The Girl in the Boys' Dorms

Chapter Sixteen: It's never fun to be the middle kid.

The Girl in the Boys’ Dorms - Chapter Sixteen: It’s never fun to be the middle kid.

“Bailey, Bailey, Bailey, Bailey…”

I groaned as the ringtone of my phone sliced through the thick, comfortable silence in the room. Even though I had been asleep for well over nine hours, it felt like I had just barely climbed into bed. And as I cracked one eye open tentatively, I could tell it was at least half past noon. Well, either that, or the sun had chosen to position itself right outside of my dorm window, and harass me with its brightness.

But when I glanced over to Chase’s bed, I realized that it was the former. Even he, arguably the laziest male on the planet - at least, he was when it came to sleeping in, that is - had gotten out of bed before me. That brought me to only one conclusion; hell had frozen over.

Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have been so dramatic, but it was weird to be waking up after him. He was usually still snoring his face off while I was trying to figure out how to waste away yet another eventless weekend.

“Bailey, Bailey, Bailey…”

Perhaps it was time I picked up the phone. So, making a tremendous effort to roll over onto my side, I retrieved the rectangular device from my bedside table and pressed the green button, too drowsy and careless to check who it was that wanted to talk to me. But as soon as I brought it near my head, my eardrums were shattered by a loud, cheerful scream - my older sister Bella’s loud, cheerful scream, to be more exact.

“Bailey! Oh my God, what took you so long? Bailey, it’s Bella!” She announced, as though I wouldn’t be able to figure it out after listening to her high-pitched chatter.

“Yeah, hi,” I yawned, sitting up and stretching my arms. As the sleep cleared itself out of my eyes, I got a chance to look around.

The room was a mess. It was obvious that last night, while I had been out on my date with Evan, Chase had chosen to throw another party. The only problem was, he wouldn’t be able to, seeing as how that would mean people coming over, noticing my absence, and questioning him about it. But I guess if he could have a good time with his friends, he could do it by himself, too. Because the area around the couch looked like a warzone; empty beer cans and chip wrappers littered the floor, the couch pillows had been overturned - probably while he tried to find the perfect angle to lay down, balance his food, and be able to see the television - and there was the distinct smell of sweaty socks. My guess was that after he dropped me off at the gates, he had gone to the gym and shot some hoops for a while - and then had never taken a shower.

“Bailey, did you hear me?” Bella shouted into the phone, and I jolted upright. I had almost forgotten that I had been talking to her. It took years to become that great at tuning out Bella, but once I had learned how to, I found myself doing it all the time.

Except now, I had apparently missed some big news, and she would be upset. So, to fix my mistake, I spluttered, “Um, yeah! That’s wonderful!”

“Really?” She drawled, and I could hear in her voice that she was skeptical. “What did I say?”

“That… that…” I wracked my brain, attempting to think of something satisfactory. But nothing came to mind, so I mumbled, “You moved out?” That had been a wrong move, though, because everyone knew that if Bella moved out of our parents’ house, it would be much more exciting for them.

She was almost twenty-one and still living at home with them, rather than pursuing a college education. Mom and Dad had known from the beginning that she was the one they would have to take care of, though, because she hadn’t exactly ever been the sharpest crayon in the box. Our older brother Max had been successful, what with the four years he spent in university to earn his law degree. He now worked at a law firm in Texas, and what job did Bella occupy herself with? She worked at the concession stand in the local movie theater in our small town in Nebraska, making minimum wage.