Starry Eyed

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

I set my alarm to wake up and efficiently organise myself at seven thirty, an hour before classes start, but it doesn't seem to be that time when I do come to.

For starters, the plan was that my beeping phone would wake me. But I am completely unconcious until an enormous, meaty hand comes thumping down on my back.

My eyes snap open. I am terrified, panicking, thinking of all the dangerous things that could be here right now. I go to scream, but my lungs are tight and fear has sliced through my vocal chords. It's lucky I don't. When my vision focuses, I see James in a pair of red boxers, looming above me like a mythical beast in a fairytale.

"Piss off," I hiss angrily, closing my eyes again. But his hand shakes me like I am a little tin can. He is a lot stronger than I expected.

"Get up," James whispers in a fierce undertone. I open my eyelids ever so slightly and peer up through my lashes. The room is dim, and the only light is the lamp beside his bed. Not a good sign.

"What time is it?" I groan, exhausted. "Leave me alone."

"It doesn't matter what time it is, someone's outside."

Slowly, clutching the blankets to my chest, I sit up and stare at the Ken doll groggily.

"Are you really that big of a baby? Grow up and go deal with it yourself."

"But I don't want to," James whines, sounding like a pathetic little kid. I would laugh if I had the energy to.

"Neither do I, and I was never a part of this in the first place," I grumble, sliding down beneath the blankets once again and rolling over to face the wall. "Go away."

"Help me!"

I can't ignore him. "Why can't you go find out what it is yourself? You're the one who's all macho and manly. Besides, the door's on your side of the room."

"What if it's a murderer? You'll basically be killing me if you wake up and I'm dead!"

"Sounds great," I murmur angrily. "Who cares, dude? It's probably a late student from, like, a million miles away."

Originally, James didn't want to tell me the time. When he finally told me, I could understand his reasoning. I was really hacked off.

"It's 3am," the Ken doll exclaims in the loudest voice he dares to muster. It's still more like a whisper from someone who hasn't worked out quite how to whisper, but he's terrified, and I'm slowly starting to see why.

"You woke me up at 3am?"

I am usually not a very angry person. Often, I can get frustrated or upset, but it's not like I run off into an explosive rage at every little thing that goes wrong. Sadly, this is probably down to how much sleep I get. And that is incredibly unfortunate for my roommate.

"I had to! What sort of person goes wandering around a boarding school at three in the morning? You've gotta help," he pleads. He seems to have forgotten any rules we made about not speaking, but that's not what matters right now.

"Don't ever wake me up at this freaking hour again!" I bellow, as loudly as I can at 3am. "You can't just spend all afternoon telling me how shitty and lame I am, then wake me up six hours later and announce you need my help!"

At least, that's how the speech is intended to come out. But my words are all muffled and jumbled up from 'again', because James clamps his enormous hand back down over my mouth. I stop, trying to pry it away, but even his hand is stronger than me. It's like he's been taking his wrist to work out at the gym every day.