I’m a freshman at VT. I just discovered that how messed up my roommate is and would like some advice. College dorm assignments are a wonderful idea, aren’t they? Take two awkward eighteen-year-old boys who have never met, move them away from home for the first time, take away all they’ve ever known, throw in a vat of hormones that are far more advanced than their social skills, and have them live in the same bedroom.

Carlton is odd enough, but I’ve been doing my best to make it work. I’m polite enough (and wary enough) to jingle my keys for a full ten seconds before I open our shared door. I’ll add that it wouldn’t kill him to show me the same respect, but whatever. I’ve memorized his class schedule. It’s fine. I don’t let it get to me. I mean, he’s got some odd stuff. I was looking for my keys earlier this week, and I wandered over to his side of the room. I didn’t mean to pry.

But I couldn’t help notice the three-inch stack of paper with random numbers written across them. It was clearly the result of many hours of work, and it gave me the heebie jeebies, if I’m being honest. And it wasn’t a wasted effort. I found my keys under his desk. They were sitting on top of a piece of paper that had “Adam” written several times in a circle surrounding the key.

I’m Adam, by the way. But it’s not like he’d stolen anything. He had left the “Virginia Tech College of Engineering – Founded 1903” keychain on it. I brushed it off. Carlton was a weird guy, after all.

Last night, though, was something else altogether. We had one of those mandatory dorm community-building exercises. They knocked on all of our doors, and of course I was going to pretend not to be home. But Carleton shot straight up and let the R.A. pop his dopey head into the room. He made over-enthusiastic eye contact with me and announced, “Everybody’s waitin’!”

That irritated me, because I had homework, and this would push everything back. To be honest, I don’t know what I do with most of my time. But it takes about five hours for me to start homework after I initially sit down, and this was going to force the cycle to start all over again.

The evening’s activity was a ‘do you know me/get to know me’ game, which I thought was pretty f*cking stupid to organize three months into freshman year. Basically, you write down ten obscure facts about yourself on a card and put it into a box. Everyone then chooses a card at random, and you have to guess who the person is.

I was forced to accept just how boring my life had been when I wrote “once visited Drisking, Missouri” and “favorite cheese is cheddar” as my final two factoids.

The card I randomly picked from the box was more interesting.

1 – I grew up nearby in Botetourt County.
2 – I chose engineering because every other subject seems like a waste of a life.
3 – I am fascinated by my roommate.
4 – I once ate my pet goldfish and vomited it up again. It lived for forty seconds.
5 – I have not washed my clothes since arriving on campus, but I regularly turn my underwear inside out.
6 – I can watch people from my dorm room window with under 5% of them noticing.
7 – I am adept at making corn muffins.
8 – My roommate brought 73 distinct items of clothing to college with him, but does not wash them frequently.
9 – I am a practicing Satanist, and am working to influence the world around me in supernatural ways.
10 – Stealing everyday objects from a person can lead to incremental influence over said person’s spirit.

The paper smelled like Carlton. He had a very unique scent.

Naturally, I excused myself to the bathroom and never returned. Instead, I went to my room to try and get my head straight before Carlton came back. Was there somewhere else I could sleep? Amanda had stopped talking to me altogether after I’d gotten with this hot Greek chick named Courtney. All of the pseudo-friendships formed during orientation had long since sputtered out. My parents live in Florida, and I didn’t have the kind of cash needed to visit a Motel 6. I had nowhere to sleep except the room I share with Carlton.

I decided to turn out the lights and make the room as dark as possible so that he’d be unable to spy on me while I slept. A lamppost shined directly through the window and onto my pillow, so I crossed the room to close the blinds.

That’s how I found out our room doesn’t have blinds. That struck me as odd, but I couldn’t quite figure out why. But I didn’t let that distract me as I undressed, tossing my underwear to the floor and pulling on a fresh pair of boxers before hopping quickly into bed.

A chill slowly crept down my back like a cold, hairy tongue when Carlton opened the door. He paused in the threshold, then shut the latch behind him. I pretended to be asleep as I listened to him move about the room.

His footsteps were nearly inaudible. I could only trace his rough position by way of his breathing. He blocked the light, and that’s when I understood what was odd. The light never shined on my pillow when I slept. I always assumed that Carlton had drawn the blinds.

What had actually been happening, as I came to realize in that moment, was that Carlton had been blocking the light as he stood over my bed. Given the darkness and my usual sleepy state, it had been impossible for me to understand that fact.

And his footsteps had been so soft. But while I was pretending to be asleep last night, listening so intently to his breathing, it was apparent just how close he was standing. How close he must have been standing most nights.

It’s hard to feign sleep when you’re sure that your pulse is on the verge of shattering every rib from the inside. But I didn’t move for three hours. Neither did he. I breathed a sigh of relief when the lamppost finally shined down on my pillow once more. But I didn’t sleep that night. Carlton was sitting at his desk when I finally ventured out of bed, staring intently at a book in his lap.

Carlton didn’t turn a page or look up at any point. I was hypersensitive, so I inspected everything very closely. That’s how I noticed the slick, wet goop on the pair of underwear I’d left by my bed. It was my underwear, but it sure as shit wasn’t my goop. I immediately cut my articles of clothing down to 72. I left the room, and haven’t been back since. Any advice would be appreciated. I have to return to my room at some point.




[Post edited by Hokie2022_1 at 11/29/2018 9:43PM]