Serial Dating

Accidental Eavesdropping

If Lee dragged his dorm desk around the room at the start of the semester, he would have laughed and died of a heart attack during the first shove. But now? Now he could drag it across the floor himself. He pivoted it away from the radiator and shoved it out into the open, off of the wall along with his dorm bed. And he did it all on his own.

When that was said and done, he stepped back, hands on his hips. He looked down at his twig arms that were still scrawny but somehow... fuller. He felt fuller. Like he was less likely to let the wind knock him down.

In the midst of packing his duffle for Break, a knock sounded on his dorm door. He leaned over to unlock it and said, "It's open now."

He went back to folding up his prime selection of sweaters when the door creaked open. He looked over and found Rushil peering in at the mess of his room. Rushil dragged his eyes across the mis-matched furniture strewn hazardously across the floor. "Dude... I thought we were studying."

"We are," Lee said. "I just—Getting things in order."

"The opposite of order, more like," Rushil laughed. "Shit, Milo and I haven't even gotten this far yet and I'm leaving tonight."

He wandered into the room and sat on the edge of the futon as Lee finished folding clothes and stuffing them into his bag. He tucked his toiletry bag in with it all because after OChem, Lee had a date with the gym and then a short journey to Sigma Alpha. Milo would be at Sigma during that time, battling it out with Roland during a frat dinner party.

It would be the first time Lee visited the gym on his own accord, with no expectation of Milo being there, waiting for him. Lee was both thrilled and terrified. He wasn't one to get anxiety over public situations—if the hammock incident was anything to go by—but something about the gym was different. He didn't feel like he "owned the place" like he did any other corner of campus. He was comfortable in the library, in the labs, the lecture halls—but the gym felt almost... predatory. Like Lee was going there to defeat some great evil dubbed Being In Shape.

Lee and Rushil walked to the lecture hall. Lee had his duffle tossed over one shoulder, feeling bright, chaotic energy from pre-exam anxiety. Their exam time was that Saturday at four in the evening, which meant that they would be done by six in time for Rushil's bus to SoCal. It was the very last exam day of the semester, and, likely, the very last exam scheduled on campus.

They studied in the empty lecture hall together as students gradually began to filter in. Lee could hear Rushil mumbling equations under his breath, tapping his pen to the edge of the desk. Lee glanced over at him, once again distracted by Rushil. Best friend and future roommate.

I don't deserve him, Lee thought. He smiled a little as Rushil put his highlighter to his bottom lip and pulled down on it, making a face at his notebook.

The exam went as expected: It was pure torture. The instant he got his booklet and was allowed to flip it over, he took one look at the first question and swore under his breath. He took the entire two hours to finish it and even then it was a stretch. He definitely BSed one question and left the lecture hall thinking, There better be an epic curve or else I'm fucked, but at least it's over with.

He waited for Rushil to come out. Rushil looked no better, but he smiled nonetheless when he saw Lee waiting across the lecture hall corridor with his duffle. Rushil walked straight up to him and held his arms out for a hug.

"I need love and support in these trying times, my friend," Rushil fake-sobbed against Lee's shoulder.

"You're a seventeen-year-old genius. You did fine," Lee said. Unlike Lee and most of the freshmen year class, Rushil had come to USFC as a sixteen-year-old going on seventeen. He had skipped a grade in middle school and wound up as one of the youngest kids in Alex's lab.