Chapter Four: What Is and What Should Never Be
The first year of university had been a complete and total shock for both Casey and Derek. Neither of them had found what they had been expecting. Casey had an idealistic view of her college experience. She'd assumed that her classes would be both interesting and challenging and that the class lectures would be stimulating and thought-provoking. She envisioned her roommate becoming her best friend. She thought there would be countless nights when they would stay up just a little bit too late talking about anything and everything. Instead, she got classes that were barely more stimulating than her high school courses, most of her teachers spent the entire time talking at the students, not bothering to engage them in a discussion of any kind. And because the classes were so easy, Casey found herself with a lot of spare time to spend in her room with an utterly obnoxious roommate. The girl came home at all hours of the night, had zero respect for Casey's personal space, and disrupted Casey's sleep on a regular basis by blasting her music or talking on the phone too loudly.
On the other hand, Derek had expected college to be a four-year extension of high school. He thought that he would once again be worshiped as a hockey god, being able to walk onto the team and take his usual place as a starter. (He was, after all, at the university on a hockey scholarship. And they obviously wouldn't have given him one if they didn't want him to play). When he wasn't playing hockey, he fully expected to be dating a different girl every week. There was a whole dating pool of beautiful girls at university that he had yet to dive into. And those pesky classes? He figured he'd put in an appearance once in a while and talk his way into his professors' good graces if any of them got too persnickety about it. After all, professors didn't really care if you actually showed up to class as long as the university got your money, right? There was nothing that Derek Venturi couldn't talk his way through. Unfortunately, none of his professors had fallen for his smooth-talking routine and he'd quickly figured out that he'd have to put in some actual work in his classes to remain eligible for his hockey scholarship. His other major disappointment was that he hadn't just been able to walk into a starting spot on the hockey team. Those spots were already taken by the senior players. The one bright spot was that Derek was the only freshman to earn himself a place on the team's second string. He would still be able to see some time on the ice and would most likely become a starter the following year once those seniors graduated.
But Derek and Casey weren't the only two that were in for some university surprises. The entire Venturi/McDonald family (as well as most of Derek and Casey's friends) had been shocked when Derek and Casey announced that they'd chosen to attend the same university. After three years of Derek and Casey living in the same house and going to the same school (and at each other's throats for every second of those three years), everyone around them assumed they would jump at the opportunity to get as far away from each other as possible.
But Derek and Casey both adamantly insisted that they wouldn't let the other person keep them from going to their desired university. Both kept insisting that they were going to a large university and that they would see each other so rarely that it would be like they were going to different schools. Casey had no desire to set foot in the hockey arena and Derek was adamant about never having to spend a minute in the library. What they hadn't counted on was that they would be right back where they started at home: Sharing a bathroom and the wall between their bedrooms.
That particular shock had come midway through summer when Casey and Derek received their housing information in the mail. They'd been appalled to realize that they were living in the same dorm and on the same floor on top of that. Neither of them was willing to admit that their rooms would be right next to each other, despite the fact that the room numbers were only one apart. Derek reasoned that they probably separated the guys and girls and that their rooms had to be in two different parts of the floor while Casey insisted that a responsible university would never allow boys and girls to live so closely together, especially with the "raging hormones" that were so characteristic of college students.
Unfortunately, their fears were confirmed on the day they moved in. That was the day that they were forced to confront the facts that the university did, in fact, allow boys and girls to live so closely together and that their respective rooms were not in different sections of the floor. This revelation was met with a groan and a few choice curse words from Derek, a sort of strangled sounding shriek from Casey, nervous looks between George and Nora, and nothing but laughter from Edwin, Lizzie, and Marti (which was promptly followed by the three of them running back to the car out of fear at the glares shot in their direction coming from Casey and Derek).
As it turned out, sharing a bathroom with Derek in the dorms wasn't that different from sharing a bathroom with him at home. They still managed to get in each other's way, even if they were the only two people in a bathroom that was designed for a whole floor of students, which happened more often than they liked to admit since Casey worked in the library every morning before class (taking full advantage of the quiet study time she'd get since no other students were crazy and/or desperate enough to go to the library that early outside of finals week) and Derek had early morning hockey practices every day.
"Derek!" She screeched one morning, drawing out the syllables in his name like she usually did. "Would you please keep your shaving cream to yourself?" she requested tersely after a glob of the stuff came flying at her from Derek's direction, landing on her cheek. She pointedly wiped the shaving cream off of her face and angrily shook it off of her hand into Derek's sink. The dollop made a soft plopping sound as it hit the water.
"Sorry, I slipped," he mumbled through a mouthful of toothpaste, not sounding the least bit apologetic. A second later he spat out the toothpaste, narrowly missing spitting it onto Casey's hand.
"Gross, Derek! You did that on purpose!" Casey screeched, sticking her hand under the stream of water coming from the faucet in front of Derek and splashed some in his face in retaliation.
"Real mature, Case," he said dryly.
Casey let out a cry of frustration but didn't say anything back. Instead, she finished washing her face, taking care to make sure that she got rid of all the shaving cream flung her way. When she was done with that, she grabbed her hairdryer and went to plug it into one of the outlets in the bathroom. Of course, at that exact same moment, Derek decided to do the same thing.
"I was here first!" Derek declared and they both tried to plug their dryers in. It wasn't so much the fact that they both couldn't plug their hairdryers into the same outlet, it was a matter of them being able to share the same space while drying their hair.
"Oh, now who's mature?" muttered Casey.
"Go use the other outlet," Derek grumbled, pointing to one on the wall across from them while pulling Casey's hairdryer out of the outlet.
"It's broken," she replied, replacing the cord. "And I need to dry my hair. It'll freeze outside today."
"Oh right, because the hockey rink is so warm. You spend a few hours with wet hair in there and see how you like it."
Casey didn't bother to respond. She just turned on her hairdryer and got to work. A few seconds later she heard an outraged yelp from Derek.
"What now?" she groaned, turning her dryer off to hear his answer.
"You got me in the face with the hairdryer. See how you like it," he retorted and turned the hot air from his dryer on her. Before they realized what was happening, they were in the middle of a full-out hairdryer war, trying to see who could get the other person the most with the hot air from the dryer. More often than not Derek aimed for Casey's hair in an attempt to mess it up, but she usually managed to jump aside before he could do too much damage. Halfway through the fight, their cries of annoyance became laughter.
Neither of them realized they had an audience until they heard the clapping. They turned around to see Tanya standing behind them in her bathrobe and shower shoes, shower caddy by her feet. Tanya was a girl who lived on their floor a few rooms down from them. She was probably one of the nicest people on the floor and was liked by just about everyone.
"Anyone ever tell you that you fight like an old married couple?" she asked.
"How much of that did you see?" asked Casey.
"Enough to see that you two fight like an old married couple," Tanya smirked and stepped into a shower stall and started the water before either Derek or Casey could reply. Though the fact that Tanya couldn't hear them over the running water still didn't stop Derek from muttering that she hadn't answered the question.
Casey and Derek quickly finished getting ready for the day. Casey gathered up all of her stuff and shot Derek a glare on her way out of the bathroom, trying to keep a straight face to show him that even though she was laughing by the end of the fight, she was still annoyed with him for getting in her way.
That was how things went for them for the majority of their first semester at university. They would continue to get in each other's way, clashing on almost a daily basis. But when the time came for them to go home for Christmas and winter break, their fights had less animosity to them. There were still times where Casey wanted to throttle Derek and plenty of instances where Derek wanted to wring Casey's neck, but those times were becoming fewer and further between by the end of the semester. And more often than not, their fights had a little bit of fun mixed in, especially if you asked their friends that lived on the same floor as Derek and Casey. Any one of them would tell you that by the end of a Derek/Casey squabble, both parties would walk away trying to suppress a large grin, a sure sign that there was more to their arguments than met the eye.
Re-uploaded with minor updates November 2022.
