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“I hate her!”
Raelle throws her hands up in the air to emphasize her statement as she paces around the small dorm room. “I mean, I really hate her! Her stupid smirk, and her stupid endless blue eyes, and her stupid perfect hair and her beautiful voice and I just- I hate her!”
“Do you think she hates her, Tally? I can't tell.”
Tally laughs while Raelle rotates so she can glare at Abigail.
“Can I get a little sympathy please? I have the worst roommate of all time.”
“She’s not that bad.” Tally tries to say, then backtracks when Raelle fixes her glare on her. “I mean, oh yes. The worst. Terrible.”
“Thank you!” Raelle goes back to pacing and listing every single quality of her roommate that she hates.
Tally and Abigail exchange a look.
“Alright, I think this has gone on long enough,” Tally announces.
Abigail sits up so that she can make sure Raelle is looking at them. “Listen, Collar. I’m going to say this as simply as I can, so you will understand me, okay?”
Raelle rolls her eyes. “Sure.”
“You do not hate your roommate. You are in love with her.”
Raelle’s pacing comes to a screeching halt as she stumbles, arms flailing to regain her balance. “WHAT?? That’s ridiculous- I would never- How could you possibly think- what?!”
“You’re in love with Scylla Ramshorn,” Abigail repeats calmly, and Raelle feels her whole world shift as the truth becomes clear.
“I’m…” She blinks, still frozen.
“I think you broke her,” Tally whispers.
Suddenly Raelle snaps back into motion. “Oh my god. What am I going to do?! I’m in love with her!”
“Well, I have good news for you. She’s in love with you, too.”
Raelle looks at both of them like they’ve just told her magic is real.
“Are you sure?”
Abigail shrugs. “Relatively. She’s always looking at you like you hung the moon.”
“And she brings you food when you’re up late studying.” Tally adds.
“And she goes to all your sports games.”
“And you brought that girl you were dating back to your room one time and Scylla almost incinerated her with her eyes.”
Raelle runs one hand through her hair, still looking shell shocked. “But I… and she… and we...”
“I think what you’ve been mistaking for hatred is actually just unresolved sexual tension,” Tally says helpfully.
“Oh my god. What am I going to do?!”
“Panic and trip over something?” Abigail offers.
“You should go talk to her. Tell her how you feel. Be romantic!”
Raelle looks at Tally with wide, panicked eyes. “But it’s Scylla! Should I go get flowers? Should I go get a ring?!”
Tally holds up her hands placatingly. “Lets slow down.”
“Lesbians…” Abigail scoffs under her breath.
Raelle straightens her shoulders like she’s getting ready to go into battle. “Okay, I’m gonna go talk to her. Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need luck!”
“Good fucking luck.”
Raelle dashes out of the room, leaving the door open behind her.
“And they were roommates…” Abigail mutters as they watch Raelle run off.
“Oh my god.” Tally says. “They were roommates.”
Raelle throws the door open with a bang and runs into their room. “Scylla!”
“Raelle?” Scylla is sitting on her bed, a book in her hands as usual. She takes off her reading glasses to look at Raelle in confusion. “Are you alright?”
Reconsidering her entrance, Raelle spins back around to shut the door, then takes up pacing again as she had been in Abigail’s room.
“I was just talking to Tally and Abigail-”
Scylla abandons the book in her lap and leans back on her hands, watching Raelle with fond amusement. “Oh, to be worthy to speak to Miss High Atlantic herself.”
“-about how you and I are enemies-”
Scylla nods sagely. “Mortal enemies. Hate each other. Rivals til the bitter end.”
“-because you always shower right when you know I’m about to shower and use up all the hot water just to bug me-”
“Your irritated face is just so cute, I can’t help it.”
“-and all the various other roommate antics that have occurred in this room-”
“Which is why Anacostia the RA will no longer answer your complaint emails, you know.”
“-like when you cut all the sleeves off my shirts-”
“I’m still not apologizing for that one. It’s a crime to hide those biceps.”
Raelle flushes a little, but keeps going: “-and you're always leaving weird things in the mini fridge-”
“Just because you don’t like vegetables doesn’t mean mushrooms are ‘weird’.” Scylla says mildly, her gaze following Raelle around the room.
“-and you just in general drive me crazy-”
“I like to make sure you’re thinking about me.”
“-I was telling them all that and Abigail said-” Raelle’s footsteps falter as she reaches the climax of the story. “She said…”
Scylla’s brow furrows in confusion. “She said…?”
Raelle licks her lips nervously and faces Scylla. “She said that you were in love with me.”
Raelle expects Scylla to laugh, or to make another sarcastic comment, or something. She does not expect this .
Scylla stills, her hands pausing for a heartbeat before she carefully sets her book aside and swallows. “Did she?” she asks faintly. “How strange.”
“I know! I told her it was ridiculous.” Raelle watches Scylla closely, worrying her lip between her teeth. “It’s ridiculous, right?”
Scylla hesitates, looking down at her hands. “Well… it wouldn’t be the craziest thing Bellweather’s ever said.”
Raelle watches her for a beat more, then sighs. “Fuck it.”
She sits down on the edge of her own bed and starts untying her boots, pulling them off.
“Raelle, what are you-”
Scylla snaps her jaw shut when Raelle stands up, crosses the gap between their beds in one stride, and straddles Scylla, effectively climbing into her lap as Scylla tilts back against the pillows.
Scylla blinks rapidly, her gaze darting all over Raelle’s face and then back to her lips. “Hi there, roomie.”
“Are you telling me,” Raelle’s voice has gone low and husky and Scylla can’t help shivering at the sound, “that we could’ve been making out for months now, and instead we’ve just been leaving passive aggressive notes about vacuuming?!”
Scylla offers her a one-shouldered shrug. “I thought the notes were cute. I liked the little doodles you drew on them.”
“But you still didn’t vacuum.”
“I wanted you to confront me about it in person.”
“Why?”
Scylla lets her hands rest on Raelle’s thighs. “Can we go back to the ‘’making out’ thing?”
Raelle lets her head drop so that her lips are hovering over Scylla’s throat. Scylla inhales sharply. “Why didn’t you vacuum, Scy?”
“Because I-” Scylla’s voice is shaky from their close proximity, “-I knew it would make you mad and that’s the easiest way to to get you to pay attention to me.”
“I’m always paying attention to you.” Raelle tucks a strand of Scylla’s hair behind her ear and lets her hand rest at the back of her neck.
“Are you sure? Because I’ve been flirting with you for months and apparently you didn’t notice until High Atlantic told you.”
“I thought you hated me.”
“I thought you hated me .”
Raelle grins. “Evidently there’s been some miscommunication on both sides.”
“Maybe you should kiss me now, just to make things clear,” Scylla suggests, her hands now toying with the edge of Raelle’s shirt.
Raelle leans forward at an agonizingly slow pace, just barely brushing their lips together before Scylla huffs in frustration, making Raelle chuckle before Scylla tilts up to press their lips together firmly. Scylla’s lips part for Raelle with a contented sigh, both of them reveling in the warm slide of their mouths against each other, the kisses quickly turning long and deep, Raelle licking into Scylla’s mouth like she’s been wanting to since the day she moved in.
After what could have been one minute or one hour- she’s not really aware of anything except Scylla right now- Raelle pauses so she can draw back a little and look deep into Scylla’s eyes.
“I’m in love with you too, by the way.”
Scylla smiles, radiant and overjoyed, and draws Raelle in for another kiss. Pulling back, she presses their foreheads together. “Good... but I’m still not going to vacuum.”
“I bet I can convince you.”
“You can try.”
Raelle laughs, tugging off Scylla’s shirt before removing her own. “Wait til you see how good a roommate I can be.”
The long lecture they get from Anacostia about noise complaints is totally worth it.