Fan Fiction ❯ Room 316 ❯ Chapter 1 ( Chapter 1 )

Room 316

Story and concept by

Desiree Dee Williams

Chapter 1

     "Move-in day, what a drag. The day you would find yourself stuck with people that you either got along great with, or learned to tolerate." That was a thought mutually shared by Duncan and Abby. Both were entering their sophomore year and had already gone through this process at previous institutions.

     Duncan made his deposit, then accepted his room assignment and key. Bundled down with his expansive amount of bags, he made his way to the elevator. As the doors slid shut, he relieved himself of the bags to check his room.

     "Room 316. Not bad. At least it isn’t the top floor." He punched his button, and reveled in the moment of rest his arms were receiving. Only to resume the role of pack mule when he reached his floor.

     Abby, on the other hand, stood cooly with nothing more than a tan sling purse hanging loosely off of her shoulder. When her turn came, she dropped the deposit, and snatched both the room key and assignment before she could be told otherwise. With that, she sashayed to the elevator. Looking down at her paper, she hit the button for the third floor.

     "Well, well, room 316. Can’t seem to get away from that number. Oh well, at least this time, I shouldn’t be so lonely." The doors before her opened wide to allow her exit. As she entered the hallway, she noticed a young man putting up a fight with a massive amount of luggage. She approached him. "Honey, this is the exact reason that I always travel light." He turned to look at her. His sandy blonde hair, and brown eyes seemed full of pleading, as if this were not the time to bother him. He had his room assignment gripped tightly in his mouth. "Here, let me give you a hand." She took the paper and read it. "Hey! Looks like we’ll be roomies." He just stared at her blankly for a moment. It wasn’t her ebony hair streaked with multiple colors, or even dark skin that had his attention. It was her amazingly blue eyes. "It’s nice to see a man that will actually look me in the face." She said playfully, breaking his study of her. "Ill go open the room, so you don’t have to lug all of those bags at once."

     "Thanks." He said dropping his bags, then nervously scratching the back of his head. Abby made the move for her key, but found that the door was already unlocked.

     "Strange." She whispered. No sooner had she said that, she heard a soft yelp, and a loud thud. She opened the door to find a laptop sitting on an already made bed that sat by the window. She noticed the mattress shaking slightly. "I know you’re in here. I didn’t mean to startle you." ‘Though how I managed that, is beyond me.’ She thought. What looked like a small pair of black ears poking up from the edge of the bed. Only to find that it was just the way the young woman staring cautiously at her wore her hair. "Hi, looks like we’re roommates." The girl’s sparkling green eyes darted from Abby’s hand to the door. Instead of returning the offered handshake, she grabbed the laptop and darted into the bathroom. "Hey wait." She was just too slow to catch her.

     "Who are you talking to?" Duncan stood in the doorway holding the largest of his bags.

     "It seems our room is at full occupancy," she pointed to the bathroom, "I don’t think I’m in good standing with number three."

     "Number three?" He contorted his face in confusion.

     "Yeah, I didn’t catch her name, and since she’s the last one of the three of us I’ve known...oh whatever." She waved him off. "Let’s get the rest of your stuff, and see if we can get her out of there."

     "Only if I get the middle bed." He teased. She pushed him, "By the way, I don’t think I caught your name." She looked at him, and gave a big smile.

"Sorry." She laughed and extended her hand. "The name’s Belinda Abigail Hildegarde, but you can call me Abby. Everyone else does." He accepted the shake.

     "Duncan E. Aubrey." He smiled back at her. "Nice to meet you." They walked back out into the hall and gathered the rest of his bags. "So, Abby, where’s your stuff?" She pointed to the room.

     "I’ve got my purse in the room, and there’s two days left until orientation. I’m going shopping as soon as we get your stuff in there." She began walking back, and turned her head to him. "Want to come with?"

     "As great as shopping sounds right now, I think I’ll just make my bed and crash. Besides, I don’t have the extra cash right now." They shut the door as they set down the bags.

     "Suit yourself." She shrugged and left out with her purse. Once she had closed the door, the room was silent. For a few moments, Duncan swore he heard a slight whimper coming from the bathroom. He shrugged it off and made his bed. Taking the middle one as he had said before. He plopped onto the mattress and attempted to get some rest. Still, it was not his destiny. A hard knock came to the door. He let out a heavy sigh and uprooted himself to answer it.

     "Who is it?" he asked groggily as he opened the door. A large man with dark hair and grey eyes pushed Duncan and the door out of the way and marched into the room. He glanced around with his nose slightly in the air. Duncan found this to be extremely odd. "Uh. Excuse me." He cocked his head to the side and put his hand on his hip. The large man just ignored him and rushed over to the bathroom door.

     "Deirdre!" He boomed and began banging on the door. "Come out here now! It’s Vince." His only response was a weak whine, Duncan could almost feel the fear pouring into the room to mix with the anger and tension the now named ‘Vince’ had brought with him. He was getting the impression that this guy wasn’t wanted, so he walked over and tapped the guy on the shoulder. Vince turned sharply with an evil glint in his eye. Normally this would intimidate someone, but Duncan wasn’t that easily intimidated.

    ;  "I think you should leave." He glared back. "Or I’ll call the Resident Adviser." Vince just smirked and laughed.

     "You fool, I am the RA." He glanced back at the door, then once again to Duncan. "If you even think about doing anything with her, you’re going to answer to me." It was Duncan’s turn to laugh.

     "I think you should worry more about yourself when it comes to me." With that, the confused Vince walked out and slammed the door. Duncan turned his attention to the sound of sobs coming from inside the bathroom. He leaned against the wall and slid down until he sat with his knees to his chest. He was quiet a moment, then tried to speak with her through the door. "So, you name’s Deirdre?" He got no real response, but the sobbing had stopped, so he guessed he was getting somewhere. "Was that guy like, your boyfriend or something?" This time he got an animal like scream and a kick to the door in response. "Okay. Touchy subject." He slowly stood up walked to his bed. ‘She’ll have to come out sometime.’ He thought. Reasoning that sleep would have to wait, he retrieved his phone card from his wallet, and dialed the number.

   &nbs p; After the dialing process was taken care of, the phone processed the call. It rang three times before bing picked up.

     "Hello?"

      "Hi, it’s Duncan."

     "I already told you it was over."

     "Thought you were just mad at me."

     "No, I am beyond mad. You leave my ass here in Wyoming just because of your selfish needs. Well, if I’m not involved, then you won’t look so selfish. Good bye!" The phone went dead with a slam.

     "Bye Charlie." He whispered to no one as he placed the phone back on the receiver. His face stared blankly towards the window. He was shattered inside. He and Charlie had fought, but he didn’t think that it was this serious. He had thought their relationship ran deeper than what school to go to. Just because Charlie went to a community college and he had received a scholarship that gave him a free ride to any school, as long as it was in the northeastern region of the United States. So absorbed in his thoughts he didn’t even notice the bathroom door creak open.

     She crept slowly into the room, and saw him on the bed. From the sound of his breathing she had thought him asleep, and assumed that it was safe to come out. The loud one called Abby wasn’t there. The sun shone through the window onto his face showing that he was actually awake, but when he didn’t react to her presence, cautiously gripping her laptop with one arm, and crawling with the rest of her limbs she slowly approached. She took a light sniff of the air. She squinted a bit. He smelt funny, but under that she could feel his sadness. She had heard the earlier conversation while recovering from her own ordeal. She felt somewhat for him, and knew that he was only trying to help her earlier. So, hoping he would hear, she did the one thing she rarely ever does. She spoke to him.

     "Deirdre, yes." She paused. "Vince, no." Her voice sounded whispered and forced, as if it hadn’t been used, but it did catch his attention. He sat up to look at her. Making sure to do it slowly as she still seemed a bit jumpy. Her black hair was styled with little cone shapes on the top of her head as the rest of her tresses flowed to her shoulders, contrasting with her pale skin. Her green eyes were a definite shock. No emerald had ever been so clear and pure. He would have thought them to be contacts if he didn’t know that even those couldn’t achieve such an effect. She looked quite strange. Almost like an animal, one clutching it’s young, the way she held onto that laptop. It seemed she was about to say more when her head jerked to the door. He too looked to see what was the matter, and when he saw nothing, he turned back to find her missing. Two seconds later, Abby flung open the door laden down with bags and bags of who knows what.

     Abby entered to see Duncan starring at the bathroom door.

     "Still in there huh?" She shook her head. "I’m sorry, but that’s just not normal." He snapped out of his trance and looked at her. She looked up to see his eyes sort of glaze over with tears.

     "Who are you to judge?" He asked sounding a little too practiced. She put up her hands in defense.

     "Gee, sorry, Mr. Sensitive." She looked him over again. "You look like you had your heart broken." He scoffed.

     "How would you know?" She cocked an eyebrow and sat down next to him on his bed.

     "Honey, it’s because I’ve broken enough of them myself to not know what it looks like." She rubbed his back as she spoke. "Do you want to talk about it? It’ll give us the chance to know each other better. Heck, number three might even decide to join." He looked at her.

     "It’s Deirdre, actually." She gave him a skeptical look.

     "So, she told you her name?" He shook his head.

     "Actually, no. Vince told me, or more shouted it at her through the door."

     "Who’s Vince?"

   &nbs p; "My guess is that he was an old and rather abusive boyfriend, she refused to come out when he screamed at her. He said he was the R.A." Abby held back a laugh.

     "I hate to tell you this, but our R.A. is named Gisele. I ran into her in the hall. So I think you should report him to her before this Vince guy decides to pull something like this again."

     "Maybe later, I just can’t bring myself to do anything right now." Abby continued to rub his back.

      "Do you think you could at least tell me about it?" She went to tousle his somewhat shaggy hair, when his hand shot up to stop her.

     "Charlie broke up with me." She gave him a pout.

     "And exactly how long were this Charlie and you together?" He hung his head.

     "Three years, next week."

     "High school sweetheart, huh?"

     "Yeah, I guess you could say that. Charlie was forced to go to a community college, where I spent last year as well. Then, I got this scholarship that gave me a full ride to any college or university that I chose, but it had to be in the northeastern area of the country. I kind of saw it as a way out of the piddling town in Wyoming that we grew up in. Charlie saw it as me trying to leave him behind. He called me selfish, and now refuses to even speak with me further on the subject." Abby coughed a bit.

     "I’m sorry, I thought you just said he."

     "Yeah, I did, Charlie and I were supposed to be life mates, but I guess that’s not happening." He drooped his head down to show his depression.

     "No worries, I’m sure you’ll find yourself a boyfriend before I will." She shrugged it off.

He chuckled a bit. "There you go. I knew you could get through it."

     "I’m not laughing at that. Just the fact that you don’t truly understand. I don’t just date. With Charlie, we had casually known each other for a while, and well we gave one another the power to come out to our parents, and we were there for each other when they kicked us out. He was there for me. I had some problems growing up, and he was always behind me." He glared and pointed at her. "And don’t you dare laugh about that." She held her hands up in innocence.

     "No jokes from me." She stated, "so, what are you majoring in that brought you out here?" He chuckled again.

     "Oddly enough, Psychology." She looked at him.

     "Well, I guess it’s my turn." She paused a moment. With her finger on her chin. "Okay, Well I guess I should say that I’m from Philadelphia, I’m here on my Daddy’s bank account. Thus all of the shopping." She pointed to her bags. "Currently, I’m an undeclared, unattached, undergraduate. I’m a Daddy’s girl and not afraid to admit to it. He’s freaking out because this year I decided on a shared room instead of a private one. My parents were never really around, but always did their best to make time for me." She shrugged again. "Outside of my good looks, and charming sense of humor, I guess that’s it."

    & nbsp;"That doesn’t make me feel any better." He sighed. Abby was quiet a moment.

     "Well, all I can say is that you don’t have to feel guilty if you fall in love with me."

     "I think I’d have more luck with Vince." This caused Abby to laugh, even a slight sound that bordered on snorting and gagging came from behind the door.

     "Guess, I’m not the only comedian." She said. Then lower. "Do you think she heard us talking?"

     "Abby, no offense, but I’m sure the entire side of the dorm heard you." She giggled and covered her mouth.

     "Sorry." The two of them laughed, and finished putting away all that they had brought.

***

     After they had settled in, Abby introduced Duncan to Gisele. She was a Plump woman in her mid twenties. Who insisted in calling him ‘cutie.’ She had hair the equivalent of brimstone, and hazel eyes that didn’t quite match. Her rather white skin was peppered in freckles. When she heard about the incident with Vince, she was quite distraught. She had been warned in advance to keep an eye out for him. Apparently there was a restraining order on him to keep her safe. He was some kind of stalker, but since he was not enrolled in the school, she did not think the danger would have been as great. She thanked Duncan and said that she would be more alert, while keeping security informed.

     It was Duncan who came in first. He came in just in time to see Deirdre rush back into the bathroom. He stepped in to see there was a disk on his bed. The simple print on the label was ‘READ THIS.’ He ticked it into his pants pocket just as Abby walked in.

     "Looks like she came out." Duncan stiffened.

     "What makes you say that?" She walked into the kitchen and came out with an empty can of soda.

     "Seems she’s only human after all." A squeak was heard from the bathroom.

     "What’s so definitive about a soda? Anybody drinks those. Besides, they are hers. Speaking of which, I’m hungry. We need to get some shopping done," he turned to Abby. "Unless you plan on buying for us every night." She shrugged again.

     "Okay, I can afford it." She grabbed her purse and headed for the door. "By the way, I’m driving."

     "By the way," Duncan laughed, "I don’t have a car." After the door closed behind her, Duncan took out the disk and stuck it under his pillow. Then, he took a pen and a small pad of paper. On one piece he wrote. ‘Would you like a burger?’ He slipped the pad and pen under the door. They came back reading ‘NO MEAT. NOT HUNGRY.’ The lines were a bit shaky, but he shrugged and said good bye. He left the apartment and locked the door. Then, looking at it again, he wasn’t so sure that Vince guy wouldn’t be back, so he stuck his hand out and began to concentrate, muttering something under his breath. Just as he completed this little ritual, Abby came around the corner.

     "Are you coming or not?"