Lounsbury Prep

Zayn glanced down at the paper in his hand again before checking the sign on the wall next to him. “307,” he mumbled to himself, identifying the plate next to him as the wrong number. He didn’t know if he was even going the right direction, since the entire floor was set up in a kind of square. He’d probably gone in circles without even realizing it.

After searching for another five minutes, he finally found the room he was assigned. He sighed to himself before leaning down and slipping the key that was hanging around his neck into the little lock above the door handle.

It took a second, since the key needed to be turned around twice to unlock, but he got it in the end. The heavy wooden door fell open, and Zayn stumbled into the room, struggling to keep his various suitcases balanced.

“Oh, do you need help?” someone exclaimed, followed by the sound of rushing footsteps. But whoever he was, he didn’t make it in time to stop Zayn’s bag from banging against the tile floor.

“I tried,” he laughed, his voice deep and friendly. “Hold on, let me take something.”

Soon, the pile of bags and suitcases were gathered up and placed around the unmade bed on the left side of the room. “Thanks,” Zayn said breathlessly, turning to face his roommate. “I’m Zayn.”

“Liam,” the friendly-looking boy replied with a little smile. “I’m sorry if you didn’t want this side of the room. But I just got here first, and I waited for a little while to see if you showed up, but after about an hour, I just kind of took one.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine,” Zayn replied casually, his eyes shifting over to sneak a peek at his roommate’s claimed property. “Are you all unpacked and everything?”

“Yeah. I got here three hours ago, so I wasn’t sure what else to do with my time.”

Zayn turned to Liam and gave him a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry. If I had known you were just sitting here alone, I would have come earlier.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Liam dismissed as he lied down on his bed, crossing his fairly muscular arms in front of his chest, his neck folded against the wall at what looked like an incredibly uncomfortable position to Zayn. “We didn’t know each other. I’ll give you a free pass.”

Zayn smiled politely before turning back to his clothes, starting what he knew would be a fantastically long process of putting all the various articles away in his drawers and cupboard. For a while, it was quiet, and Zayn could vaguely hear Liam tapping on a screen, probably texting.

“You’re a first-year, aren’t you?”

The question took Zayn by surprise, as he’d gotten quite used to the quiet. He hoped that his roommate hadn’t noticed him jump, and he worked to hide the fact that his heart was racing in his chest. “Yeah, I am. Was it that obvious?”

“Kind of,” Liam admitted with a grin. “So you’re just going to Lounsbury Prep for your senior year?”

“Yeah. I was kind of over my old school,” Zayn replied cautiously. He had hated that place, where kids cared more about figuring out how to get high during class without leaving the room than actually learning anything. And while Zayn wasn’t exactly the most hardworking student in any of his classes besides English, he was so far past sick of having to smell people smoke pot while he was trying to take notes on the Renaissance.

“That’s why I transferred here, too!” Liam exclaimed excitedly. “Well, that, and my dad basically forced me. Going here is a family thing.”

“Well, that’s not stereotypical,” Zayn snickered under his breath as he got to his feet, having filled up all the drawers in the bureau that had come with his dorm room.

“Ugh, I know. I’m painfully plain.” Liam groaned as he pulled himself to a seated position to look at his roommate better. “So what made you choose here over all the other prep schools in the country?”

Zayn shrugged, his eyes fixed on the shirt slipping onto the hanger in front of him. “I looked at a few different ones, and I just liked this one the best. Plus, it’s closest to home, so that made my mum happy.”

Liam nodded understandingly before getting to his feet. “Hey, if you’re all set here, I’m going to check my friend’s rooms and see if they’re here yet. Is that okay?”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Zayn agreed. “I’m not going to be much company anyway.”

“Thanks, mate. I’ll meet you back here before dinner at six so you don’t have to sit alone.” And then, he was gone.

Zayn let out a long sigh after the door shut behind his short-haired roommate. He knew that he should just leave his clothes for later, that he should go knocking on doors and introducing himself, despite his naturally shy personality.

But the boys all knew each other from previous years. For the first time in his life, Zayn was in the outs. He couldn’t even fall into step with his roommate, since the friendly brown-eyed boy already had a large group of his own. And maybe Zayn would be able to fit in eventually, but he didn’t want to push the boundaries and scare them.

About fifteen minutes later, Zayn had finished putting his clothes away, and he slid his suitcases into the bottom of the cupboard and closed the door, satisfied that it actually shut cleanly, unlike the door to his cupboard at home.

Zayn collapsed back on his bed, staring up and his ceiling and wishing that his mother hadn’t taken away his phone. She said that it would do nothing but distract him from the intense studies he was about to start, and he hadn’t exactly argued. While he had a few friends back at home, they were the kinds that he knew would forget about him the second he wasn’t around them every day of his life.

After feeling his consciousness fading, he attempted to shake it off by taking out his iPod and blaring an old-school Usher song. It helped him feel a little more at home in the unfamiliar territory, and he kept telling himself that he’d get used to it. He’d meet people in his classes, he’d break out of his newfound shell, and he’d have a fantastic senior year.

But for the time being, he just tapped out the beat of the song on his thigh and waited for his roommate to come down and bring him to the dining hall. He only hoped that Liam remembered, since he had absolutely no idea where the dining hall was, and he knew he’d just get lost if he tried to find it himself.

Just before six, the door slammed open, colliding loudly against the opposite wall. “Hey, Zayn!” Liam’s voice yelled. “C’mon, let’s get going before we’re late.”

Liam didn’t need to say his statement more than once. Zayn paused his music, ripped the buds out of his ears, and ran with his roommate down the hallways to make sure they made it to dinner on time.