Twin Beds

A Short Story

Image by Greg Pappas, Unsplash

Pia Sierra, 18

Durham, North Carolina

🔸

When I got back to my dorm room just after eight, the sky had turned pink with the sunset. My parents dropped me at the circle, hugging me longer than necessary.

I watched their taillights go, then stood for a second, keys in hand, letting the cicadas scream at me. It was still hot, sticky with late-August humidity that made everything cling to your skin. I turned and went inside.

My room was dark. Anna’s bed was on the left, mine on the right. The smell of sunscreen and beer hit me, the twin lubricants of college O week. I shut the door and slid open the window.

Strains of a Bob Marley song floated up from someone’s speaker in the quad.

One love, one heart.

I dropped my tote by the desk and kicked off my sandals.

She’d left me a note in purple glitter pen:

YOU MISSED THE DEBRIEF! I HAVE TO TELL YOU EVERYTHING!!

❤️ Anna

It was taped to a half-full plastic cup of sangria with a bendy straw poking out. I smiled.

Anna was outrageous and popular. A ball of energy. We weren’t friends yet, but I hoped we would be.

The party had ended at five. Technically seven, if you counted the pool part. I didn’t. I’d left to have dinner with my parents before it got stupid. I’d already done enough: danced on a chair, tried a jello shot, let a guy I didn’t know put his hands on my arm and ask what I was majoring in. I said “sleep deprivation.” He chuckled and walked away.

Now, I sat alone in my empty room. I grabbed the sangria and climbed onto my bed, pulling my knees up. My thighs were still a little slick from sweat, and the tank top I’d changed into after the party felt too tight. I sipped slowly. It was warm and too sweet, but I didn’t hate it.

Starting college was like nothing I’d ever experienced. Half exhilaration, half nervous dread.

It wasn’t just being away from home for the first time. It was living in a dorm with a hundred girls I’d never met before. With a roommate I didn’t know until last week.

Every moment felt like playing a game I didn’t know the rules to. I was so desperately afraid I’d make a wrong move.

Anna had said it last night, drunk and barefoot in the hallway: “We can do literally anything now. Isn’t that terrifying?”

It was.

🔸

I couldn’t sleep.

The room was too quiet, and somehow too loud. The fan made this repetitive click like it was mocking me, and my body couldn’t decide whether to be hot or cold. My tee was damp, clinging like cellophane, and the waistband of my panties felt like it was cutting me in half.

I stared at the ceiling, then the wall, then buried my face in the pillow like maybe I could suffocate the overthinking out of my skull.

I thought about Marc. How he’d cried in the parking lot when we said goodbye. Actual tears. He tried to hide them, but I knew. I saw.

“You’re gonna forget me,” he said.

I said, “I won’t.”

He looked out the car window like he didn’t believe me. Like he already saw me kissing someone else.

And maybe that was fair. Because part of me… was ready to. Part of me knew I would.

Part of me knew this world, this campus, this future, felt bigger than both of us. Bigger than late-night drives and prom corsages and hand jobs in the back of his car.

I hated myself for thinking that.

The memory of his face, tight and wet and brave, kept replaying. His last words, whispered in the car like a curse: “Just don’t forget me so fast.”

My gut twisted. I rolled onto my side and pulled the blanket up. I kicked it off again. I couldn’t get comfortable. I couldn’t breathe right.

🔸

I’d just started to doze off when I heard the jangle of keys. Laughter. Slurred and bright. A drunk girl trying not to get caught.

The door handle turned. My pulse spiked. I shot up, flicked off the string lights, and dove under the blanket like I was hiding from gunfire. Flattened myself, face to mattress, heart pounding like footsteps.

“Shhh!” Anna giggled through the door.

“I am being quiet,” a guy whispered. His voice was low, muffled.

Oh God.

The door creaked open. Their shadows flashed across the wall opposite me. I stayed still, arms tight at my sides, and squeezed my eyes shut.

“She’s asleep,” Anna said, not even bothering to whisper.

“She’s hot,” he said.

My lungs locked.

“Shut up,” Anna giggled again, but it was quieter now. “Should I go?” the guy said, voice lower now. The hint of an accent.

I held my breath. My heart thudded against the mattress. I could picture them. His hand at the small of her back, her mouth all lip-gloss and mischief.

“No,” Anna murmured. “Just be quiet.”

A rustle. A thump. A whisper of sheets. The creak of her bed. I bit the inside of my cheek.

I clenched everything. My fists. My jaw. My thighs.

I wished I were invisible. Instead, I lay there, pretending to sleep, my body burning, my heart cracking like glass in a too-hot oven.

This wasn’t high school anymore. This was college.

And apparently, this was Thursday.

🔸

I decided to peek.

Just for a second. A flicker of an eyelash. I opened one eye, then shut it. Didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Stayed curled on my side, lashes low, chest rising slow and even like I was dreaming about anything other than this.

The guy whispered something soft, lilting, and I caught the accent this time. British. Not the fake kind, either. The kind that made girls giggle and professors forgive late assignments.

He’d been one of the orientation leaders. Tall and smug, with flippy blond hair and a smile you felt in your knees. He and Anna had been inseparable all week, leading icebreakers, screaming chants, sneaking off between sessions to God knows where. I saw them at the wrap party last night, his hand resting casually on her hip.

Now they flopped onto her bed in a tangle of limbs and laughter, like the night was theirs and I was just part of the furniture.

Anna’s voice drifted across the room. “We have to be quiet,” she whispered, “Princess Pia is sleeping.”

A low chortle. His this time.

I wanted to punch something. Or disappear.

Then a murmur, low and fast. Private. Followed by the snick of a lighter. A beat of silence. The faint crackle of burning paper. And then, that smell. It filled the room. Drifted toward me on a lazy wave. Sharp, earthy, sticky-sweet.

Anna giggled, louder now. He said something in that posh purr of his and she burst out laughing, covering her mouth too late.

I stayed frozen still, hugging the pillow like it might protect me from secondhand smoke and shame. I wished I’d put on PJs. My body felt too present. Every inch of skin awake and on fire.

They kept laughing.

I kept pretending.

I didn’t know if I was furious, heartbroken, or just completely out of my depth. Maybe all three.

I heard soft footsteps cross the floor. I knew it was Anna before I heard the clink of something being picked up from my nightstand.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “Look at this photo.”

My stomach dropped.

“Is this her boyfriend?” she giggled. “Tell me that’s not his actual hair. Oh no. No, no, no. That cannot be on purpose.”

I clenched my jaw. That photo had been sitting next to my bed since move-in day. Why was she pretending she’d never seen it? Marc and me at the beach last summer, grinning, sunburned. His hair was longish, kind of mushroomy, yeah, but still. Why be cruel about it?

Anna snorted. “He looks like a sixth grader trying to be Liam Gallagher.”

The guy chuckled low. “He looks twelve.”

I almost cried with embarrassment. But I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I just let my face press deeper into the pillow.

I heard Anna plopping back onto her twin bed, sending the mattress springs squeaking. There was a long pause. Then a whisper. Then the wet, unmistakable sound of kissing.

I told myself not to listen. It was useless. I listened anyway. Muffled words I couldn’t make out. More kissing. Another creak of the bed.

I peeked. Just barely. My eyelashes parting like a curtain.

Anna straddled him, topless now, her spine arched. Her skin seemed to glow in the soft moonlight through the window. Her bra hung loose around her waist, breasts swaying as she moved her hips under his hands. He let out a groan.

I shut my eyes. Fast.

My heart was doing something wild in my chest, like it couldn’t figure out if I was humiliated or aroused or both. I stayed absolutely still. A pretend statue in my own bed. My own room. My own dumb, falling-apart life.

I heard the sound of a zipper. Slow, but not subtle. Then his voice, hushed and amused. “Shh. Your roommate is sleeping.”

Anna giggled. “She won’t mind.”

There was a pause. Then a gasp, sharp, startled, half-laughing.

“Holy shit,” Anna whispered.

I squeezed my eyes tighter. No. Nope. I didn’t need to know. I didn’t want to know.

“Pia…” Anna said, louder now. Her voice had that drunken sing-song edge that meant she didn’t care how far gone she was. “Pia… I know you’re awake. You gotta see this… Pia!”

I opened my eyes. Slowly. Stupidly.

Anna was sitting cross-legged now, right between the guy’s legs. He leaned back against the wall, shirt hiked up, his jeans completely off. And yeah, his cock was just… there. Standing proud, almost triumphant. Anna had it in both hands like it was Excalibur.

She turned to me with a big, wide grin.

“Pia,” she said, like we were besties. Like this was normal. “Come here and get a look at this. I bet you’ve never seen anything this big before.”

I hadn’t.

The guy laughed, not embarrassed in the slightest. His eyes sparkled as he held the half-burnt joint toward me. “Want some?” he asked.

I stared, not quite sure what he was offering. I looked at the joint… at Anna… then at him… all of him.

My face was burning. My throat was dry. My heart was trying to tap-dance its way out of my chest.

I wanted to disappear. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream and run down the hall. I wanted… I wasn’t even sure what I wanted.

Instead, I just sat there. Speechless. Mind racing. And I did the only thing I could do.

I got out of bed.

🔸