Communication

In the middle of my third panic attack of the year, my roommate flew across the room and had me cornered in .1 seconds flat. I screamed, thus alerting the whole of Phillips hall that something was amiss in room 221, and then cowered.

Brooke did not seem to have expected this reaction. She backed off, confused, and looked at Hannah.

“I told you she was a vampire!” I squeaked. “Did you see what she just did, she just leapt across the room—”

“Rebekah,” Hannah said, “breathe.”

I am not a very good breather. I stared at the two of them and took large gulps of air. Brooke turned to Hannah. “This happened with my last roommate, too. I would jump on and off the bed, and it scared Nicole for the first two weeks.”

“Nicole told me that,” I said, clutching my heart. “I remember.”

Brooke smiled. She doesn’t smile often enough, but when she does it lights up her entire face. “Come on,” she said, “we’re watching an anime. Do you want to join?”

I thought for a moment. I could either A) Rework my Guantanamo Bay paper, B) go on blackboard and check out my homework, or C) Continue writing the short I’d been working on at the Bean ten minutes ago.

I’d just gotten back from hanging out with my fellow Writing Center tutors, Sarah, Laura, and Brooke, at the Bean in Plymouth, which is where hipsters like to go and hang out. While I was in Northern Ireland, the three of them had started supplementary Madonna Pen meetings, and upon my return they had invited me to tag along. So Sarah drove Laura and I to the Bean, where we all got tea lattes, and then we waded through the crowded rooms to the Green Room, where Brooke was sitting and writing diligently in a pink pen. After a few false starts, I’d managed to write a semi-decent poem and the beginnings of something that might be able to work out, and I was hoping to write more of it.

“Oh, why not,” I said, plunking myself down on the floor, my notebook in front of me. Brooke hit play, and immediately I said, “So, what is this show about?”

Hannah and Brooke sighed loudly, and then turned to me and explained the plot.

After a few more false starts, we finally got the anime going, and watched it through. I was good and kept quiet the whole time.

When it was over, Hannah and I caught up on The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and then she headed home. Brooke and I walked her down to the front desk, where the British basketball player was sitting, manning the fort. He used to intimidate me because he was British, but he doesn’t anymore. Besides, I can actually get more than two words out of him at a time—Sarah says that that’s an accomplishment. (I think she and Laura are just afraid to talk to him, though.)

Anyway, the British guy signed Hannah out, and we took turns hugging her good-bye, and then Brooke mentioned that there was going to be a Campus Ministry meeting on Thursday.

“No there isn’t,” I said, “It was last Thursday.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Brooke asked, and then she stormed off in fake disappointment.

I said good-bye to Hannah, who told me I should learn to Communicate, and then I ran off after my wayward vampire roommate.

She had been skulking around, not moving very quickly at all, because I caught up with her at the top of the stairs. “Brooke!” I shouted firmly. “Brooke…what’s your middle name?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“SO I CAN YELL AT YOU.”

I chased her down the hall, and then ran into the room, and I yelled at her, and tried to guess her middle name. Then I quieted down and apologized for not telling her about the Campus Ministry meeting, and wrote her a list titled COMMUNICATION so that she knows how I operate.

Sarah came by a few minutes later, probably to see if we had killed each other yet. But we were each sitting on our beds, meek as mice and innocent as angels, plotting mischief in our heads.