Make The Season Bright Bunk'd

The Letter

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Greetings Mrs. Priya Martinez,

Hello Mrs. Martinez,

Dear Priya,

Ravi gnawed on the end of his pen until it left a plastic taste in his mouth. At his desk, he stared down at the only sheet of paper that he had taken out of the new pack of stationery. He took the tooth-mark riddled pen out of his mouth and tossed it so that it rolled across the desk and fell into the tiny wastebasket below. The wastebasket overflowed with wax paper that was stained with chocolate and maple frosting. His roommate, David, had a Dunkin' addiction that only worsened during winter finals. So as much of a neat-freak that Ravi was, he couldn't keep up with the sugary wrappers, orange and pink dozen-count boxes, and handheld-doughnut-hole containers littering the dorm room. Drumming his fingers on the desk, he watched the pen as it balanced on a wadded wrapper. He rolled his eyes. He grabbed his laptop from the corner of his desk and opened it on top of the sheet of stationery. He typed:

Birthmother,

His fingers hovered over the keys. He glared at the blinking curser as he willed it to move forward with the perfect words of a perfect reply letter. The tension in his body recoiled as hopelessness overtook him. His shoulders slumped forward. His body hunched over the keyboard. His head hung low.

"What do you call the woman who abandoned you in an orphanage nineteen years ago?" He murmured to what he thought was his empty dorm room at MIT.

"Brah, I wouldn't call her at all. What a tool."

Startled, Ravi whipped around in his chair to see his roommate engulfed in a weighted blanket. The layer of crust under the curve of David's mouth could've passed for drool or doughnut glaze.

"You call everyone a tool," Ravi said, rolling his eyes and closing his laptop. He tucked away the blank letter and pack of stationery into the bottom drawer of his desk before he stood. "I didn't realize you were still here. It's easy to miss you in that mountain of dirty clothes you insist on keeping on your bed."

Per their casual-acquaintance-relationship, David ignored Ravi's sarcasm, and explained, "Had my last exam this morning at eight and then crashed." He tossed off his blanket, revealing the same shirt he had worn for the past week, and hopped out of his extra-long-twin bed. He opened the wardrobe on his side of the shared room and tugged an enormous suitcase from under a pile of textbooks. He slung the suitcase onto the mattress before tossing in a few crumpled shirts and stiff socks that had previously been peaking from under his bed.

An invisible line split the 250 square foot room into the prime example of a before and after makeover. David's was the before: a hurricane of electronics, textbooks, and smelly laundry. Ravi's was the after: tidy, well-organized, and complete with fragrance dispensers. But Ravi had experienced messiness before when he shared a cabin at Camp Kikiwaka with Jorge and Griff. Not to mention how his brother Luke was the only person he knew that had socks that could double as biochemical weapons.

Punctuated by the quick zip of his luggage zipper, David said, "Later, Rav." He yanked his suitcase to the floor and popped up the handle. At the door he stopped to say, "Oh yeah, you need a ride or something?"

Ravi shook his head and said, "No, I'm good." He glanced down at his watch. "I have a flight and then my brother and sister are picking me up from the airport."

"Cool. Catch you in the new year."

The door clicked shut behind David. Even though he had thought he was alone earlier, knowing that he was truly the only person in the room now made Ravi uncomfortable. A heaviness filled the small space and made it harder for him to breathe. In three strides, he was at the door, swinging it open and gasping for air.