Hang with Doug that evening

The first night in the dorm is quieter than I expected.

Jeff has gone out to get some food, Chase is already talking about a party happening somewhere across campus, and Doug is sitting at his desk with his laptop open. His notebooks and papers are arranged around him, and I notice that even his pens are lined up in perfect order.

I watch him for a moment.

“Dude, what are you working on?”

Doug looks up quickly.

“Oh. Uh… nothing.”

I glance at his screen.

“You’ve been staring at it for like three hours.”

He looks back at his laptop.

“Yeah. I’m writing a program to organize my class schedule.”

I laugh. “Couldn’t you just write your schedule down?”

Doug pauses.

“I could.”

Another pause.

“But then I’d have to rewrite it every time something changed.”

I smile. “Right.”

Doug nods seriously.

“Exactly.”

I’m not sure if he’s joking.

“So… what does the program do?”

Doug immediately turns the laptop toward me.

“Well, right now it automatically sorts everything by day and time, but eventually I want it to calculate the most efficient walking route between classes.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“You made a program to tell you how to walk to class?”

Doug adjusts his glasses.

“Technically, yes.”

“Why?”

He thinks about it.

“Because last semester I walked twelve minutes out of my way to get to a classroom that was actually in the other building.”

I start laughing.

Doug just stares at me.

“I didn’t think it was funny at the time.”

That makes me laugh even harder.

After a second, he gives me a small, awkward smile.

“Okay. Maybe it was a little funny.”

Instead of going somewhere else, I pull a chair over.

“Mind if I hang out?”

Doug looks slightly surprised.

“Uh… sure. Yeah.”

We start talking.

At first, Doug is pretty awkward. He gives ridiculously detailed answers to simple questions, sometimes loses his train of thought, and occasionally takes something I say literally when I’m obviously joking.

But once he gets comfortable, I realize he’s actually pretty interesting.

He knows an absurd amount about computers, astronomy, history, and random things I wouldn’t expect him to know anything about.

At one point, I ask him where he learned all of it.

He shrugs.

“Mostly the internet.”

“Of course.”

He nods.

“It’s pretty useful.”

We order pizza and keep talking late into the night. Eventually, Doug admits that he doesn’t really have many friends and usually spends most of his free time by himself.

I understand that more than he probably realizes.

For the first time since arriving on campus, I don’t feel like I need to be somewhere else.

No party.

No pressure.

Just two roommates sitting around talking, even if Doug occasionally says something that makes me wonder whether he’s joking or completely serious.

Eventually, I get up to head toward my room.

“Goodnight, Doug.”

“Goodnight.”

I take a few steps before hearing him behind me.

“Hey, Ethan?”

I turn around.

“Yeah?”

Doug points toward the pizza box.

“There’s one slice left.”

I look at him.

“Okay?”

“Do you want it?”

I laugh.

“No, man. You can have it.”

Doug nods.

“Okay. Goodnight.”

I shake my head as I walk away, smiling.

When I finally get into bed, I think about how different this first night turned out from what I expected.

I have no idea what the rest of senior year is going to look like.

Maybe I’ll stay focused on school. Maybe I’ll make a bunch of new friends. Maybe I’ll end up doing things I never imagined.

For now, all I know is that tomorrow is the first real day of my final year.

And I have absolutely no idea where it’s going to take me.