Indifferent Confusion

Caleb was the youngest of four, he had two brothers and a sister. The brothers were both lawyers and his sister was studying to be a neurosurgeon. It sounded like he was the fuck up of the family to the extreme. He wanted to be a psychologist. He was seventeen and his favorite color was red.

Jeremy had two older sisters and a younger brother. One of his older sisters had two kids and the other was newly married. His younger brother was thirteen and loved to play soccer, a sport that they shared in common. He was sixteen, his favorite color was green, and he was gay. He waited for my reaction to that last one, but I had no problem with it. As I told him, homophobia is gay, to which he laughed and thanked me for understanding.

Riley had an older sister who was a professional swimmer which I thought was pretty intense, but he never really liked her. His mom bailed on him when he was two and he still blamed himself which, you know, I didn’t think he’s ever tell me. But what really surprised me was when he told me his father sexually abused him. Why he felt he could trust me with that, I wasn’t sure, but I wanted to help him with it for some reason. He was seventeen and his favorite color was orange.

Ashleigh didn’t really want to talk about himself all that much. I got the impression that even though he was really tough and intimidating, he was also shy and that he was hiding behind his tough guy exterior so that he wouldn’t get hurt. He did tell me that he came from a broken family. He had five brothers and two sisters, a father that was MIA, and a mom with a coke addiction. She was a former model so they had some money to live on, but all the kids had jobs. He was seventeen and his favorite color was black.

I was drawn to Ashleigh for some reason and I felt the need to help him, even though that was the last thing he wanted. It seemed like he could use a true and legit friend though, so I actually wanted to be a friend. That was weird and I wasn’t sure I liked it.

I was known as the apathetic bitch to everyone. Never did I care that my actions hurt other people and I never cared about my family. I was sarcastic and I liked it that way, but this place was messing with me and my apathy was seriously being questioned. Why the hell would I care about these guys that I just met? I didn’t like caring about people who weren’t Holden and I didn’t want to care about anyone else. Caring led to betrayal; I’d been through it all before and I didn’t want to go through it again. If people thought I was a bitch for it then so be it.

The five of us started talking about phobias and fears that we had and it was a really amusing situation. Caleb was afraid of spiders and dentists, Jeremy was afraid of crossing bridges and flying, Riley hated swimming (which I found hilarious since his sister was a swimmer) and didn’t like the color yellow. I agreed with him on that one, yellow was so gross. Ashleigh didn’t like pink (I agreed), hated seeing happy couples (I could see why), and absolutely could not stand even numbers. This made the guys start laughing at him, but I stared at him incredulously. He looked at me in questions so I told him that I hated them too.

He smiled at me. The first smile I saw from him and I enjoyed it, probably more than I should have. But at least I didn’t hate the people I was living with which was a bonus I didn’t think I’d have. I wondered why I couldn’t have found friends like that at home, but then I instantly stopped that line of thought. Friends were not going to work; they were only housemates.

I did find it ironic though, that these big, scary looking guys were afraid of such ordinary things. No one would expect someone like Caleb to hate spiders or someone that looked like Jeremy to be afraid of crossing bridges. And hating swimming seemed like a petty thing when one looked at Riley, but they were all legitimate problems. I found it reassuring that they wanted to tell me all of the stuff they told me.

Shane came into the house to see that we were all sitting in a circle talking like a bunch of little kids. I could see him rolling his eyes at us, but stood there watching us for a while. I thought that was kind of creepy, but, you know, what do I know? I figured it was better not to comment on that particular time.

“Alright you dorks, get up. We’re going to give Thunder here a tour. And I’m going to quiz all of you while we’re walking. It seems like you’ve become all cozy already,” he mocked. “I hope she hasn’t made you soft.”

“Oh yeah, because I’m really one of those kinds of girls,” I scoffed. “I wouldn’t be here if that was the case. I’m the girl with enough balls for this place, remember?”

“This is true. Come on, let’s go.”

So we took a tour of the grounds, complete with barbed wire fences of course. We all passed the how-well-do-you-know-your-roommates test with flying colors. A fact that made Shane pretty bitter, by the way. But he liked my witty sarcasm, I could tell. Even though he was trying to hide it, I knew he found it amusing and a refreshing change. It was my job (however unspoken) as the only girl there to make their lives more interesting. The job obviously didn’t pay, but I had a feeling it would be rather satisfying.