The Right One

One

Hope fell heavily on her bed, the soft and comfy mattress soothing her tiredness a little. Her head was pounding, courtesy of the recurring sleepless nights she had been keeping due to exams. It didn't help that she hadn't eaten anything all day and the sun on her way back home had been extremely harsh. All she wanted to do was curl into bed, take a peaceful nap and preferably never wake up for the next year. She was well on her way to achieving her dreams, until she was distracted by the sound of a door opening and closing.

"How far? How was your paper?" An eager voice asked a moment before she felt the bed dip under the weight of her roommate.

"Go away jare. I want to sleep," Hope groaned, her voice coming out as tired as she felt.

Hope didn't need to look to know her roommate was currently rolling her eyes at her. Their relationship was such that they could predict easily what each other's reaction to any situation would be.

They had met on their first day of resumption. Jane had been new like her and they had run into each other in the course of searching for their respective departments. They'd both been lost and had decided stick together and help each other find their ways. They soon became fast friends and later roommates.

"I'm just going to assume your paper was fine since you still have the energy to sleep," Jane concluded.

That caught her attention as Hope raised her head to glare at Jane. "On the contrary olodo, it's my lack of energy that makes me want to sleep."

"Same thing," Jane insisted with a dismissive wave of her hand. That indicated she was done with the topic. "At least you're done with your exams. I still have three papers to go. I don't even like thinking about it. I can't believe you're going to go home before me!"

Hope rolled her eyes at her friend. To think people often referred to her as the dramatic one. "Calm down, aunty. You'll be done in less than a week anyway. It's not as if I'm going back home right away."

"I still don't want you to go home before me," Jane persisted.

Hope knew that was her roommate's version of a plea for her to stay back so they could leave the hostel at the same time but decided to ignore her comment all the same. "My head is pounding, abeg. I get back, ordinary food you can not offer me. You're not letting me sleep either. What did I do to you exactly?"

"There's food in the kitchen. If you're hungry, you'll stand up and get it yourself," Jane grumbled, pissed that her friend wasn't biting the bait.

Hope's ears perked at that and in a split second, her expression had changed from tired to excited. She sat up on the bed, grinning from ear to ear. "You should have started with that."

Jane scoffed, lying back on the bed. "At the mention of food, you're shining teeth. I just hope they won't use food to cart you away one day."

Hope ignored her friend's comment as she climbed off the bed and made her way over to the kitchen. She loved food, so what? It was an essential of life and no one could fault her for that.

Their room was an off campus self contained so they had their own kitchen and bathroom. It was spacious and very convenient. It was painted bright pink -- courtesy of Jane -- and white. Hope didn't care much about the interior of the room but Jane had taken on the responsibility of making it look -- in her own words -- fabulous and most people who came into their room often attested that she'd indeed done a good job of that. Hope however felt the room was a tad too girly but whatever.

Hope opened the pot to find that Jane had cooked white rice and stew with fried fish. Hope's grin grew even wider and her mouth watered. Jane was the better cook of the both of them and it was even better that she enjoyed cooking. Hope could cook, but most of the time she preferred not to, which Jane often found amusing considering how much Hope loved to eat.