"Mal? Did you hear me?"
Mal looks up from his suitcase and meets Cynthia's eyes. She's got that look on her face that tells him she's trying really hard not to be annoyed with him, something she's never really excelled at.
"Sorry," he mumbles.
"Man, I would pay good money to sit in on your classes here," his sister says with a wicked grin. "I can just see it now- the first time you get called on to answer a question and you're staring out the window at some bird or whatever."
"Shut up." He wrinkles his nose and kicks at her. She dodges it easily.
Cynthia keeps chuckling about it as they get to work unpacking his things. He does his best to ignore her as he puts his clothes into the dresser on his side of the room.
It's pretty small and cramped. He knew it would be, of course. But even his room at home was a fair sight bigger than this. In this room, he can barely turn in a circle before running into something. He and his roommate might as well be living in a broom closet.
Not that he's actually met his roommate. Mal knows he's got to be around here somewhere, seeing as all of his things were already set up when he and Cynthia walked in. But they've been there for almost two hours, now, and haven't seen any sign of him.
"You don't have to stay, you know," he says, looking up at Cynthia. "I can take care of unpacking the rest.
"It's fine," she says. But he sees how she glances nervously at the clock.
They both know she can't stay there much longer. In fact, she might have stayed too long already. Their mom is home alone, something that makes both of them uneasy.
In the end, she stays another half hour, long enough to unpack all but one box that's filled with sentimental things, like a card from his mom and an old family photo. Nothing important, and definitely something he can do himself. He writes down the new phone number on a scrap of paper and makes her promise to give it to their mom.
"And you'll pick me up from the train on Friday, right?" he asks. Cynthia rolls her eyes as she nods.
"Yeah," she agrees. "Try not to get too homesick in the six days till then."
It's not about homesickness and he's pretty sure Cynthia knows it, so he doesn't comment. He lets himself be hugged one more time before he prods her gently in the direction of the door and waves as she walks down the hallway to the elevator. A minute later the elevator arrives on his floor, and then she's gone. He shuts the door to his room with a sigh.
As anxious as he is to be away from his family, in a way it's a relief. He's finally free of his hometown and everyone in it. Here, he doesn't have to be the guy whose father went to jail, or the guy whose mom is dying. He can just be Mal Fallon, whoever that is. He could reinvent himself to be anyone he wanted to be.
Right now, for example, he was going to be Mal Fallon, the guy who skips the ice breakers on the quad. After hearing about Natara's orientation experiences at Grantmore, he had decided there wasn't any real need to go sit in a circle with a bunch of strangers and play silly games. It wasn't like it was high school and he'd be seeing every single one of them every day. Chances are he'd never see any of them in any of his classes. So who would care if he didn't show up?
He's not too sure what to do with himself, though. He could unpack his last box, but truth be told he's a little tired of unpacking things. He could wander the campus and surrounding town, but he doesn't want to take the chance of being seen and be forced to join the ice breakers. He could read, but for the most part he's only got textbooks, and that seems too boring.
He finds himself picking up the phone and dialing the number he's memorized in the last few days. It rings a few times before someone picks up.
"Hello?" says a girl's voice that he doesn't recognize. He panics for a second. Did he put in the wrong number?
"Uh, hi," he says haltingly. "Is Natara Mansingh there?"
"Who is this?" the voice asks.
"Well, who are you?"
"Um, you called here. Also, I asked first."
Mal rolls his eyes. "My name's Mal, I'm-"
"Oh! You're the boyfriend!" the voice interrupts him. "I'm Eden, her roommate. Natara went downstairs to check her mail, she should be back any second."
"Oh, cool," he says. He's unsure what he should do. Should he hang up and call back in a few minutes? Should he stay on the phone with her roommate?
Eden makes the decision for him. "I'll put the phone down on her desk and let her know when she gets back. Nice to sort of meet you, lover boy!"
"Lover boy?" he asks. He can feel his eyebrows raise, but the only answer he gets is a dull thump as the receiver is set down. He stares at his own phone for a second, before putting it back to his ear.
Thankfully, Natara doesn't keep him waiting long. It's less than a minute later when he hears the distant sound of a door opening, and then Eden's voice telling her he's on the phone for her.
"Hello?" he hears her say.
"Hey," he says, feeling himself smile as he sinks back into his chair. "I miss you."
"I miss you too," she says. "What's it like at your school? You moved in today, right?"
"It's cool, I guess. I'm skipping orientation. Sounds like a waste of time, if your description is anything to go off of." He can practically hear her rolling her eyes.
"As boring and slightly weird as it was, I can see the practicality of it."
"Well, I don't. Besides, I'd much rather sit here and talk to you."
"No arguments here," she says warmly.
They lapse into a silence, and he shifts uncomfortably. He's not sure why. They've sat in silence plenty of times before. It's always been nice. But something about being quiet during a phone conversation feels so… foreign to him. He feels like he should say something to fill the silence.
"When's your first class?" Natara asks.
"Oh, uh, not till noon on Monday," he says. "Just a dumb math course I have to take. And I think I have an intro to psychology class in the afternoon."
"Think? Shouldn't you know if you have it by now?"
"I mean, it's only Saturday."
"I don't know, I think I'd just be anxious if I didn't know exactly what classes I had coming up in a few days."
"Eh, I can always look at my schedule tomorrow and figure it out."
"Typical," she laughs into the phone. "Anyway, I'm jealous you get to sleep in. My first class is an 8 am lecture on Monday. Gonna be all the new business majors in one room."
"All of you? At 8 in the morning?"
"Right?" she says with another laugh. "Someone told me they always put that class at 8 am. Must be some weird hazing ritual or something."
"Sounds awful." Natara hums her agreement.
Another silence expands between them. Mal wracks his brain quickly, trying to think of something else to say. The problem is he's already told her pretty much everything new that has happened. And it's not like how it was when they were in person, when he could hold her hand or kiss her during these silences. He lets out a quick sigh.
"I miss you," he says again, because it's the only thing he can think of.
"I miss you too," she repeats.
"No, I mean I really miss you." He misses being able to see her every day, or being able to talk to her whenever he wanted. He doesn't know how to explain it to her without sounding clingy. Or needy.
"I hear you," she says. "But we'll see each other soon enough. Thanksgiving will be here before you know it. And maybe I could take a train out there some weekend. I don't have any classes on Fridays, so we could get some extra time together."
"I'm planning on going home on the weekends," he says. "You know, to see my mom."
"Oh," she breathes, "right. Okay, well maybe I could go home for the weekend sometime too. My parents would probably love it."
"Yeah, maybe that could work," he says. "You don't have to promise anything, though. I know you're far away, and who knows how busy we'll be once the semester really gets going."
"Hey," she says, and her voice is suddenly much warmer than it had been a seconds ago. "We're gonna be fine. You said so yourself."
"I know," he says. "I should probably let you go, though. Don't want to run the phone bill up and all."
"Even if we do, it's worth it."
He really wants to tell her he loves her. But so far she's never seemed comfortable saying those words herself, and he doesn't want her to feel pressured to say them back. So he settles for a simple, "I'll talk to you later," and listens to her promise the same before he hangs up.
There's really nothing left to do for the rest of the day other than finish unpacking and sit around. Briefly he thinks maybe he should have gone to his orientation, if only for something to alleviate the boredom. But it's too late now, so he does his best to keep himself busy.
His roommate doesn't make an appearance until well after the sun has set. Mal's already changed into pajamas by that point, and is lounging on his bed when the door swings open and a hulking boy appears in the doorway.
"See you in a second!" the boy booms out into the hall before turning toward the room and spotting Mal. "Oh. Hey."
"Hey," Mal replies. "Uh. I guess we're roommates and all."
"Yeah, cool," the boy says. "I'm Ken."
"Mal."
Ken steps into the room and lets the door close behind him. The two of them eye each other, then Ken steps toward his side of the room and opens his dresser. But instead of pulling out pajamas, like Mal is expecting, he pulls out a pair of dark jeans and a shirt.
"You going somewhere?" he asks. He glances at the clock. It's nearly 10 pm.
"Oh, uh, yeah," Ken says with half a shrug. "I met some guys earlier who want to go out, see if we can get into one of the bars."
"A bar?" Mal asks.
"Yeah. I guess a lot of sorority girls go to one not too far from here. We're gonna go see if we can pick any of them up." Mal averts his eyes as Ken begins to change.
"You don't look like you're 21," he says. Ken turns and frowns at him.
"Of course I'm not," he says. "But a buddy of mine scored me a fake ID a while back."
"Oh. Gotcha."
"I'd invite you, but you look pretty cozy already," Ken says with a smirk. Now it's Mal's turn to frown.
"Yeah, well, I also don't have a fake ID," he says. "What I do have, though, is a girlfriend. So I guess I'm out on two counts."
"Guess so." Mal grits his teeth as Ken double checks his reflection in a mirror, then strides over to the door. "Catch you later."
"Sure."
Ken breezes back out through the door, and then he's alone again. Mal rolls his eyes, and tries to stamp down the wave of annoyance. He had heard roommate horror stories from Cynthia before, but he'd never put much stock in them. Perhaps, he thinks, maybe he should have. But there's nothing he can do about it now, so he resigns himself to curling up in bed and trying to fall asleep.
