Days as a Freshman: 12
Current Mood: Hungry“

Do you think Sasha has a girlfriend?”

Stacey stared at herself in the mirror, running her tongue over her teeth and pulling the skin underneath her chin tightly against her neck. I had no idea what she was doing, but she had been doing it for the last 10 minutes.

“I mean, he’s so cute. Plus, he’s a soccer player. I love that. I love athletic guys.” She pursed her lips and gathered up her hair, piling it on top of her head. “How do you know him anyway?”

“We sat next to each other at the welcome ceremony.” Flipping through a giant History textbook that weighed about 10 pounds and had cost about five times as much, I did my best to feign boredom with Stacey’s questions.

She couldn’t know I was interested in Sasha. She couldn’t know I looked for him every day on my way to class, almost screamed in happiness when I found out we were in the same chemistry lecture, thought about him for hours at night.

She couldn’t know any of it. Not even the tiniest bit.

Stacey wasn’t the type of girl you wanted to compete with when it came to guys.

“What did you think of him, Rebecca?”

Still staring at herself in the mirror like she was the pink-frosted lipglossed cousin of Narcissus, Stacey nodded in the direction of out other roommate.

Rebecca was sitting at her computer; something she had been doing since she got up in the morning, squinting into the screen and typing faster than anyone I had ever met in my life. She might have heard Stacey, but she didn’t move to reply—a habit she was beginning to turn into a job. Although she didn’t often talk to me, I could tell that Rebecca disliked Stacey even more than I did. If their closets were truly representations of their personalities, long black dresses were never going to see things from a pastel Polo shirt point of view.

“Rebecca! Didn’t you think he was cute?” Finally prying herself away from herself, Stacey turned to Rebecca. “Hello. Are you even listening? You’ve been on that stupid computer for like, ever.”

Rebecca’s fingers stopped. I put down my book.

“He’s fine.” Still keeping her eyes on the screen, Rebecca tucked some of her long, long hair behind her ears. “But considering I like girls, he’s never going to be more than just a guy to me. So could you stop screaming?”

Revving her fingers up again, Rebecca went back to her glowing screen of a world. If she had only taken a second to look over at Stacey, she would have seen the marvelous sight of a mouth gaping open like a fish stuck on a hook.

I picked up my book and held it in front of my face, doing my best to hide my laughter.