My Roommate Is A Tomboy

The New Roommate

I glanced around. The empty bed was now covered with a checkered blue and white sheet and some clothes neatly folded. A suitcase lay at the foot of the bed. Several boxes of different sizes lay scattered on the floor, making the room more crammed than it already was. My eyes trailed to a guitar case that lay at the side of the window. Wow, my roommate's a musician. But where is she?

No later than I wondered, I heard the tap flushing from the attached bathroom. My eyes automatically shifted to the bathroom door. I heard the tap turned off and heard footsteps shuffling toward the door. I worked on my smile as the lock turned from inside the bathroom.

My smile faltered and then froze altogether as she made her appearance. I was stunned to immobility. All those time I'd been wondering what kinda girl I'd be spending two years with and right now, I was staring across at some guy with short banged black hair, who was smiling at me. I couldn't speak and I couldn't stop staring. How the hell did he get into the room? The smile turned into a nervous chuckle as the stranger pointed awkwardly at the mess behind me.

"Sorry bout the mess," her voice was clear and soft. "I just arrived."

I still couldn't speak. I couldn't even take my eyes off of her face. She squirmed uneasily at my staring and cleared her throat.

"My name's Ella Dubois," she said.

I suddenly felt myself growing hot and embarrassed. How could I ever let think even for a moment that she was a guy. It is okay for a girl to have short hair and wear boys' clothing right? How stupid and narrow minded could I be? Of course I'd seen lots of tomboys in Berlin where I came from but I didn't know anyone personally. All I knew was that most of them were gay. And sharing a room with a stranger tomboy was gonna be something new for me. I wasn't prepared for this.

"Um...," she grinned. "You are...?"

"Oh yeah," I stammered and pulled myself together. "I'm Alice. Alice Meyer. You can call me Liz."

"Liz," she smiled. "Nice name. It's just like you."

Was she hitting on me already? I couldn't see behind her smile. But I felt tensed somehow.

She was very pretty. Or should I say handsome? Perhaps, because there was nothing feminine about her. She wore a loose white T-shirt and checkered boxers. She had a killer smile which crooked a little to one side every time she smiled.

She took a step closer to me. My whole self became tensed. Closer. She towered over me about four or five inches. I could get a faint scent of lemon from her freshly washed face. So close. I felt giddy and nervous.

"Can I?" She asked.

Can I what? Millions of possibilities shot through my brain. Can I what? It took me a while to figured out her gesture that she wanted to pass through. I was blocking her path.

"Oh," that was all I could say as I stepped aside clumsily, hitting my ankle on my bed post. Pain shot up and down my body. I wanted to scream but I kept my cool and pretended like nothing happened. Serves me right, I thought, for letting your imagination carry you away.

She busied herself cleaning up the mess and putting her stuff in order. It was obvious that she wasn't a person of much words and I was kinda glad for that.

Just then, from behind me, a black creature leaped onto my bed. Startled, I let out a sharp scream and backed away. Ella came and picked up the creature from my bed and stroked its head.

"Où es-tu allé, Oscar?" She murmured. "J'étais en train de te chercher."

It took me a while to realize that the creature was actually a large black cat who was now staring at me apprehensively with emerald green eyes. Ella suddenly looked up at me. I was intrigued to see that her eyes had the same shade of green as her cat.

"Sorry bout that," she apologized, still stroking the cat. "Should have told you earlier. This is Oscar. He's my best friend."

Could things get any worse? I was allergic to things with fur and the cat happened to be my worst allergy. Great! How could I put it into words? I backed away a little.

"You okay?" She asked.

"N-not really," I stammered. "I'm.. Uh...I kinda have an allergy case with animals."

I kind of mumbled the last part but she heard it.

"Oh," she frowned.