Authors: Carmella Jones
Chapter 2
Ethyl
“So, which of you is the roommate,” I asked.
“That would be me,” the girl said, lifting a hand slightly.
The guy and I laughed.
“I was joking. All girls dorm, remember? I was having a crack at your boyfriend over the smelly joke reference,” I said.
I laughed a little more and came into the room. I placed the last duffel bag from my car on the bed. This one held neatly arranged everyday clothes, sandals, and such. I liked things in their place. My parents always called me “disciplined.” I just think I’m a little more organized. I started unpacking on one side of the room. We each had a bed, open closet, and desk. There was a bathroom and showers on every floor.
I turned to look at the girl I would be rooming with and the guy standing beside her. I would have guessed they were brother and sister if I’d seen any parents in the room, but there weren’t. He looked like a handsome small-town type. She looked the female equivalent, but with some barely perceptible difference. There was something on her mind. His mind, like his eye, wandered to the girls walking by in the hall. She didn’t notice.
“I’m Ethyl,” I said, shaking both of their hands.
“My name is Rebecca; this is my boyfriend Scott,” the girl said.
She stepped closer to him and held his hand. Straight. Oh, well.
“You have a lot of sports equipment. I played baseball and ran cross country through middle and high school. What do you play?” Scott asked.
“I play volley ball, soccer, run track, and swim. Now that I’m in college I’ll keep playing soccer and doing swim team, but everything else will be intramurals,” I said.
“When will you have time to study?” Rebecca asked.
She looked at me like I was trying to carry every bag from the grocery store at once when it was clearly two trips.
“You’ll come to see I’m very organized,” I said.
In high school I was voted Most Athletic and Most Likely to Succeed. If there were a category, I would have also been voted most gay. I had kissed someone on each team I had been on, a cheerleader or two, and a few other girls in high school.
“I’m not a slob, but I wouldn’t say I’m very organized either,” Rebecca said.
She had a few suitcases to unpack. It looked like she had taken folded things out of drawers to fill one, bundled things that had been on hangers into another, and the last was an overnight bag loaded with toiletries and product.
“Well, I’m sure we will get along fine either way,” I said.
After years of sharing locker rooms and growing up with two sisters and two brothers, there weren’t many living arrangements that I couldn’t manage. At least she appeared mostly organized.
“Well, it looks like you two are off to a good start. I’m going to go find my room and meet my roommate. Want to get some dinner somewhere on campus in a few hours?” Scott asked Rebecca.
“Yeah, that sounds good,” she replied.
“Do you want to join us?” he asked me.
I looked at them both for a moment. Rebecca gave me an encouraging nod.
“Sure, a girl’s got to eat. Maybe we can walk the campus after,” I suggested.
We all shared a nod, Rebecca and Scott shared a quick kiss, and then he left. Rebecca and I continued unpacking and decorating our room. She had a lot of photos of herself with Scott. I had a lot with teammates and old girlfriends. We shared a few stories along with the pictures.
“So, have you always dated girls?” Rebecca asked.
“Pretty much. I kissed a boy in fifth grade. Never kissed another since. I take it you and Scott are a power couple where you come from,” I replied.
“He’s just always been there. We’ve always been Scott and Becca,” she replied with a shrug.
We talked a bit more, then roamed the halls of our dorm meeting other students who lived with us. She was friendly, but I could tell she was feeling like a small fish in a big pond where all the other were fish swimming with strokes she had only imagined.
“I think a lot of people in our dorm are lesbians,” Rebecca whispered after we met a few more girls.
“They are. This school ranks well in the Campus Pride Index,” I replied, not whispering.
“What’s that?” she asked, in normal volume again.
“It’s an organization that ranks schools and communities for their acceptance and programs for LGBT students,” I said simply.
“Wow, I didn’t know there was a group that did that,” she said.
“Yeah, part of the reason I chose this school was the thriving queer and gender fluid community. That and their sports and recreation programs. Why did you and Scott pick this school?” I asked.
“I’m a dual major in fine arts. I paint and play piano. Scott wants to be a city commissioner some day and is working on a degree in political science with a minor in economics,” she replied. “The professors in those programs got good scores on ratemyprofessor.com.”
“Interesting. Well, I imagine we will have something in common and in other areas we can learn from each other. I suck at English classes and have Composition I this semester.”
“I would like to lose a little weight. Maybe I can join you working out sometime,” she suggested.
We smiled and shook on it. Then we went downstairs to relax at the picnic tables outside the dorm until Scott returned.
Chapter 3
Rebecca
Time seemed to move quickly as I spent the afternoon with Ethyl. As we made our way down to the picnic area near our dorm, we met a lot of the girls living on our hall and in our building. Our RA was a junior studying hotel and restaurant management. She seemed like she had a knack for playing hostess and den mother. Her door remained open all afternoon and she had cookies she had baked in the dorm kitchen available with juice or ginger ale. We met dance majors and biologists, freshmen and upperclassmen, and a few lingering parents and significant others.
Ethyl checked out some of the girls we met, but didn’t make me feel awkward about things.
“It’s good you ask questions. I knew I wanted a women’s dorm, but I also knew the college was predominantly hetero. I like all people, but when you fish you go where they are biting,” she said with a laugh.
She was doing chair dips in a leisurely manner as we talked. She seemed to always be moving, even in the brief time I had known her. I sat and tried not to stare.
“I suppose I have never really thought about things that way. I’ve never fished, for anything,” I said. “Either way, my mom would have wanted me in a women’s dorm first year.”
“Well, you and Scott will still have plenty of time for extracurriculars,”she said.
She gave a small thrusting motion to underline her joke.
“Oh, yeah. You won’t have to worry about leaving the room for that. We haven’t reached that point yet, but I told him today I think I want to work our way into the next stage of our relationship,” I replied.
“Really? He’s been that patient? He loves you or he’s gay. I get waiting when you’re young and boyfriends and girlfriends come and go, but why wait with a guy you have been with for so long?” Ethyl asked.
I sat up on the picnic table bench I had previously been lying on as we talked. She stopped pseudo-exercising and sat across from me.
“It really is all me. He’s been ready, but like you said, he’s been patient. He understands we are young and I’m nervous about that first time and how it could change what we’ve had so happily all this time,” I said.
“Well, fair enough. I have kissed more than my fair share of girls, women, but my first lover was also my first real girlfriend. We were both fully out. She was seventeen and I had just turned sixteen. We had been together for two years. I’ve only slept with two other women besides her. I knew I loved her. I wanted to love them. Everything before that point should have a boundary,” she said, nodding in understanding.
“Well, that’s the thing. I love Scott. I know I love Scott. I just don’t feel that I’m in love with Scott. I don’t desire him the way I think an eighteen-year-old girl who’s loved a boy her whole life should, but he is my best friend. He’s the only person I have ever felt any kind of feeling for. The thing is, in college, I don’t think waiting will be as easy. Not when I look around me,” I said.
“I guess it is important that you are concerned about it and want to work on it. I wouldn’t put so much pressure on it, if I were you. A lot can happen in college. It may make the biggest difference just being away from home,” she said.
She smiled and I felt reassured and relaxed. She stood and waved. I looked to see Scott was walking toward us across the grass.
I whispered, “That all stays between me and you. Scott is cool about waiting, but it’s something everyone knew back home. He said he feels a little awkward here having a long-term girlfriend but being a college virgin. And it’s not that we haven’t done anything. We just haven’t rounded all the bases.”
“Every person and relationship is different,” she nodded, still smiling toward Scott.
Then I walked forward to meet Scott for his last few steps and end the conversation.
I always told Scott I was not ready. Back home, we told people we were waiting. I just told Ethyl parts of the truth, but the whole truth was my own secret. I loved Scott and felt I owed something to his expectations, our friendship, and history. How could I tell him I wasn’t ready, because my only sexual urges were for other girls? I knew that would hurt both our reputations in a small town. Now, what would that do to us in college?
Chapter 4
Ethyl
Rebecca had told me some interesting things about her relationship with Scott as soon as we moved in together, but everything I saw in the first few weeks of us living together told me even more. I don’t know if it was because their old town was smaller than I initially imagined, or if college was bringing things out in them, but to me it was clear that more was going on in their relationship than even they realized.
Scott seemed to long for Rebecca, but also seemed to be approaching a point where he might want to bow out gracefully. Each time she missed one of his romantic hints I could see disappointment in his face. Rebecca looked so trapped in her own mind that she couldn’t focus on what was happening in front of her.
Oddly enough, my friendship with Scott was taking off. We bonded over our majors having some overlap and our interest in running. We ran together and had a class together twice a week. Rebecca and I lived together, she tutored me, and I pushed her to go to yoga with me every other morning. Eventually, she started going every day.
“Wake up, Eth,” she said.
“What, did I oversleep?” I asked.
“No, it’s Saturday. I thought we could go out today,” Rebecca said.
“Don’t you and Scott have plans?” I asked.
Usually I gave them Saturday for couple things and I hung out with some of the other people I had gotten to know. I hadn’t really been interested in dating the first year of college. I was also enjoying spending time with Scott and Rebecca, though we seemed to spend less time with all three of us together as the weeks progressed. One of them would need to study and couldn’t make dinner or would have a group assignment.
“He said he wanted a day with some of the guys from his building,” she replied.
“I bet that’s going to be fun. I wonder if they will play any good games or troll sports bars a few blocks over. We could crash in this afternoon, if Scott doesn’t mind,” I suggested.
“Nah, he seemed to really want the guy time,” she said, sitting on the edge of my bed now.
“Fair enough,” I replied.
I scooted to the top half of the bed on one side to sit up. She repositioned to sit on the opposite side at the opposite end. She had already been up long enough to get dressed in jeans and a plain yellow, fitted V-neck shirt. She always wore her hair down, except when we went to yoga. I had slept in pajama bottoms and a sports bra.
“So, Scott is making some friends in his dorm?” I asked.
“Actually, I made him spend the day with his roommates and get to know some more guys from his dorm,” she admitted.
She was staring at my comforter as she talked.
“Any particular reason why?” I asked.
“Well, I feel like he might do well to meet new people. Our lives have always been so wrapped up in each other. I think it would be good for him to explore new friendships,” she said.
“You mean new relationships all around, don’t you?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she said.
She wanted him to break up with her. She was pushing him away so she didn’t have to be the bad guy.
“Well, I think your plan is working,” I said.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Over the weeks I’ve known you both, the relationship you talked about having and the one I have been watching are two different things. He loves you, but he can tell your heart is not in it. You seem to have so much going on in your own head that are you constantly letting him down gently, in a way,” I said.
I didn’t want to just say flat out that she acted uninterested and like she humored a sense of obligation.
“He does love me,” Rebecca said.
She got off the bed and straightened herself up. Then she looked at me.
“It’s still early. Maybe we could join him. He’d be glad if we did. He hates his roommate,” she said.
“Yes, it is still early. If he’s as uninterested in guy time with his dorm friends as you think, we can still take him out for a great day. If you really want to ease him into the idea of you two being just friends, I think I have some ideas for what we can do where he might meet girls he would want to get to know as well,” I said. “I do think the best thing you could do is be honest with him.”
“I’m still not sure I’m all the way ready to be honest with myself,” Rebecca said.
I gave her my best confused face and she shook her head.
“Maybe another time,” she said. “Get dressed.”