Roommates

Roommate Trouble

Tris

I leave the cafeteria with a smile on my face for the first time since I moved into my dorm room. The first two nights, I ate alone; the only friend I really have here is Eric. He has a few friends who also enrolled at Chicago University, but they aren't really people that I would choose to spend my time with. Four was really nice, though, and his friends seemed like a lot of fun as well; maybe I'll make some friends and not have to sit there all alone every night that Eric has to work.

Eric and I started dating nearly two years ago, right after I moved to Chicago. I no longer have any family, but Eric has been my one and only constant since my world fell apart when I was sixteen. It's been a hard few years, but I think things should be a lot easier now that I'm at college, living on campus. Eric works nights tending bar at a club that is too expensive for me to ever visit, so nights can be lonely.

I head back to my first floor dorm room. That's one aspect of college, so far, that I really have not had good luck with. While the rooms from the sixth floor up, like Eric's, are more like apartments-- and of course cost a enough more that I couldn't bring myself to choose one when I am so limited financially-- mine is basically a tiny box. That isn't the bad part, though. No, where I had really bad luck was with which roommate the college assigned me. I tried to switch within minutes of Molly walking through that door, but I was unsuccessful.

I unlock the door and practically tiptoe in, praying that Molly will be out. Unfortunately, my bad luck holds steady. She's there. I head straight to the dresser, trying to stay out of her way, planning to pull out gym clothes and some clothes to take with me to Eric's tonight and get out of there as fast as I can, but when I see my bed, I freeze.

There is reddish, clay-like mud all over my quilt-- and I mean, thick and covered in it-- and Molly sits on her bed with her arms crossed, smirking at me.

This isn't just any quilt. It's a quilt that my mother made for me when I was a child, and it's one of my most prized possessions. She spent months stitching it before giving it to me for my eleventh birthday. I was about to start middle school in just a few months, and it was a part of a bigger gift; she and I worked together to completely redecorate my bedroom, transforming it from a room made for a princess- and unicorn-loving little girl to that of a more grown-up, almost teenager. I didn't change a thing in it until I moved to Chicago after my parents died. That quilt was the only tangible reminder I had of one of my favorite memories of her.

"W-what...?" I swallow hard. "What happened to my quilt?"

Molly gives me the fakest look of innocence I've seen in my life. "Oh, I needed a blanket for a picnic. I was sure you wouldn't mind. It's just a little dirt, and that blanket is so ugly, anyway." She just can't keep that smirk off her face.

Tears prick at my eyes, but I can't let her get to me. I can't let her see weakness. I bite my cheek to keep the tears at bay as I throw enough clothes for a week into a large duffel bag then fold the quilt carefully and stuff it in on top. After grabbing a tank top, sports bra and running shorts, as well as my cross-trainers, and turn to leave without a word.

I freeze at the sound of Molly's voice. "Leaving so soon?" she sneers. "Going to see your little boyfriend, slut?" I want nothing more than to turn around and punch in her ugly, bulbous nose. Honestly, it would probably improve her looks. But I clench my fists at my sides, take a couple of deep breaths, and continue on without a word, changing in the bathroom down the hall on my way to the gym in the dormitory basement.

I decide to work the punching bags today, pretending with each hit that the bag is Molly's face. Eric started teaching me to fight, at my request, after my the first time someone tried to break into my apartment. A teenage girl living alone in a not-so-great neighborhood of Chicago isn't the safest situation possible. Eric really only helped me when I badgered him to, but it was enough to learn the basics and train on my own from there.