Avril

“So, who’d you put down?” Vishal asks as the two of you make your way out of the room.

“Avril,” you say, surreptitiously pointing her out. Vishal nods slowly to himself.

“Good taste. I picked Amy,” he says, and then he lets out a small laugh. “Man, this whole thing was so ridiculous.”

“What do you mean?” you ask.

“Well, it’s just… you know, I’ve already got a girlfriend already, right? So what would I even do if she put my name down too? Just pop by and say ‘oh sorry, this actually isn’t going to be a thing now,’ like could I really do that?”

“You could just hang out as friends,” you say. “That’s an option.”

“Right…” he says, getting a far-off look in his eyes. “I hadn’t thought about that. Yeah, yeah, that’s a good idea isn’t it.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, you don’t know she put down your name,” you say. “For all you know, Amy wants to get with me.”

“Ah, nobody’s quite that thick,” Vishal says, and the two of you share a laugh.

It’s not a long walk back to your hall, and you realise as you’re heading back in that you’re just in time for the weekly hall meeting.

The lounge, usually sparsely populated, is packed by the time you arrive. All the seats are taken up, and people stand in small groups around the room, with even a couple of guys sitting on the larger table by the back. You spy Christina, Annalise, Griffin, and Rachel at the side of the room and hurriedly join them.

“Welcome to our weekly Hall Meeting,” Dominic says, quieting everyone down with a wave of his hand. “How does it feel, now that the semester’s really started to kick in? Workload looking manageable? You’re lying to yourself if it is.” He lets out a low chuckle at his own joke, and though most people crack grins, a few people look genuinely stressed out just from that comment alone. Tatiana, standing next to Dominic, snaps her eyes back and forth between those people, as if noting down these people.

“Some announcements from my side: First, I’ll be baking cookies on Sunday at 2 pm, come join me if you want to blow off stress or steal my nan’s recipe, and pop by anytime after 4 if you want the tasty results,” Dominic says. “Second, I’ve had to refill the condom box once this week. Now, you guys are doing better than you were a couple weeks ago, but seriously… these are supposed to last us much longer than that. Only take these if you can’t afford your own, or it’s really, really an emergency. Third, there’s a mental health event/de-stressing thing going on Thursday…”

Dominic talks on for a while longer, covering various upcoming events and addressing some minor concerns (apparently somebody broke a chair the other day in the lounge?), and then it’s Tatiana’s turn to speak.

“Not much news from Stonewall Government,” she says. “We’re going to be voting on all the Hall budget proposals next week, so if you have a line item you want to add to ours, we can talk it over and try to get some funding for it. Other than that, there are some ongoing discussions regarding expanding insurance coverage, so if that’s something you’re interested or have an opinion on, also talk to me, but I won’t bore most of you with the details regarding that.”

“Great! That about sums it up from us. Now we’ll turn it over to you guys,” Dominic says. “Complaints or compliments?”

“I’ve got a complaint,” Mars says, raising her hand. “This is not to anyone in particular, because I don’t know who you are, but whoever it is that is using the girl’s bathroom next to my room and not properly disposing of their hygiene products? Not cool.”

“Yep, I’ve been noticing it too,” Tatiana says, “and if whoever’s doing it doesn’t cut it out… we’re going to find out who it is and start public shaming, and you really don’t want that to happen.”

There’s a short pause as the ladies in the room take a moment to regard each other. Tatiana’s doing that thing again where she’s snapping her eyes between peoples’ faces, and she is definitely creating her list of suspects now.

“Hey, I have a compliment,” Annalise says. “It’s for Alex! Or, really, it’s about Alex. Anyways, he’s out of the hospital and with us now, so let’s give him a warm welcome!”

The room erupts into applause and cheers, although a good half of the room is still straining their necks, trying to figure out who you are. You smile and wave, trying not to look too awkward while you’re at it. Beside you, Griffin lets out a high-pitched whistle, and you see Charmaine softly clapping with a furtive smile on her face. Lisa, who’s standing at the other end of the hall, rolls her eyes at you.

After things quiet down again, the room opens up to more complaints and compliments. People speak up about their various grievances or celebrate the achievements of their friends (half of these are complimenting a friend for organising a club event that’s due to happen in the upcoming week, a rather amusing way to advertise; there are quite a few of these, but none that really interest you too much).

The meeting concludes soon after that and people begin to dissipate and mill about with their friends.

“I’ve got something to tell you, but Rachel is dragging me away,” Griffin says, and indeed she is, tugging on his arm with an apologetic grin. “Come by my room later tonight?”

You agree, and hang out in the lounge for a little longer, making light conversation with Christina and Annalise, and when the lounge is finally clear enough, you find a table to get some work done. The next hour or two is rather productive as you glue yourself to your laptop and grind out a bunch of things that needed to be done. Though you’ve made good progress, the work is mentally draining, and you find yourself really needing a break.

You stand up and stretch for a second, glancing around the room. Everyone that you would strike up a conversation with is gone, and you’re not really in the mood for making new friends. Really, you just need to blow off some steam and actually take a break. You suddenly remember what Griffin said, and you decide to head up to his room.

Coming up to his door, you give it a quick rap, and almost immediately hear a grunt that sounds like “Come in,” so you push the door open, and…

Griffin is balls deep in Rachel, their nude bodies thrusting against each other. Griffin’s eyes are sealed shut in the throes of orgasm, and you realise with a start that what you heard wasn’t “Come In,” but in fact “Cumming,” and with that horrifying thought and this image seared into your head, you panic for a second. Holy shit what do I do, you’re watching your friends going at it, and why does Rachel look so hot? And it’s in that moment that you decide to…