "Better prospects that are not weirdos."

"What makes him a weirdo?"

"There are rumors about his... conquests. I heard he had an affair with two married professors. I mean married to each other. Husband and wife. They are gone this year, resigned. And someone said he went to last year's senior graduation and ended up making out with someone's dad in the coat closet. Not to mention all of his fellow classmates he's run through."

I gawked at Shiva, dumbfounded. I looked at the photo of Emiel still on Shiva's phone. He looked so relaxed, caught unawares. So beautiful.

I tossed the notebook on my desk and thanked Shiva for his effort. We went to bed shortly after. I knew we would be good friends from this point on. Outside of his girlfriend, I never saw Shiva hanging out with anyone. Maybe he was lonely like me.

And as my friend, I knew he wouldn't approve of my feelings at that moment. After I heard him snoring in the dark of the room, I opened my IG and went back through Emiel's photos, finding the single one of him on the couch. I pressed the phone to my hammering chest and sighed. I had made my decision from the moment they wrote his name on the page. Emiel Hugo.