Summary: An AU series. When MC first imagined who her off campus roommate might be, her mind flipped through all kinds of possibilities. But there was no way she could have predicted that she would wind up rooming with Chris Powell, and there was no way that she could have prepared herself for what came next.
Chapter 1: Pictures of You
Christopher Powell
Chris had been alone in this apartment plenty of times before. He had done homework or studied his playbook during times when his roommate was in class. He had stayed behind for a week or so at the beginning of summer break or he had returned early before she got back. He had even been preparing himself to look for another roommate once she had graduated and moved out, but this wasn’t the kind of alone that he could have anticipated or prepared for.
This was the kind of alone that echoed in the empty spaces. The kind of alone that reflected back at him from every reminder she left behind. It taunted him and it left an unpleasant taste in his mouth. He had the television on in the living room but was honestly not paying attention to it, somehow hearing the hum of the air conditioning blare over it in his ears. Chris stared vacantly at the screen, twisting a bit of his hair in between two fingers. He pressed his tongue to the side of his mouth as his eyes wandered over to his cell phone that was sitting on the cushion beside him. Shaking the thought that popped into his head instantly back out, he stood up from the couch with a huff.
He just needed something to eat, he thought. He hadn’t eaten yet today and, clearly, it was affecting his ability to think straight. He crossed through the living room and into the small kitchen, where beams of sunlight were splashing across the tile floor through the windows. Chris gripped tightly onto the handle of the refrigerator and yanked it open, but none of its contents were particularly to his liking. He blew out a frustrated breath as he wrapped his hand around a protein shake he had prepared a few days before, shutting the refrigerator door again with force.
The door slammed closed hard enough for a magnet to fall off, taking the photograph it was holding in place to the floor along with it. Chris scratched his head as he bent down to pick up the fallen items from his feet. When he situated the photo back in its place, he stopped to give it a second look. The doors were decorated with polaroid photos all just like this one, the kind that would print automatically from his roommate’s special camera. He allowed his eyes to scan all of the photos, revisiting moments that had been captured of the two of them together, moments that sent memories flashing through his mind. The one that had fallen when he slammed the door shut was still underneath his finger. It had been taken at a fiesta themed party for Cinco de Mayo. In it, Chris stood side by side with a brunette girl, slightly shorter in height, each of them wearing sombreros and drinking margaritas. A slight smile came to Chris’s tired face as he recalled the evening.
“Just so you know”, the brunette began, calling across the room to a boy whose hand was in a bowl of chips, “I’m pretty sure you can do better than Pitbull’s greatest hits on Cinco De Mayo. It’s not exactly authentic”.
Chris heard another girl sing out loudly from behind him, “Te-te-tequilaaa!” She shimmied her shoulders as she came from around the couch and Chris laughed. The girl who stood next to him handed her raven haired friend her polaroid camera, asking politely if she would snap a photo of her and Chris. The raven haired girl gladly obliged. “Say ‘Cinco de Mayooo’!” She cheered as she waited for the pair to smile before clicking the button.
Chris looked at his roommate in her brown eyes which were slightly hazy. She smiled brightly with her tongue poking out through her teeth. Lifting his arm, Chris gestured for her to hook her right arm around his and drink their margaritas entangled in a toast.
“Cinco de Mayo!” Chris yelled, grinning at her playfully.
Just after the picture was taken, she accidentally hit her glass against Chris’s, splashing her drink onto her chin as well as the front of her shirt. “Oh, party foul!” She sputtered. Chris clutched his stomach as he laughed. Her giggles lifted her upper lip and exposed all of her pretty, white teeth.
Chris ran to get her some paper towels, and when he returned, saw her brushing away at the sticky, shiny liquid on her skin. She took the paper towels from him and looked up, eyebrows hidden by the brim of her sombrero. Chris chuckled, adjusting the hat carefully on her head. She blew at a strand of hair that had fallen in her face and he tucked it away gently with his fingers, smiling.
“Thank you,” she said sweetly, smiling back.
Next to this photo was another, a selfie that she had taken with Chris in the background. He plucked the Polaroid from its home on the fridge and brought it closer to his face. She had her hair tied in pigtails with a few tendrils hanging on either side of her face, and she was laughing. The two of them were running on the school’s track and Chris’s face was turned sideways, giving her a thumbs up.
The autumn air was still and crisp. Chris had just completed his runner’s stretch and leapt up into a jog around Hartfeld’s track when he heard a voice followed by little footsteps coming up swiftly behind him.
“Say ‘cheese’, Powell!” called the voice. A bit startled, Chris continued running but turned his head around to see a brunette in jogger pants and a hooded sweater, holding up a camera with both arms, jogging backwards.
“Jesus Christ,” Chris breathed, chuckling softly.
The girl who Chris recognized as his roommate giggled and then raised her voice again, speaking through labored breaths. “Are you smiling?”
“Yah!” He replied, forming a cheeky grin in her direction and sticking out his thumbs for the camera.
“I hope I got the both of us in there!” The brunette then turned her body to run forward, catching up to Chris. As she passed him, he noticed that she had two cameras hanging around her neck by straps. She lowered the camera she had just used to snap his photograph and then turned to face him, jogging backwards again. She took the other camera in her hands and pressed her eye to the viewfinder. Chris sighed through a smile.
“More footage for your project?” He asked, scratching the back of his head.
“You bet!” she yelled from behind the video camera, “The camera loves you”.
“Aren’t you supposed to be interviewing me or something?”
“Nah,” she breathed, “it would probably be too hard to hear you with the wind and other environmental noise, so I’m just gonna mute this and put music over it or something”.
“So… I shouldn’t talk?”
“You can talk. Talk about whatever you want”. She pulled back from the viewfinder and her gaze began to alternate between the camera screen and Chris’s face.
“Alright…” Chris began to think, “Since I’m being exposed and exploited, that means you have to wash the dishes tonight,” he smirked at her, picking up his speed a bit.
The girl threw her head back and cackled, her steady hand never wavering. “Oh-ho, okay, you’ve got a deal my friend. Although,” she cocked an eyebrow, “so long as you already feel ‘exposed and exploited’, let’s see if we can’t take it up a notch for the viewers”.
“What?”
“Take your shirt off,” she stated casually.
“Really?!”
“Yeah, as we come around this bend here, take your shirt off. The ladies will go crazy for it”.
Chris remained quiet and eyed his friend questioningly, his lip threatening to curl.
“What? Just because it’s a documentary doesn’t mean it has to be boring,” She said, slowly grinning.
Chris shook his head playfully just before tugging his shirt off his back.
“Slower!”
Chris continued to allow his eyes to trail along the magnets and pictures adorning the refrigerator. The third Polaroid photo staring back at him was one of himself surrounded by friends wearing smiling faces, crowded around a table at a diner. It had been the night of his first Hartfeld Knights championship game, and he remembered it quite clearly as he scanned the gleeful faces in the picture, a wistful expression now gracing his own.
Nine college students stirring with excitement were gathered around a table at the local diner. The room seemed to be bursting with chatter and beaming recollections of the championship game that the Hartfeld Knights had just won against their rivals, the Clemson Tigers. Chris Powell, captain of the Knights, had been shaken by adrenaline and pride as his teammates had embraced him and lifted him on their shoulders in victory.
It had been such a good win for the team, in fact, that they had planned to throw a victory party afterward. And, as much as Chris loved his team and was thrilled about the payoff of all of their hard work, he had hardly been in the partying mood. His legs felt as if they were about to collapse underneath him and he had been up most of the night before worrying about the game, so it was safe to say that he was exhausted. All that Chris really wanted after the excitement died down was to go home and take a shower, followed by a long and well deserved sleep.
What had turned out to be so fortunately, however, Chris’s group of close and personal friends outside of his team just wouldn’t take no for an answer. They had insisted on going out for burgers before bed, at the very least, to celebrate a job well done by their favorite Hartfeld quarterback. He had demonstrated outstanding leadership, patience and resilience throughout this past football season, after all, and it’s what had led him to this point. They were just not ready to let Chris quite literally sleep on that. And so, with some coaxing and persistence, Chris’s roommate had managed to rally Chris and the others to meet at a diner that was open late.
The gang were amongst the only customers in the establishment at this hour. The waitress whose section they were sitting in had looked more than happy to help such a lively group of kids as her shift would tend to be lagging and quiet otherwise. She had looked around at them all expectantly with a smile as she hovered her pen above the order pad. They decided on an assortment of burgers, sodas and milkshakes, which had just been delivered to the table when a voice rose above the chatter.
“Speech!” she yelled, cupping her hand around her mouth.
Chris looked up to find his roommate looking back at him with stars in her eyes and an encouraging smile. The rest of the group began to follow suit, banging fists on the table and egging him on. He lifted his hand to silence them, “Alright, alright”.
He began tentatively, “I’m not sure I’m really any good at speeches, but, I do really appreciate all of the support that you guys have offered me. Not just tonight, but over the last season… the whole year, really. Some of you… most of you… have seen me at the highest and the lowest points of our journey as a team so far. And let me just say I’m really glad that we made it. It was a really amazing feeling out there tonight. It was awesome to share it with all of you guys”. Chris paused for a second before deciding he had nothing left to say. He nodded, lifting his chocolate milkshake into the air for a toast.
The others were not far behind. Chris heard a “Hear! Hear!” and a few “Cheers!” escaping the mouths of his friends. He beamed at them all and felt a slight blush creeping up his cheeks.
“Wait, wait!” called his roommate, shuffling out of her seat with her camera, “This is a perfect photo op”. She positioned everyone to crowd as closely together around the table as possible and then ran to find their waitress. She returned quickly, handing off her camera to the waitress and squeezing herself into the photo next to Chris. Everyone lifted their drinks up high and called out their celebratory statement of choice. Although Chris was overtired at this point, he couldn’t help but feel genuinely happy in that moment.
Standing with his nose just inches away from the fridge, Chris began to frown. Not at the memories, necessarily, but at the fact that those memories were symbolic of how things had turned for the worst. As he stood idly in his kitchen, Chris found himself reflecting upon the last four years as a whole. His mind started to run, analyzing things, wondering how he had gotten here and what he could have done to change it. A slew of mixed emotions enveloped him. Sighing, he hung his head and slowly carried his protein shake back over to the sofa, where he would remain for the next six hours.
MC Campbell
This had been the third apartment MC had scouted that afternoon. Queens was only slightly more urban than some of the areas she had looked at surrounding Hartfeld, with many suburban neighborhoods as well. This place had a brick covered exterior and a narrow staircase leading directly to the front door, which sat underneath a charming little awning. She stood upon the front stoop next to her cousin, Avery, as they waited for the current tenant to answer the door. MC unknowingly blew out a frustrated sigh.
“You stressed out already? We’re just getting started.” Avery asked with a light chuckle, resting her hand on MC’s shoulder.
“Huh?” MC returned her question with a blank stare.
“It just seems like something’s on your mind. Should we take a break after this one and go for some frozen yogurt, or something?”
“Oh,” she blinked, mustering up a smile, “yeah, um, I’d like that. That might be a good idea…”
Avery furrowed her brow at her younger cousin, who was now looking down at her shoes, seeming troubled. She frowned. “Are you thinking about–”
“Oh, look! The tenant is coming to the door!” MC exclaimed loudly, cutting Avery off.
Avery eyed MC suspiciously, lingering just for another moment before turning to smile at the person who had opened the front door. She and MC were greeted by a young, hispanic woman wearing thick framed glasses. She smiled with closed lips as she reached out to shake Avery’s hand.
“Hi, Sabrina, is it?” asked Avery.
“That’s me,” she nodded, stepping carefully aside, “I was so glad to get your call. Please, please come in”.
Sabrina led Avery and MC into her apartment for which she had been seeking a roommate. She was petite with long, curly blonde hair and she wore perfectly winged eyeliner. These were the only things MC cared to notice as she occasionally looked up and made eye contact amidst her distracted state. She heard Avery asking questions to Sabrina, such as ‘What is your landlord like?’ and ‘What do you think of the neighborhood?’ but while she appeared to be engaged, she found herself zoning out. Her hand reached out to touch the cushy material atop the sofa she stood next to, and, seeing this, Sabrina perked up.
“Oh, of course, you’ll want a tour! Please excuse me, this weekend has been busy as heck for me already”.
MC’s eyes lifted from the sofa to meet Sabrina’s and offer a polite smile. “What is it that you do?” she asked, speaking up for the first time since she’s entered the apartment.
“I’m a makeup artist”, Sabrina replied, lifting her glasses off her face and wiping them clean with her shirt. “Wedding season just started up again. I love it, but it’s a lot of work. Helps to wear a good pair of shoes”. She nodded, clearing her throat and briefly looking away from her two guests. “So, shall we?”
MC allowed her eyes to roam around the apartment as Avery and Sabrina continued to chat. As she settled her gaze on the living room set up, she noticed an empty mug and a laptop sitting on the coffee table. Underneath the television was the entertainment center upon which it sat, housing a few gadgets, a candle and a photo frame. Inside the cabinet she could see a section that was meant for storing tangible media but only held four Blu Ray discs. As her eyes fixed on that cabinet, she began to slip into a memory. Looking back over to the sofa, the forms of a perky brunette and a charming young man suddenly materialized in front of her eyes. She recognized them immediately.
It was movie night for MC and her roommate, Chris, as neither of them had particularly felt up to going out or spending money that evening. They had whipped something up for dinner together and sat down on the sofa, mindlessly surfing the channels on the television and finding almost nothing that they agreed upon. Chris sighed.
“You know”, he had said, gaze drifting over to a cardboard box that had never been unpacked, “You lugged all those DVDs here–for what reason I still haven’t figured out–so we might as well see if we can find something decent to watch out of those”.
“Ahhh,” MC straightened, looking at Chris with bright eyes, “You’re about to find out exactly why, my friend”.
Chris chuckled as he watched her walk over to the box and start rummaging through a bunch of movies. “I get that you’re a movie buff, but, is it really worth it to have all of those movies on disc? You don’t think they just take up a lot of space?”
“Don’t you ever say that to me again,” she jutted a finger towards him, frowning.
“I’m just saying they don’t even fit in our entertainment center!” Chris gestured vaguely in the direction of the piece of furniture sitting underneath the flat screen.
MC breathed out a quick little laugh, looking down fondly at a movie in her hand. She brushed her thumb over a small bit of dust. “It’s just… to me, nothing compares to having the case in your hand, taking out the disc, and popping it into the player. You can stream anything nowadays but, I don’t know, it’s just not the same. I like to have a collection I can look at”. She sighed and thought about the nights she had spent as a teenager, on occasions when she had felt too different from the rest of the world to be a part of it, so instead she had turned to a few of her favorite films for comfort, curling up under a blanket and drifting away into worlds of fiction and fantasy. These films had understood her in ways that not many people ever could.
“Alright, so… dealer’s choice?” Chris smiled sideways when MC looked up at him.
She shot her roommate a mischievous look, raising one of her eyebrows. “How do you feel about classic horror?”
About a half hour or so into the movie, the room fell silent during a moment of suspense. MC sat, completely transfixed, with a hand full of popcorn suspended in the air. Chris glanced over at her before smirking and hopping quietly off of the sofa to use the bathroom. She had hardly even noticed he was gone when, just a moment later, he tiptoed behind the sofa and blurted an inaudible scream into her ear.
“MUAHAAAA!”
In an instant, popcorn was flying and MC was covering her eyes in terror. Chris began howling with laughter and hurdled effortlessly over the back of the sofa to land next to her with a thump. She gasped, punching him in the arm as hard as she could. It still wasn’t very hard. He continued to crack up.
“Jesus Christ, what is the matter with you?!” She lifted both hands and then slapped them down on her thighs. Her expression was unrelenting, but Chris just couldn’t bring himself to stop laughing, as hard as he tried. “You scared the shit out of me! I think I almost peed myself!”
She looked at him blankly, waiting, but all he did was bring his palm to his forehead and lean back in laughter. He mocked the sound of her startled shriek from just moments before, and finally, as she watched the jiggle of his body, MC began to break. She covered her mouth as she grinned, her cheeks turning a heated blush.
“Oh, my God,” Chris began to calm, laughter subsiding, “That was priceless. You should have seen your face”. He wiped at a tear peeking from the corner of his eye.
MC laughed wildly as she felt around the sofa for the remote control. She paused the movie and took a good look at their surroundings. “Well, now you need to help me clean all of this up. What a waste of perfectly good popcorn,” she said.
Chris kneeled onto the floor with the bowl while MC began sweeping popcorn into it with her hands. He looked up at her, “…Totally worth it. I’ll go make another bag”.
Feeling the touch of Avery’s hand tapping her arm, MC jolted back to reality, or back to Sabrina’s living room, rather. No one sat upon the sofa and the floor was clear of popcorn. She shook her head a bit to get the imagery out, trying to focus on the apartment tour, which brought the three girls into a hallway next. There were three doors, two of which led to bedrooms and the third a bathroom. Sabrina opened the door to the bathroom, which appeared to have been kept very nicely, with the exception of a few makeup items in an organizer atop the counter. MC thought that she wasn’t sure she had ever seen a bathroom look so clean before. She stepped into the doorway and could smell the aroma of a lemon scented candle burning.
“Do you mind if I actually use the restroom quickly?” MC asked, warranting a welcoming smile and an ‘of course’ from Sabrina.
She shut the door behind her and took a glance at her reflection in the his and hers mirrors along the wall. Behind her in the reflection was a gold and white shower curtain which she studied briefly. She could see the shower head peeking out from above the curtain, and the longer she looked at it, she began to see steam rising up toward the ceiling. The sound of water running filled her ears as her mind threw her into another vivid memory.
As she grew closer to her apartment door, MC’s body began to tremble. Doing an involuntary dance, she cursed herself for drinking that extra iced coffee. Her fingers fumbled with her key as she quickly unlocked the door, dropped her bookbag and ran towards the bathroom. She could hear the shower running from the hallway and yelled out,
“Damn it, Powell, you better not be in that bathroom!” Her voice turned into a whimper then, pressing her thighs together tightly as she ran. “Not now…” She pounded on the bathroom door. “Chris!”
“I’m in the shower!” She heard his voice calling from inside.
MC sighed helplessly and shut her eyelids tight, shuffling on her feet. “Chris, I need to pee!”
“Alright, well, the door’s unlocked so, you can come in if you want,” her roommate’s voice sounded through the door.
She frowned, “Isn’t that weird?”
“Suit yourself, MC, if you’d rather wait”.
MC paced back and forth in front of the door, flustered. She shook her hands like she was flicking water off of them. With each passing moment, she felt more and more like her bladder would burst.
“Fine, I’m coming in,” she announced and swung the door open.
Steam filled up the room as she shimmied her bottoms down to her ankles and sat on the toilet, crossing her arms over her lap. She waited for relief but it never came. Her eyes darted around the room nervously. “Great…” MC breathed.
“What, no toilet paper?” Chris asked.
“No, I… I can’t go,” She replied, feeling silly.
“What do you mean you can’t go?”
“I’ve never been okay with other people hearing me pee. It’s like… performance anxiety or something,” her lips turned down in a small frown as she heard the words come out.
“Really?” Chris laughed through his words, “I’m not listening, don’t worry”.
MC waited a few minutes more, trying to focus on one particular spot on the floor. She stared at it intently, leaning over her thighs and propping up her chin with her fists.
“Okay, this isn’t working,” she sighed, getting ready to pull her panties back up.
As she was doing so, she stopped when Chris started to sing from behind the shower curtain. He sang loudly and, quite badly, in fact. His voice rang out in an echo, bouncing off of the shower walls.
“In the beginning
I never thought it would be you”
“Oh, God, no,” MC chuckled, “Not Jason Derulo”.
“When we were chillin’
Smiling in the photo booth
But we got closer
‘Till you were eating off my spoon
And coming over
And we would talk all afternoon”
MC held back a giggle from escaping her lips. She smirked at her roommate’s awful singing voice but thought how impressed she was with his memory of the lyrics to the song. He stopped for a second and asked,
“Is this helping?”
MC chuckled, “My eardrums? Certainly not”.
Chris continued to sing and MC, surprisingly, started to feel herself relax. She sat up straight and listened for a key moment in the song. Hesitantly at first, she took a breath and began to join in.
“Tonight, take me to the other side
Sparks fly like the Fourth of July
Just take me to the other side
I see that sexy look in your eyes
And I know, we ain’t friends anymore
If we walk down this road
We’ll be lovers for sho’
So tonight kiss me like it’s do or die
And take me to the other side”
As she and Chris belted out into the bathroom acoustics, her bladder finally released. Their voices drowned out the sound of her peeing, and she let out a long, relieved exhale before cleaning up and buttoning her pants. “Oh, my God,” MC said, “I can’t believe that just happened”.
“It worked?!”
“It… worked!” she laughed, wiping at her eyebrow.
Chris laughed, too, and whooped in victory. “And you thought this would be weird!”
“Let’s never speak of it again, okay?” MC joked.
“What happened? I thought you hated Jason Derulo”.
“I don’t hate Jason Derulo… I just… enjoy him in small doses”.
Chris teased, “You like him”.
MC shook her head and grinned with her hand on the doorknob. Just before exiting back into the hallway, she heard Chris call out,
“Happy to help!”
The sound of the toilet flushing snapped MC out of her train of thought. She zipped up her skirt and washed her hands with a lavender scented soap, taking a moment to study her face in the mirror before stepping out. She took a steady breath and joined her cousin and Sabrina once again in the hallway, where they were lingering in the doorway of an open bedroom.
“Oh, good, MC, come and look,” Avery waved her over, “I think you’ll really love this space. I know how much you like natural sunlight”.
MC stepped into the empty room where the orange glow of the sunset shone through three bare, undressed windows. The floors were hardwood in a beautiful chestnut stain and they creaked slightly underneath her feet as she walked. The walls were painted a dusty blue that looked gray in the evening light. A small smile creeped onto MC’s face as she stepped slowly up to one of the windows and looked out. She rested her fingertips on the windowsill and imagined what it might be like to look out of this window each and every night; to call this windowsill her own.
The three girls came back around into the kitchen, which was just steps away from the living area and, naturally, the last stop on the apartment tour. It was small, but cozy, and it smelled like coffee. Nothing in particular about this space reminded MC of her apartment in Hartfeld, and yet, she found her mind drifting anyway. As her gaze traveled over the dining table, she could see herself and a certain young man sitting across from one another on either side. With a flutter of her eyelashes, she was taken back to a moment not two weeks ago. What she saw here was more of an image than it was a flashback; a moment in time; a feeling.
MC sat quietly across from Chris at the table where they had shared so many dinners, late night snacks, and playful debates. Over the past four years, this table was a place of gathering; a welcoming retreat; a home for memories. This, however, this didn’t feel like that table. On this day, in this moment, the table felt cold and unforgiving. She leaned forward and looked at him; searched for that all familiar light in his eyes. She couldn’t find it. She looked on as he leaned his arms on the table and twiddled his thumbs. His eyes were cast downward and he wouldn’t relent, no matter how much she willed him to look at her. She licked her lips, wanting so badly to reach out for him. Her mind wrestled with all the things she had wanted to, but never said.
This memory was one that was too fresh and, quite possibly too painful for MC to revisit. She blinked it away along with the tears that begun to fill her eyes to the brim. Her expression quickly returned to its blank, hardened state, which was much safer to wear around others. She painted a polite smile on for Sabrina, whom she thanked genuinely for her time. MC liked the apartment, she really did, but it had been hard to look around without memories clouding her vision. Everywhere she looked, she was reminded of the life she had been living over the past four years and, with that, the person she had been living it alongside. She wanted nothing more than to wipe it all clean from her head.
As she and Avery said their goodbyes and walked down the steps to the sidewalk, Avery lifted a hand to rub comforting circles on her cousin’s back. She had a sense of what was going on in her head, but knew that she wasn’t willing to talk about it. MC walked silently to Avery’s car, climbed in and buckled up without a word. Avery started up the engine and quickly checked a few notifications on her phone. MC gazed out the passenger window at the exterior of the houses and apartments on the block, having trouble noticing any differences or unique qualities among them. To her eye, they seemed to be the same building over and over again without end. ‘How did I get here?’ She thought to herself, ‘How did we?’ The buildings started to recede at an increasing rate as Avery drove away. She watched as the burning orange sun peeked slightly over the rooftops as it lowered in the sky.
“I think I’ll take that frozen yogurt now”.