Rhiannon D'Averc

I stood with my hands on my hips, eyebrow quirking with satisfaction, as I looked at the college dorm room where I was going to spend the best part of the next year.

This would do very nicely.

I chuckled to myself and turned around to start unpacking my bags. I waved my right arm around a little to try to get some strength back into it. Carrying everything up to the third floor by myself had taken it out of me a little, but without anyone to help me move into college it had been the best I could do. I wasn’t the kind of person that could just strike up a conversation with a random stranger out there and ask them to help – especially not given that everyone else had their own stuff to move, too.

I finished unloading my essentials, all of which had been neatly partitioned into sections of my main suitcase. A waterproof container of stuff I would need for the showers, a small bag carrying my pajamas, contact lens solution, and other bedtime things, and two sets of neatly folded clothes so that I would have something to wear even if I didn’t get around to unpacking right away.

I moved over to the window and looked down. It was still busy out there. The campus was thronged with new students and their families, all hefting huge bags or pieces of furniture or just embracing one another. I saw more than one parent in tears from this vantage point, looking right down to the parking lot where most people were stopping to unload.

Must have been nice to have someone who cared about you enough to cry that you were leaving home.

I turned away from the view and busied myself with my bags again. I’d brought a few small things to personalize the space, so I figured I would start with those. I had a poster of my favorite band – a luxury I had never been able to put on the walls at home – and even one of my favorite actor, Ridley Angus. That shot, with the bulging pecs and washboard abs of the action star on full display, would have been particularly verboten for my parents.

Well, now I was free, and I could put up whatever I wanted. I grabbed some tacks and stuck the posters up above my bed, on the left side of the room, and grinned.

Yep. Looking up at Ridley Angus for the whole year was going to make sleeping here all the more pleasurable.

I glanced unwillingly at the bed on the right side of the room and swallowed, wiping my suddenly sweaty palms on my legs.

I’d decided already that I wasn’t going back in the closet. Not for anyone. Whoever my roommate was, they were going to have to accept that I was gay and either like it or ask for a transfer. I didn’t care if it made them uncomfortable. I was going to be uncomfortable anyway, having to share a room with someone I didn’t know. It scared me.

So they could either accept me being gay or they could get lost. That was my decision, and I wasn’t going to back down from it.

Still, with a light shiver, I hoped it wasn’t going to come to that.

I grabbed the schedule I’d already started working on for the year from where I’d left it on the small table beside the bed, looking it over. If I had problems in my dorm room, it wasn’t going to be so bad. I was hardly going to be there, anyway. I’d decided to sign up for as many classes as I could physically fit into my days. What was the point of going to college if you didn’t do it properly?

This year, I was going to do everything right. I was going to live as myself, with no restrictions. I was going to ace my classes. I was going to get through my first year of college and know I’d made myself proud, even if there wasn’t anyone else waiting to hear how I’d done.

I grabbed hangers out of my bag and started putting my clothes into the closet, getting everything squared away neatly. I poured socks and underwear and nightwear and vests and everything else I could think of into the small dresser on my side of the room, then stacked my books on top of it.

Finally, I looked around and sighed, sitting down on the edge of my newly-made bed. This was it. I was here. And I’d finished moving in.

So much for getting interrupted by a wild social life that might prevent me from unpacking for two days. Still, at least it was done.

And there was only one thing left: meeting my roommate.

I checked my watch and sighed. It was just my luck to be stuck with a roommate who turned up late. It was almost dark. Anyone who came in now was going to have a hard time getting everything unloaded before night completely fell.

I wandered to the window and looked down again. There was hardly anyone left in the courtyard or the parking lot now. The stream of people had dwindled, and now I was mostly looking at parents and older family members walking away from the campus, not coming towards it.

There was someone down there who looked vaguely familiar. I squinted, feeling a leap of something in my chest. I was sure it had looked like – but, no, that was kind of stupid. I was just trying to see familiar things because I was alone now – like when you saw a face on the moon. There wasn’t really one there. This was the same situation.

I sighed again, and for lack of anything else to do, closed the blind over the window.

It looked like I was going to be spending my first night in college in an empty room. Which, honestly, wouldn’t be so bad. Perhaps I could get into the socializing side of things tomorrow.

Then there was a rattle of the doorknob that had my heart flying into my chest, and the door opened, and I felt like the rapid beats stopped completely.

“No,” I said out loud, shaking my head. “Oh, no. Absolutely no way.”

And my new roommate just looked at me with a tentative grin, raising his eyebrows as if to say oh, yes.