MidReal Story

Cuddles with My Hot Roommate

Anonymous

Scenario:Tina and I have lived together in the same dorm room for almost a year. We don't get along very well due to Tina's very complex character. She never watches her words, calls me names, and finds ways to quarrel with me over everything. It’s 2 a.m. now, hours since our last fight. I’m lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, but insomnia keeps me awake. Suddenly, an awkward but quite loud knock is heard on the door. Here the door opens a little and the top of Tina's head appears from there. "Are you sleeping? No? I knew you weren't sleeping." She walks into the room, closing the door behind her, her pillow in her hands, her hair disheveled as if she had been wrestling with someone in the bed. "Look... Just don't laugh, okay, idiot. But can I sleep here tonight? I... I just can't. I need company, maybe a little cuddle, I feel calmer this way." Her face is slightly red, she looks at me with a calm and tired face. "Just don't think that I'm a small and helpless girl, got it, nerd?" She shifts awkwardly from one foot to the other and then adds "Well then...can I?"

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Tina and I have lived together in the same dorm room for almost a year. We don't get along very well due to Tina's very complex character. She never watches her words, calls me names, and finds ways to quarrel with me over everything. It’s 2 a.m. now, hours since our last fight. I’m lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, but insomnia keeps me awake. Suddenly, an awkward but quite loud knock is heard on the door. Here the door opens a little and the top of Tina's head appears from there. "Are you sleeping? No? I knew you weren't sleeping." She walks into the room, closing the door behind her, her pillow in her hands, her hair disheveled as if she had been wrestling with someone in the bed. "Look... Just don't laugh, okay, idiot. But can I sleep here tonight? I... I just can't. I need company, maybe a little cuddle, I feel calmer this way." Her face is slightly red, she looks at me with a calm and tired face. "Just don't think that I'm a small and helpless girl, got it, nerd?" She shifts awkwardly from one foot to the other and then adds "Well then...can I?"

Chanel Windsor

college student, roommate to Tina, average height with curly brown hair, introverted and analytical

Neil Jensen

mutual friend of Chanel and Tina, tall with glasses and a friendly smile

Tina Rodriguez

college student, roommate to Chanel, petite with straight black hair, outspoken and complex

I hated Tina.

No, that wasn’t enough.

I loathed Tina.

Detested her.

Abhorred her.

Hated was too small of a word to describe my feelings for my so-called roommate.

We had been paired together our freshman year, and I had thought it was going to be okay.

I mean, she was nice, a little pushy and aggressive, but I figured we could find common ground.

We were both girls, both attending college.

We should have been able to find something in common with which to base our relationship.

But we hadn’t.

Tina had turned out to be the most complex, infuriating, contradictory person I had ever met.

She was a walking oxymoron, and no matter how hard I tried, I could never figure her out.

She was a good person, but she had a mean streak.

She was aggressive, but she was also passive.

She was nice, but she was cruel.

She was smart, but she was stupid.

She was confident, but she was timid.

I had never met anyone like her before, and I had no idea how to deal with her.

So I didn’t.

I ignored her as much as I could, and when I couldn’t ignore her, I tried to avoid arguing with her.

But that wasn’t always possible either.

We had already gotten into three fights this week, and it was only Tuesday.

I sighed and stared up at the ceiling.

It was two a.m. now, and I still wasn’t able to fall asleep.

The insomnia that had plagued me since high school was still there, and it didn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. My eyes were tired, my body was tired, my mind was tired, but I couldn’t fall asleep.

I had tried warm milk, then cold milk, then hot chocolate, then tea.

I had tried reading a book, then listening to music.

I had tried counting backwards from one hundred, then from one thousand.

I had even tried the old stand-by of reciting the alphabet backwards as fast as I could while trying to remember every single thing that had happened to me in the last year. But nothing seemed to work tonight.

My mind just wouldn’t shut off and let me sleep.

And then there was a knock on the door.

Not a loud knock, but an awkward one that sounded almost like someone kicking the door instead of knocking on it.

I sat up in bed and looked over at Tina’s bed as the door opened a crack and her head appeared through it.

"Are you sleeping?" she asked softly.

"No," I said automatically before I realized that she might have been asking so that she could sneak in and attack me while I slept.

But Tina didn’t look like she wanted to attack me right now; she looked like she wanted something else entirely.

She walked into the room slowly, closing the door behind her and leaning against it for a second before pushing off and coming over to my bed.

Her pillow was in her hands. "Look... Just don't laugh, okay, idiot," she said quietly as she walked over to my bed.

"I knew you weren't sleeping."

She stood by the side of my bed, her pillow clutched tightly against her chest, and looked at me with a strange expression on her face.

The light from my desk lamp made shadows on her face, accentuating the dark circles under her eyes and the slight smudge of yesterday’s eyeliner that was still on her lids.

She had been wearing the same clothes she had worn earlier that day when we had gotten into a fight over her "borrowing" my clothes without asking me first.

But right now, I couldn’t even be mad at her about it.

She looked too tired, too sad.

Her usual aggressive demeanor was gone, and in its place was a quiet vulnerability that I had never seen before.

I stared at her for a long time, wondering what to do.

My bed was narrow; it was only meant to hold one person, not two.

But Tina looked like she needed someone to hold her tonight. I pressed myself up against the wall as tightly as I could, feeling the cold surface of it against my back, and then patted the empty space beside me.

Tina hesitated for a second before putting down her pillow and crawling onto the bed beside me.

We lay there in silence for a long time, the only sound in the room coming from the ticking clock on my desk and Tina’s quiet breathing as she drifted off to sleep.