Part 3: Win Some, Lose Some

by Margaret Iuni

Click here to read Part 1 and Part 2.

Straya

When I chose to go to school in New York City, my mom cried. Hippa was mostly indifferent. Dad was excited for me. A week into living in a dorm room, I was channeling all three responses. My roommate Rebecca and I weren’t really compatible. By this, I mean I tried to talk to her the day we moved in and she told me she didn’t want to talk to me, ever.

I texted Tod about that right after it happened. He called to laugh with me about it over the phone. Of course Tod got along well with his roommate. He didn’t really seem like the kind of guy one wouldn’t get along with, unless you’re the kind of person who tries to drown people at parties.

Every day it was something new. Tonight, Rebecca told me that on school nights she had a strict nine p.m. curfew for herself and that if I interrupted her she was reporting me. Apparently, I’d already disrupted her sleeping habits enough this semester.

“This semester? We’re a week in! And it’s the city that never sleeps,” eye on the clock as it struck 8:58.

“Too bad,” she muttered, flipping the light off and rolling over, leaving me alone in the dark. Welcome to New York. I rolled my eyes and checked my phone, where an unopened, unnoticed text message was waiting for me.

 

Tod

My phone buzzed as I stepped out of the shower. I wrapped a towel around my waist and peeked at the message. How’s that Boston accent treating you? I could see Straya typing that message clearly, even though we were now roughly two hundred miles away from each other. I had only ever seen her twice, but I had somehow already memorized the face she made when she was joking.

You’re avoiding the question. I laughed as I typed my own avoidance. Earlier today I had texted her, You in that New York State of mind yet? in an effort to make her smile. I dried my hair while I frowned, knowing that while her city life was surpassing expectations, college life was falling short. By a lot.

Loving the city, hating my dorm. Win some, lose some, I guess. Definitely wouldn’t trade it for Bah-stan. I threw on an old tee shirt and a pair of pajama pants before constructing a response.

Ah, yes. But would you come visit? I hit send before I could reconsider.

 

Straya

My lungs felt full but not with air. It’s the kind of nervous weight you pretend you’ve never felt when other people talk about it. “Oh, how horrible,” you might say, with disconnected eyes and a slight touch of a hand.

Would I come visit?

I put my phone down. I’d given him a decent fight just becoming friendly, now he wanted me to visit him a week into being away? I mean, I liked him enough as a person, but in my experience likeable people didn’t remain that way for long. We were on that border. We were also on the border of becoming too friendly, where lines start to blur and things get weird. But still, for some reason, I couldn’t type the two letters that would set me firmly on one side of that invisible line. Instead, I typed five that would have to be enough for now.
Maybe.