Chris, the RA

Mackenzie stifled a groan. She absolutely did not want to have to deal with her jerk of an RA on what had already been a crappy morning. She debated not answering at all, but Chris knocked again, a bit harder.

"Mackenzie, open up," she said in an authoritative tone. "I've gotta talk to you about something."

Mackenzie sighed but relented, opening the door. There stood the tall, slim girl that had somehow managed to score a job as an RA, despite being probably the worst person for the job.

"What do you want?" Mackenzie asked tersely, standing in the doorway in just her towel.

"Damn, do you ever wear actual clothes?" Chris chuckled. Mackenzie scowled and began closing the door. Chris shot her hand out to hold the door in place. "Wait, hang on. Sorry. Look," she sighed, "I just want to talk."

Mackenzie rolled her eyes, but opened the door further, gesturing for Chris to enter.

"Nope, not in there. Get dressed and meet me in the common room."

"Uh... but..." Mackenzie blurted out, suddenly apprehensive. She wanted to think of some kind of excuse not to leave the room, but Chris was already walking away down the hall. Mackenzie glanced over at the assortment of clothes on Willow's side of the room, sorely tempted to borrow something. But she was just beginning to make amends with Willow, and stealing more of her clothes would undoubtedly set her back to square one, if not make things even worse than before. The redhead gave a weary sigh, grabbed her keys, and followed her RA out into the hall.

Soon the two girls were sitting together on one of the common room's couches, one wearing a leather jacket and tight blue jeans, and the other wearing just a bath towel. Luckily for Mackenzie, the room was otherwise deserted.

"Look Mackenzie, I like you," Chris said.

"You do?!" Mackenzie was genuinely surprised at that. "I thought you hated me!"

"Nah, why'd you think that? You keep things interesting around here, but without actually causing any real hassle for me. If you wanna make the occasional nude hallway sprint or hang out in just a towel in the common room, that's totally fine! Hell, with everyone staring at you during our floor meetings, you make sure everyone's too distracted to ask me any dumb followup questions."

"I don't want to-" Mackenzie began, but Chris cut her off.

"Trouble is, I've been getting more and more complaints from the others that you've been taking people's stuff and not returning it. 'Borrowing' shirts and never giving them back. That kind of thing."

"I always try to give them back! But it's not my fault-"

"But here's the problem," Chris interrupted again, "yesterday afternoon Willow came to me and said you've been flat out stealing her clothes. She wanted to report you for theft. That's why I wanted to talk to you alone about this."

"What? No! I haven't been stealing anything!" Mackenzie stuttered. Chris stared blankly back at her. "Well, I mean, I have borrowed some of her clothes, yeah. And lately, well, maybe not always with express permission first. But-"

"Yeah, that's stealing," Chris said flatly. "Look, I can reasonably ignore a few little complaints from other floor members without too much work. But an official claim of theft from a roommate? Not so much. And I'm sure I don't need to remind you that you're on disciplinary probation with the school. If you get officially reported for theft, you'll be suspended. End of story."

"But... but we talked about it!" Mackenzie said, getting more nervous by the second. She began anxiously squirming in her seat, pressing her back into the corner of the couch. "Willow and I started working it out this morning!"

"That's good!" Chris said with a rare and comforting smile on her face. "If you can get Willow to withdraw the request before Monday, then I won't have to send it to my boss."

"Okay!" Mackenzie said, "Okay, I'll talk to her about it. I think I can get her to let it go now that's she calmed down a bit."

"Great. Let's see, it's..." Chris said, checking her phone, "about 10:30 now. So I should be back sometime around... say 9 tomorrow night? Just have Willow come see me then and we can forget the report ever existed." She awkwardly reached a hand out and gave Mackenzie's thigh three gentle pats, causing the redhead to blush slightly. Then Chris hurriedly stood up to leave. "Hang in there, kid. I'd hate to see you go. You're the most interesting girl on the floor!"

"Uh... right, thanks," Mackenzie said, unsure exactly how to take that.

"Oh, one other thing!" Chris said after pausing in the doorway. "No one knows about this report but you, Willow, and me. If I were you I'd, uh, try not to ruffle any feathers this weekend."

"What do you mean?" Mackenzie asked, turning slightly in her seat to face her.

"Well, if someone else came to me about you taking something, usually that'd be a complaint. I get plenty of those and can ignore most of them. But, if there's already an open report of you stealing and further people come forth with incidents of their own... Well, technically, I'd have to add those to the report itself. If that happens, even if Willow withdraws her claim, then I'd still have to file the report come Monday and everything would go to shit!"

"So... what are you saying?"

"I'm just saying don't give anyone a reason to accuse you of stealing stuff for the next 36 hours! It's probably safest just to stick to wearing your own clothes for today and tomorrow, okay?"

"Stick to wearing... my own clothes..." Mackenzie muttered.

"Exactly. Alright, see you tomorrow night with Willow, hopefully." And with that, Chris headed off to... wherever Chris was always disappearing to.

"Great..." Mackenzie said aloud, "It's always one thing after another!" Any thoughts about asking her fellow freshmen about borrowing clothes were now well and truly off the table. And to make matters worse, Mackenzie knew there were at least a few girls on the floor who would have loved to see her get suspended from school. How easy would it be for one of them to simply make a false claim about Mackenzie stealing something and go running to Chris about it?! She couldn't let that happen!

With a determined exhale, Mackenzie resolved to simply keep her head down for the rest of the weekend. She'd just stay in her room, wearing her towel, and not bother anyone at all, that way she wouldn't give anyone even a chance at accusing her of theft! She wouldn't even ask Willow for anything, either! She'd be the most perfect, nicest roommate she could for the next day and a half. It would be a boring weekend, sure, but it was the best plan Mackenzie could think of.

The towel-clad girl moved to stand back up, but felt an unexpected resistance tug her back down onto the couch.

"What the..." Mackenzie felt around the bottom edge of her towel and soon made a terrifying discovery. There, in the corner of the couch, where two pieces of the metal frame connected, the hem of her towel was stuck. During all her anxious squirming, Mackenzie had somehow managed to wedge the edge of her towel well and truly into place! She tried to tug it free, but found she couldn't even budge it.

"No, NO!" she hissed. But it seemed like her towel wasn't going anywhere. Mackenzie soon found herself with a decision to make. She could either ditch the towel and make the brief naked sprint back to her room, or stay put and hope to somehow get the towel free.

On the one hand, it would only be a 20 second run back to her room, plus a few extra exposed seconds to unlock the door. But this towel was the last true scrap of modesty Mackenzie owned! If she sacrificed it now, all she'd have left would be her heavy blanket. She could bundle up in that while sitting in the room, sure, but it was far too cumbersome to wear out into the hall! What would she do about going to the bathroom? Make the trips naked?!

But on the other hand, if Mackenzie stayed put, she had no idea how she'd get the towel free anyway. The common room likely wouldn't stay deserted for too much longer, as more and more students would start getting up and enjoying their Saturdays. Maybe she could wait for Willow to come back from the dining hall and figure something out with her. She'd likely be back fairly soon!

Not thrilled with either option, Mackenzie went with her gut.