The paranoia of starting anew (659 views)

Todd Bennett was home today, comfortably sitting in his room. He was feeling utterly miserable today, actually, a feeling that hadn’t gone away from his fight with Bandi. He had tried to pass the hours by watching Ed, Edd, and Eddy DVDs, but somehow that was just making him progressively sadder and sadder. Bandi had taken the gift he’d brought with him when he left that day, and when Todd got to those episodes he was missing, he turned off his little TV with a sigh.

He heard car doors open outside and, confused, Todd looked out the window. He saw a girl he’d never seen before, struggling with some bags. Oh, she must be the new roommate! Their house was missing a girl—and as Todd had assumed, she was just a late arrival.

Wanting something to do, Todd quickly hopped off his bed and walked down the stairs, opening the door. The blonde boy smiled warmly at Cristina. He was wearing a plain polo shirt with the top two buttons undone and a pair of jeans, both colored blue, with a pair of black sneakers were on his feet. His outfit wasn’t extremely flashy, but it looked nice on him as most clothing did.

“Hello, I’m, uh, Todd Bennett.” Todd introduced himself. “Do you need some help moving in?”

Todd noticed Cristina carefully position the suitcase, and he furrowed his brows. Had she placed something fragile inside? Assuming that was the case, Todd very carefully picked up the thing, keeping it straight and parallel at his side. It wasn’t too heavy, and he would have no problem lugging it up the stairs. He just had to be careful he didn’t break whatever was in here!

“Your room is the second girl’s room, it’s on the left.” Todd informed Cristina, carefully making his way to the stairs with her suitcase. He waited a bit, for Cristina to catch up with the second bag. He wanted to make sure he put it down in the right spot, after all.

About halfway up the stairs, he offered her a slightly awkward smile. "Is uh, something expensive in here? I'll be careful with it!"

“Oh, that makes sense.” Todd said, relieved he wasn’t handling expensive things. He’d still treat her suitcase with respect though, since that was what she liked. He reached the top of the stairs, and glanced at the other avalible room. He shook his head, glancing at Cristina.

“Well… they said that there is going to be another guy in here soon. But… he hasn’t arrived yet. For now, uhm…”

He led the way to her door and gently placed her bag down, making sure it was straight. He did leave it off by a few centimeters, but he was never good at measurements. He just wanted to make sure it was upright and gently placed. “There’s me… I’m right across the hall from you… and there’s another girl, her name is Max… she’s nice, too, but she’s usually out…”

When she grabbed for the suitcase Todd had just put down, he thought he did something wrong and bit his bottom lip. Oh no, he didn’t make her mad, did he? She didn’t seem to be mad but sometimes you could just tell if someone was mad.

He stood there awkwardly for a minute, noticing her look about her room. She seemed really jittery and nervous, but he didn’t think it was just shyness. It seemed… more than that.

He coughed into his hand, blue eyes meeting her own wide eyes before he quickly flickered them away, choosing to gaze at the bed instead.

“You can move anything you want… just so long as you don’t break anything, the administration doesn’t care. I, uhm, I moved my bed to the left, because I like it better there… do you want to rearrange things?”

Todd straightened up when the boy didn’t take his offered hand, assuming that the guy was just fine, maybe a bit independent. He was surprised, however, when Matt bumped into him, Matt’s forehead hitting the top of Todd’s chest.

“Sorry, uh, did you not see me?” Todd asked, oblivious to Matt’s medical condition. He also noticed Matt didn’t move to straighten Cristina’s bags, so Todd moved out of Matt’s way and bent over, straightening up the bags as best he could. For whatever reason, Cristina seemed to really like things even. So he did his best to even them out, resting them against each other to make them more accurate.

Todd straightened up, again, and turned to Matt. “You must be our other housemate… right? I’m Todd Bennett… nice to meet you…”

Todd certainly wasn’t okay. Todd sniffled again, moving his hand a bit, but wincing as that hurt more than just keeping it steady. What if his eye turned to jello and he was now blind? What if that cane was jacked with poison and now he would be blind too as revenge? Was this karma?

No, his imagination was going wild. His eye was just sensitive, that was all, as most eyes were. With one of his hands he quickly wiped the damp track on his cheek from the pain, trying to ignore the blurriness of his limited field of vision.

His lips formed a pout when Matt didn’t even apologize. Todd hadn’t meant anything by being oblivious to the fact that he was blind, after all. Besides, this guy sure seemed arrogant…!

Oh, he already didn’t like him. It was rare Todd didn’t actually like someone, but he didn’t like his attitude or rude introduction- -even if it was all a joke. Todd was still in pain.

Todd sniffed again and grabbed one of Cristina’s bags, a lighter one, with one of his hands, the other still covering his hurt eye. He brushed past Matt, careful not to knock him down again, and started to ascend the stairs wordlessly. Once he got this bag into Cristina’s room, he’d go check out his eye in his room.

“Where do you want this bag?” Todd asked, his voice a little hoarse. “D—do you want it next to the other one? I know you like them to be straight…”

Todd blinked with his good eye when Cristina imposed herself between him and the door, his mouth opening slightly. She really had a problem with things, didn’t she? Not in a rude way, of course, but her nervousness was sure… worrying.

He placed the bag where she indicated, and sniffled, wiping a this eye to make sure he didn’t make a fool of himself by allowing tears to leak down.

“Yeah, it does hurt… my eye is sensitive… because my friend… he, well, poked this eye so I’d be forced to stay home from a job…” He said, sounding bitter. “And it was the same eye…”

He really should ask her about her obsession for order, shouldn’t he?

“Thanks for worrying, by the way, I’m sure I’ll be fine! It was just a poke, after all!”

“You do make sense…” Todd sighed. “I don’t know… we got into a fight about it and he… and he just… He ruined a really great opportunity I’ll never get back…”

He was tearing up again, but fort a completely different reason. T odd quickly whipped his tears away.

“Thanks, I’ll try ice… uhm… I don’t know if this is rude but… you really like things to be organized and a certain way and, uhm, as your housemate I want to know if you have any problems—no, not problems—I mean, if it really bothers you… stuff like that… is it serious? Not that it wouldn’t be, but…”

He was rambling and he probably seemed very rude, asking her this! “I just… if organization and stuff really bothers you… I don’t want to upset you by doing something wrong… you know?”