Hi there. Thanks for taking the time to read my first ever submission to the Nifty archives. I really appreciate it! I'm brand new at this, so if you have any comments or ways I could improve my work, please email me at:
jason96@inbox.com
I'm absolutely astounded by the outpouring of positive response I received to Part 1! Please, please email me your thoughts and comments so I can grow as a writer. I love and appreciate every email I get!
If reading this is illegal in your jurisidction, turn your computer off immediately and run far, far away from the keyboard.
By neccesity alone, things mellowed out with Alex over the coming hours as I got more comfortable. I helped him assemble his desk, which quickly proved my full incompetence as I struggled with an alan wrench. We laughed and joked as we put our dorm in order and I knew things would probably work out for the better this semester.
Again - not a roommate love story. Hopefully.
It turned out we would share an Early British Literature class together with a vicious professor, and we mutually agreed to fall on a grenade for each other if the time ever came.
In the midst of all that, we did talk. A little. He was loud and confident, and me, timid and shy as ever. Tale as old as time, right?
"Where are you from?" He asked, grinning and grunting a little as he tightened a screw on his desk chair. Our dorm was poorly air conditioned and mid-afternoons in September will still pretty warm.
"Small town America - Minnesota. You?" The wrench clanged against the floor as it slipped from his grasp. He looked up to me, and the sun from the window danced in his pale green eyes.
"You a hockey man?" He asked, grinning. My stomach dropped - I wanted so badly to say yes and find a little common ground, but alas, I was a fan in name only.
"Oh yeah," I responded, "I played a little a long time ago. Now I'm mostly just a fan. You?"
He smiled before returning to work on the chair, splayed out across the floor. "Yeah, I guess you could say I play a little."
Leaning against the bed, I watched him put together the chair in the midday sun. Trapped beneath a classic maroon Harvard shirt, he wrestled with legs and arms to put together a classic, sturdy desk and chair set. He was good with his hands - and I quietly pondered what his major might be. Alex seemed like the broad-thinking engineering type, but had the finesse of pre-med. Auburn hair would tread into his eyeline before he instantly whisked it away, a fluid movement he was obviously practiced in. My chest was heavy at the sight of him - he was All-American, the kind of boy you see in Harvard brochures but never could actually have imagined meeting in the flesh.
I heaved a long sigh and grinned to myself. If nothing else, this was going to be a long semester. We made a little more idle chatter, went to lunch, and spent the rest of the day trapped in freshman orientation activities. My eyes would flit to Alex when he'd stretch to yawn, idly catching sight of the tiny gap of exposed fair skin. I was attracted to him, but also rapidly felt a friendship forming between us that I didn't want to endager by creeping on him.
Luckily, the rush of Harvard's campus was an easy distraction from Alex's sex appeal. Despite his initial outgoing attitude, it seemed like he enjoyed having me around, too. In a day full of blushing, I gently gulped down the gradeschool boyish crush feelings I was developing. Gulp. Gulp.
After traipsing miles around campus visiting libraries, cafeterias, and classrooms, Alex and I returned to our dorm room and almost immediately shut the lights off and fell into our respective twin beds. The window left open, the slight tremor of the tree outside shifting in the evening breeze. I put my hands behind my head and stared at the ceilng, wondering what a first year at Harvard was really going to be like. The same images of loneliness from highschool conjured themselves against the bare white ceiling, whirling around and taking shape.
I breathed a deep sigh. That sigh must have had some sort of tangible meaning, because from across the room I saw Alex suddenly turn on his side. His pale chest reflected the moonlight, and I swear even in the dark, his eyes glimmered - just the tiniest little refraction of light.
"Hey Jas." His voice started and sputtered, the way it does after you haven't spoken for a long time.
"Alex?" I floated his name across the room, stomach lurching at the sound of my own voice suddenly cutting the silence.
"I think we're gonna like it here." And in that moment - I believed him and was filled with an indescribable, beautiful feeling of complete certainty. In only moments, I had turned on my side, and drifted off to sleep to the sound of leaves rustling in the cool September breeze.