Of All the People

I was still sitting on my bed, when I heard a knock on the door.

“Who is it?” I asked timidly, hoping that it wasn’t another horde of boys.

“It’s Jack.”

“Is there anyone with you?” I asked.

“Um…no.”

“Ok, you can come in then.” I said, relieved. He entered, and I saw that there were about fifteen other guys milling about the common room, no doubt waiting to see me walk from the bathroom to the dorm in my pj’s. I smiled at Jack, as he shut the door.

“Can we figure out the room thing now?” I asked.

“Sure, then we can go get dinner.”

“Great.”

We walked out of the room, and I got bombarded again. I caught Jack’s eye, and nodded one. Then I took off running. I had to slow down so that he could catch up with me, and so that he could show me where to go.

When we finally got to the office, I walked up to the desk, where a young looking secretary was sitting.

“Hello,” I said,

“What can I do for you today?” she asked.

“Well, I think that there was a mix-up with the rooms, because I seem to be in a boy’s dorm, and my roommate is Jack here.” I said gesturing to him. The secretary nodded, and said, “Yes, NYAM was once an all boy’s school, and so there are no girl’s dorms. We would have put you in a single room, but they were all taken.”

“But can’t you make someone else live with me?” Jack asked.

“I’m sorry, but there really are no available rooms.”

We left the office, and were walking back to the room, when I stopped, and looked at Jack.

“You realize that if we’re going to have to share a room, that there are going to have to be some rules about this living situation.’ I said, making sure that he was listening.

“Sure, what sort of rules?”

“First of all, no going into my stuff.”

“Ok, no going through mine.” He countered.

“No girls over if I’m there…oh, wait, I am the only girl. Whatever.”

“Fine, but no guys over either.”

There was a slight pause then I sighed.

“This is going to be interesting. Oh! That reminds me, there were some guys that stopped my our room, I’m pretty sure that they were looking for you, and I’m pretty sure that I kind of freaked them out. Oops.” I said.

“What were their names?” Jack asked,

“Connor, Dylan, and Alex.”

“Oh, yeah. They usually come over after assembly, and we play videogames, or something.”

“Oh, ok.” We had gotten to the room, and I got out my key, unlocking the door. We entered, and I sat on my bed. I sighed, “I guess I should unpack. Do I get a dresser, or something?” I asked, looking around the room.

“Yeah, you can have the left side of that dresser over there.” He said, gesturing to the set of drawers on the wall. I went to my suitcases, and started to unpack.

I was putting my things into the empty drawers, when I saw a guitar sitting on the floor, next to Jack’s desk.

“So is guitar your instrument?” I asked, nodding to his, as I was putting away some shirts. Jack nodded, “Yeah, and I’m going to just take a random guess, and say that yours is singing?” he said, grinning at me.

“Uh, yeah. You noticed that did you.” I said, suddenly becoming very interested in the shirt that I was folding. Then I got an idea. “Hey, so I heard that there was always a talent night every week, do you think that maybe we could do a song?” after I said that, I was kind of appalled at myself. I’m usually never that forward, when I haven’t gotten to know someone very well yet. (I always come off as shy to people, until I get to know them, and then I feel totally comfortable, which is why I had so many guy friends at home, they were really easy to be around) He looked thoughtful, and then said, “Okay, that sounds fun. Do you have a song in mind? Because there’s going to be one tomorrow night.” I nodded, “I do have some songs that I’ve written, and so maybe we could do something that no one’s heard of before.” I said, mentally ticking off the songs that I had actually finished. Jack smiled, and said, “Sounds cool. We can start practicing right now, if you want.” I nodded, “Okay, let’s.”

~~~~~~

I was flipping through my extremely fat song book, when I felt someone come up behind me. I looked up to see Jack glancing over my shoulder at my songs.

“I found some that I think would work, what do you think?” I asked, showing him several songs. He nodded, and pointed at one called ‘Stay (Tomorrow)’

“That one looks good.” He said. I nodded, and got out the sheet music for it. I handed it to Jack, and he set up his guitar.

“One, two, three.” He said, nodding his head. There was a short intro, and then I started to sing.

Today just feels like one of those days
when the world is gonna come crashing down on me
I feel like nothing's going right
and it's just gonna end badly

(chorus)
I don't think I want to be here
when everything turns grey
I don't think I want to stay
through the end of today
it seems like a bad idea
I think I'm gonna get hurt
is this really all it's worth?

I feel like I'm drowning
in nothing but sound
and I think that leaving
is the best thing to do
so where do I go?

'Cause if I stay
I don't want to stay
I don't want to stay
but I have to stay

I just can't go on my own way
even if I do get hurt
even if it ends up bad
I need to be here
for what will happen next

I need to stay
to see the world turn grey
and I have got to watch
the sun fade away

I have to get through this bad day
and make it to a new place
I know I have to stay
Even if

I don't think I want to be here
when everything turns grey
I don't think I want to stay
through the end of today
it seems like a bad idea
I think I'm gonna get hurt
is this really all it's worth?

And as it all levels out
I guess I'll just have to stay and find out

By know there were also people looking at us through the doorway to the connecting room.

I don't think I want to be here
when everything turns grey
I don't think I want to stay
through the end of today
it seems like a bad idea
I think I'm gonna get hurt
is this really all it's worth?

And as it all levels out
I guess I'll just have to stay and find out

*(random note: I actually wrote this song! I have many more, check them out!)

There was about three seconds of silence, and then there was another deafening round of cheers. That was just what I needed, on my first day, having everyone’s attention brought to me twice in less than five hours. Everyone saw that we were done, and so they started to leave, all except for Dylan, Connor, and Alex, from earlier. They squished passed people, and entered the room.

“Hey Jack.” Alex said, then nodded to me, “Hey Athena.”

“Hi, how’s it going?” I asked.

“Great! Hey, we heard you two, you were great man!” Connor said, turning to Jack.

“Whatever.” Jack said he seemed to be embarrassed, which really confused me. He had seemed so excited before. The guys found seats around the room, Alex sat on Jack’s bed, Connor sat on the floor, leaning against mine, and Dylan sat at my desk. None of them were saying anything, and that really confused me. Usually, guys talk more than girls, if you can believe it. Whenever I hung out with my friends at home, they acted as if I were one of the guys, so I was in on all of their conversations, some of which I never ever want to hear about again.

“What’s wrong with you guys?!” I asked, they all looked slightly startled, and I rolled my eyes.

“You have no idea how to talk to girls, much less near them, do you?” I asked. They all looked at the floor, and nodded slightly. I sighed; these guys were going to be a lot of work.

“Okay, first of all, you’re going to have to start somewhere, so let’s make it know. What would you all usually be doing right now?” I asked. I was about to lose hope, when Dylan spoke up, “Well, we would probably be playing video games.” He said. I nodded, “Cool, so what are we going to play?” I asked. They all looked appalled.

“You want to play video games with us?” asked Connor.

“Yes Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean that I don’t like to relax every once in a while.” I said. I stood up, and walked over to the flat screen T.V. there were loads of games, but I knew what I was looking for.

“Let’s play this, I haven’t since I was, like, twelve!” I said grinning, thinking that they would get a kick out of me picking Mario Kart. I put the disk in, and grabbed a controller. When they saw that I was serious, they all followed suit.

“So,” I said, after we had finished three games, and were taking a small break.

“What are you all doing for the talent show tomorrow?” I asked, realizing that I didn’t even know what instruments they played.

“Well,” Dylan said, “I’m going to play piano, per usual, Connor is going to play trumpet, Alex is going to play drums. Although, if it wasn’t mandatory then we probably wouldn’t do anything at all. Are you and Jack doing that song that you were practicing earlier?” he asked, I nodded, and Jack said, “Yeah, did you know that Athena wrote that song, and the music?” he asked. I was surprised that he was bragging for me, considering that we had just met and all, but still, it was a nice gesture.

“Really?” Connor asked, “Can you play guitar?” I nodded, “My dad taught me, he played in a band in high school.”

“Cool.” He said. Just then I yawned, Alex noticed, and looked at the clock.

“Crap, its ten thirty, and curfew is at eleven. Come on guys, we gotta go.” He said. I smiled gratefully at him, and stood up.

“Bye, see you tomorrow, let’s meet at the dining hall at like ten.” Jack said, the guys nodded, and Alex and Connor walked out the front door, and Dylan walked through the connector door.

“Bye guys,” I said.

“Buy Athena.” They said, waving as they left.

When the doors shut, I let out a lot of air that I didn’t know that I was holding in.

“Man,” I said, “your friends are a lot of work.” Jack smiled, and nodded his head.

“I’m going to go get ready for bed,” I said, as I was gathering my toothbrush and pj’s, when I realized something.

“Wait…are there any girl’s bathrooms in the dorm?” I asked, very worried. Jack looked at my grave face, and burst out laughing, and shook his head.

“Oh, well, this should be interesting.” I said. I shrugged, and walked out of the room.

Jack ran out of the room, and grabbed my arm,

“You aren’t seriously thinking of going into the boy’s bathroom, are you?” he asked. I nodded my head.

“How else am I supposed to pee and stuff?” I asked. I let Jack ponder that as I kept walking down the hall. He caught up to me, and walked along side of me.

When we got to the bathroom, I took a deep breath, and knocked.

“Why are you knocking on the door?” someone from inside shouted,

“Um…because I’m a girl, and usually when you are planning on entering a bathroom for the opposite gender, it’s best to knock.” I said. I was a little nervous, which made me ramble.

Jack seemed to be fed up, so he just stuck his head in the door, and said, “All she wants to know is if you are all wearing pants.” It seemed that Jack had gotten a satisfactory answer, because he dragged me in after him. They were all staring at me, as I walked to the sink, to brush my teeth.

After I had cleaned my teeth, and brushed my hair, all the while with about fifteen guys staring at me in complete silence, I had to change into pj’s. I walked over to one of the bigger, changing stalls, and locked the door.

I finished changing, and stepped out of the stall, wearing a white lacy tank top, and short, short sleep shorts. What a great outfit to choose today. I then walked out of the bathroom as quickly as I could. I was halfway to the room, when Jack caught up to me.

“Well, I have to say, that you are officially the bravest girl that I have ever met.” He said.

“Thanks,” I said, smiling a little.

We got to the room, and I had a really huge yawn.

“Geez, running away from girl-deprived boys is hard work!” I said, smiling. I walked over to the hamper, and put my dirty clothes in it. I then walked over to the dresser, and extracted my bra through the sleeve of my shirt, forgetting for a second that Jack was still there. I mentally shrugged, and put the bra into my drawer. I walked over to my bed, being careful not to bounce very much as I did. I climbed into bed, and snuggled deeper into my covers.

The last thing that I saw before I fell asleep was Jack’s face, staring adoringly at me from across the room.