Love's Not A Competition

It was just another day at school. I was walking back to my dorm room when Eric ran up to me. He had been my best friend since we first enrolled at this school. We had been standing next to each other in line to sign The Contract when I had dropped my pen. We had both bent down to pick it up and ended up smacking heads. Holding our heads, we grinned and introduced ourselves. Eric was a very enthusiastic sports player. His favorite sport is soccer; he plays it non-stop and wishes to get into a national team when we graduate. We were in our second year here, still getting used to this place.

You see, our school isn’t the normal boarding school. It was a co-ed boarding school and so were the dorm rooms. The contract we had to sign on the very first day insured that there would be no intimate relationships behind closed doors. If you didn’t agree to this you could have a single room or share a room with the same gender. When I told my friends from my hometown about this they thought it was crazy, who wouldn’t? But our teachers want us to have ‘healthy relationships with the opposite sex’. The only reason my parents let me attend is because I missed out that piece of information. They think the girls and boys are living in separate buildings not sharing rooms.

It was all done by alphabetical order, that’s how I ended up sharing a room with Zeke Carlton. He was obnoxious, egotistical and completely unreasonable. I don’t even know how the teachers could think any girl would get along with him but he was the hottest guy in school, girls totally love the cocky, selfish type at this school.

“Jas, you really shouldn’t space out while you are walking.”

I hit Eric playfully and he fell into step beside me. Eric is a really great friend. He’s kind, caring, funny and completely the opposite of Zeke. Eric has spiky blonde hair and light blue eyes; his body is lean and muscled from all the sports he plays. I liked his laugh the most, his wholehearted, stomach clenching laugh. Sometimes I think that I have a crush on Eric but then I remember the pain from liking someone and push it out of my head.
“See you at dinner,” he laughed as he walked away.

I turned into my dorm room, room 205, and immediately silently screamed. Zeke had dumped clothes all over the floor and hadn’t bothered to make his bed. I climbed up the ladder that led to my bed and flopped onto it. I could hear the shower running in the joint bathroom and figured Zeke had to be in there. I hated sharing a bathroom with him; he always hogged the mirror. For a boy he sure did spend a lot of time in front of the mirror fixing his hair. I pushed my curly blonde hair away from my face and waited for him to finish his shower. I pulled my books out of my bag and made a start on my homework. It was a Friday night and I had nothing better to do than homework. I mean, I had friends and a social life but after spending a whole day with them you want some free time to yourself.

“You’re such a loser.”

I ignored Zeke’s comment and continued on the essay I was writing for history. I hadn’t even heard him come out of the bathroom and when I looked up I quickly looked away again. He always walked around with just a towel on and it was hard not to look at his body. His rock hard abs, smooth skin and toned arms. His short black hair flopped into his sky blue eyes. I watched him with my own blue eyes as he pulled on jeans without removing his towel. He smirked when he saw me watching.

“If you want me all you have to do is ask, I would be happy to comply,” he said.

“You wish,” I sneered, turning back to my homework.

He pulled my book off my bed and started reading my essay. I practically fell the five feet to the ground as I tried to grab the book back. I snatched the book out of his fingers, having to stand on my toes to reach it as he held it in the air. I was short for my age, only 5’4 while both Zeke and Eric are 6 feet tall.

There was a knock on the door as I climbed back up the ladder to my bed. Zeke pulled it open and sighed when he saw who it was. My other good friend, Brittney, walked into the room. Her long blonde hair was tied back from her face and she climbed the ladder up to my bed. I shut the curtains that gave me hardly any privacy and we smiled at each other.

“You’ll never guess what,” she said, her Canadian accent still strong after a year here.

“What?” I asked, excited.
“My roommate’s moving out,” she grinned.
“Are you serious? Why would he move out?”
“He’s transferring schools. Now I get a double room all to myself.”
“That’s totally wicked for you but totally unfair for me.”

She smiled and started talking about her favorite television show, Bleach. It was an anime, which she loved and watched all the time. I only half listened as she talked about the new episode she had just watched. After a while we finished talking and went down to the cafeteria for dinner. Eric waved to us when we got out of the line with our trays and I walked over to him. Brittney stopped by nearly all the tables, talking to all her friends. She was one of the most popular girls in the school, all the girls looked up to her and all the boys wanted to be with her. Sometimes I didn’t know why she hung out with me. She hadn’t spoken to me until half way through last year. She had needed a tutor for Japanese and I was the top of the class. After that we had been pretty inseparable. She oozed confidence and was kind to everyone. We sat down with Eric and he grinned at us.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

I shrugged and started eating. Brittney started chatting away to someone at a neighboring table. Eric’s eyebrows shot up and I looked in the direction he was looking at. My heart sank slowly but I shook myself mentally. Zeke’s arm was wrapped around Lola Fulton’s shoulder. Her dark hair made her pale skin stand out, looking like a doll with those big green eyes. Walking with them was Aidan, Brittney’s boyfriend. They smiled at each other from across the room before he joined the long line. Aidan had shaggy brown hair, blue eyes and was the captain of practically all of the sports teams. Eric and Aidan competed for the title all the time but Aidan normally won, being a third year and holding superiority over Eric. Brittney shot me an apologetic look before getting up and walking over to the table where Zeke and Aidan had just sat down.

“It won’t last long,” Eric said.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I lied.

My smile came back when I saw Eric pulling a funny face at me and I forgot about Zeke and Lola for a few minutes. I didn’t even know why I had been upset. I didn’t like Zeke, he was a jerk and I was off boys for the time being. My heart had been broken too many times by boys like Zeke so I sworn to myself that I would stay away from them.