Roommate from Hell by Julie Steimle (year 7 reading list TXT) 📕

Leaving her to fume on the curb, I climbed up the bus steps and paid the fare. Of course she followed right after me, even to sit across the row I was in. Her dark looks fixed on me all the way back to campus. Everyone turned to look at us both, wondering what was going on. Both of us got off at the nearest stop to the university.
I crossed into the quad several feet before halting. My shoulders hung and my eyes looked up to the heavens as I turned around. “Are you going to keep following me?”
She took a step back from me then thrust up her chin and chest. “I will find out how to end your possession of Dawn McAllister, demon! You wait and see!”
Groaning even louder, I shook my head and whipped back around. I had to get away from her. I just—
I blinked as my eyes fixed on a young man that was walking towards us from the library. At first he didn’t see me, but that was a split second when his eyes set on me and widened. Inside I shrank back, unable to bear it if he stiffened out of fear from seeing me after such a long time. Hanz Johaanson.
“Eve.” Hanz stopped five feet away.
“Ha…” Words failed me. My brain must have liquefied or something. “Hu…mmm. Hanz.”
Tabitha hopped next to my right elbow, staring at Hanz also, then looked at me with an eager sign of hope. She probably thought he was some sort of deity school student or something. And who could blame her. Hanz had that inner glow.
Hanz took another step closer. His surprised expression started to transform. I was afraid to see what it would turn into, but as he took yet another step closer to me I saw him smile, his eyes actually shining.
“My goodness, I never expected…” He shook his head, grinning broader. His face flushed. I could hear his heart beating faster. Was he excited to see me? Impossible. Yet here he was smiling at me. “How are you doing?”
I felt own face get hot on my cheeks. I tried to avert my eyes, but they kept drawing up to his face. That smile was real. He was actually happy to see me, even after our morose parting that Christmas four years ago. “I…I’m good.”
He laughed, reaching out for my hand.
Tabitha shrieked.
“No! Don’t touch her! She’s a demon!” And she slapped his hand away before he could get close.
Ugh. That Tabitha. I set my hand to my forehead, already feeling a headache coming on.
“Excuse me?” Hanz said to her. His tone noted irritation.
I looked up at him and saw that Hanz now stood between Tabitha and me, blocking her. Tabitha clenched her fists, her face bright red with horror though she glared mostly at me. It was clear she thought I was aiming to possess Hanz now.
“You heard me,” Tabitha said. “That thing is not human. She is a demon, and you must stay away from her!”
She straightened up her back, waiting for me to fight back.
I merely rolled my eyes.
Hanz glanced back at me over his shoulder and then set a hand to his forehead like I had. He lowered his voice to a whisper, peering at Tabitha’s eyes to make sure he was being understood as he said, “I don’t care what you think Eve is, but I don’t want you calling her names like that.”
“She has fangs and wings and—” Tabitha was hissing, but at least now she was keeping her voice down. People had started to stare.
Hanz cut her off. “I know that.”
Tabitha stiffened, her eyes bugging out. If I had a camera, I would have taken a picture of it to remember, it was so funny looking. She had gone all splotchy, between white and red, her neck cricked to one side and she glanced from Hanz to me again and then back to Hanz, then immediately took a step back from us both.
Hanz turned to me again with that smile of his. “And I really regret how we parted last time. And now that I see you I want to say I’m sorry.”
I just melted inside. I was butter, grinning dopey-like at him. “Really?”
He nodded.
“I can’t believe this,” Tabitha muttered. She then pointed at me. “How can you be apologizing to that?”
I saw him turn with a look. Watching his words, Hanz was about to speak up for me, but this time I grabbed a hold of his arm and tugged him back. “Don’t bother, Hanz. That’s Tabitha Raines. She’s unlikely to change her opinion no matter what you say. She’s Dawn’s roommate and she nearly doused Dawn with two bottles of holy water because she thought Dawn was possessed.”
“Huh?” Hanz cast Tabitha a look that said it all for me. Tabitha could tell he thought she was an idiot.
Drawing herself up, Tabitha hopped on the balls of her feet and snapped. “She is possessed! How else would a girl like that claim to be sisters with a demon from hell? And like it?”
Hanz blinked then laughed. He looked to me, and I nodded back. “I see.”
“Just as you are possessed!” and Tabitha proceeded to open up a wrapped package from the satchel she had been carrying. Immediately she held out a strange smelly thing that reminded me much of dead mouse. Both of us backed away.
Then turning to me with a shake of his head, Hanz said, “Well, that aside, Eve, does this mean you are going to school here?”
I nodded, glad he was willing to ignore Tabitha, even as she started to shriek again, hopping up and down.
He grinned. “That’s great. Uh…can I get…get your phone number?”
Nodding vigorously, I felt all my pockets for a pen. I couldn’t help it. I was just so happy to see him, happier still that he wasn’t afraid of me. Of course he still didn’t know more than I had wings, weird eyes, and fangs. I hoped that he would be like Jane, my best friend from home, and he would overlook that I really was a demon. Very few people were like that. Very few.
He took out one of his Latin language flash cards he had been carrying and let me scrawl the number on it. I also gave him Dawn’s number and my email address in case he couldn’t get a hold of me. Then he wrote his number on my wrist. I didn’t have any paper on me and he didn’t have any to spare.
“I’ll call you tonight,” he said.
My heart thumped as I looked at the number. “Yeah. I…I mean, I’m looking forward to it.”
We parted, him continuing on his way and me to mine with Tabitha just staring at us with disbelief in the middle, especially upset that the stinky package didn’t work.
“On second thought—” Hanz jogged back to me and grabbed my wrist, writing on it. “Meet me for lunch tomorrow. There’s a deli I think you’d like.”
I looked at the writing. It was an address.
“So, it’s a date?” I hoped it was.
He just smiled at me in that sweet way of his. “Yeah.”
Behind us I heard Tabitha let out a groan of disbelief. Hanz and I parted again, him waving at me and me waving at him, and both of us blushing like two lovesick kids. If I had been watching us as an outsider I probably would have been nauseated.
However, I walked on air (figuratively of course, since this was in public view mid-day) back to the dorms, hardly hearing the shouts of the imps around me, Tabitha’s weird ranting that I was not going to fool her, or the mocking laughter of the girls in the halls that watched us as we went. And as I dropped into my bed, sighing with dreams of how my first real date would be (since no one back home ever considered dating me because they all knew I was a demon) I didn’t even care that Star was staring with those suspicious eyes.
Imprint

Text: (c) 2012 Julie Steimle
Publication Date: 07-28-2012

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