So, here I was at The University of California in Berkeley. No roommate yet. Curious about who was going to be my roommate, I was also nervous about it. Combine that with my ‘first day blues’ and you could say that I was close to freaking out. I kept checking with Taylor, the RA — that’s the Resident Assistant — for our floor, but he kept saying he didn’t have any information yet. I checked with the Housing office and got the same response. The slot was on their list but hadn’t been assigned yet.

Everyone else in the Foothill Dorm — that was my dorm — already had their roommates. In fact, each of them had known whom their roommate was for about a month before our move-in date, and had talked to them and Skyped them and emailed them and texted them and had seen their Facebook pages and knew all about them and… well, you get it. But, for me, nothing.

The Housing office told me that there were many reasons for not having a roommate assignment yet. The prospective roommate could have decided to go to a different university or college. They could have decided to move into a frat house. They could have decided to move into an apartment. They could have decided to live at home, assuming it was an easy commute. All the vacancy meant was that my dorm room had an opening that Housing apparently hadn’t filled yet.

I thought there might be another reason. A couple months earlier when I filled out the dorm application form there was a section about ‘Sexuality’ and I checked the ‘gay’ box. Before I could change my mind and modify the form, I’d returned it by email. That information was available to potential roommates. It could change the mind of any — all, maybe — of my potential roommates.

Dennis wrote me that if I ended up without a roommate it would mean I’d be in my dorm room as a single in a room for two. That would be a BIG single room. It meant more room. It meant I’d have two desks to spread my stuff on. It meant I’d have two closets. It meant I wouldn’t have a roommate who snored. It meant I could study without interruption. It meant I didn’t have to be secretive or discreet in bed at night, or in the morning! He pointed out that those were considerable advantages. So I decided to make the best of my situation. Cool!

My satisfaction about being in a single dorm room was quashed the next morning. I saw Taylor who informed me that I now had been assigned a roommate, and that he would arrive that afternoon.

“Who is he?”

“Don’t know. All I got was this text.” He held his phone so I could see the text message. It didn’t give a name or any other information. “Sorry, Kevin. I know this could be complicated. I hope you haven’t moved any of your stuff into your roommate’s space.”

“No, I thought about it but decided to wait until classes started.”

“Good plan.”

“Will he just show up later today, or…?” I asked.

“Yup. The ‘just show up later’ part. This isn’t a fine hotel with a front desk and a concierge and bellboys.”

“How would he know which dorm room?”

“The room number would have been sent to him. He’d pick up his key at the Housing office.”

“Would my info be sent to him, too?”

“Nope. He’s coming late, so regardless of whomever he is, he doesn’t get all of the normal info other roomies get. That goes for your side of this deal, too. You don’t have any of his info. Or her info.”

“What did you say? Her info?”

“Sure. Remember, this is a co-ed dorm, Kevin. No more studying in the nude.  Or anything else in the nude!”

Taylor couldn’t suppress a grin.

“The dorm might be co-ed, but the rooms aren’t,” I said. “I actually read the material about the co-ed dorms here.”

“Ya got me!” he said, then he laughed. “You know that we do have another dorm that has co-ed roommates.” He wiggled his eyebrows then turned and walked down the hall. Yeah, I knew that too.

I returned to my room and moved my books from the other desk, and made sure the other bed was neat with the sheets and blanket carefully folded in a stack on top.

The next day my unknown roommate was still a no-show. Taylor told me that he hadn’t heard anything, so it seemed that I’d have my dorm room all to myself. He said that could be temporary; if they needed my empty roommate slot later they’d use it.

I met some of the other guys and girls on my floor. Everyone was friendly, and seemed eager for the start of classes. We all left our dorm room doors open; Taylor made that suggestion; it meant I was receptive to others in my dorm coming in to meet me.

Classes were scheduled to start in a week, so I got out my textbooks, all $618.95 worth, only one of which was available used. I decided to start with my three Physics 7A textbooks: Physics for Scientists and Engineers: A Strategic Approach with Modern Physics, $175.11 (Kindle edition); Student Workbook for Physics for Scientists and Engineers, $23.99 (paperback with key card, new); and Student Solutions Manual for Physics for Scientists and Engineers, $28.34 (paperback, used). I sat at my desk and got engrossed in Student Workbook for Physics for Scientists and Engineers. It turned out to be a good head start to read before getting into either of the other two books.

All of a sudden someone stepped in back of me and put their hands over my eyes. A gruff-sounding voice asked, “Guess who?” It sounded like one of the guys from a room down the hall.

“Adam?”

“Nope!” I heard in a different voice. I turned around. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“Dennis!” I shouted as I jumped up. I grabbed him in a hug, and he hugged me back. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in San Antonio?”

“School hasn’t started yet, and I have my dorm room confirmation and I’m good to go. So, I decided to stop by see you before I have to be at school and classes start. How’re you doing? How do you like it at Cal?”

“It’s great. I’m actually starting to read my textbooks. A physics textbook to start with, if you can believe it; that’s going to be my toughest course, three semesters of physics. I have my email account and, as you know, I can get on the internet and send and receive email. I’m learning how to find my way around campus. I found the libraries. That’s plural. There’s even one for the sciences and one for engineering. The food is…” I paused for a couple seconds to make my answer more dramatic… “unbelievably excellent. The campus is huge. Makes Oak Ridge High look like a kindergarten.”

I looked at Dennis. “God, I’m so glad to see you.”

He looked around. “So, this is your dorm room.”

“Yeah. I think I have it all to myself, too. Cool, ‘eh?”

“So, still no roommate?”

“My roommate was supposed to arrive yesterday, and he was a no-show. So, I have the largest single-person dorm room at UC Berkeley! I still might end up with a roommate, but maybe not. As of now, I have this room all to myself. Lots more room to study. And most important, no interruptions when I’m trying to study.”

“As if!”

“What do you mean, as if?”

“Big schools are always short on dorm rooms. They’ll probably find a roommate for you. Maybe a girl!” Dennis wiggled his eyebrows and grinned.

“A girl? No freakin’ way! This is a co-ed dorm, not co-ed rooms.”

“Well, why not? You’re a very chaste kind of guy. A girl roommate would feel safe sharing with you.”

“Chaste? Me, chaste?”

“You sure were at Oak Ridge High School.”

“What do you mean? I was going out with girls all the time.”

Dennis laughed. “All the time? That’s a stretch.”

I grinned. “Okay. Often, then.”

“That’s still a stretch, but I’ll let it pass.”

“Wait a minute… I’m totally confused. What are you trying to say?”

“You were pretty much clueless.”

I sat down and looked up at Dennis. He sat on my bed and smiled.

“Clueless?” I stammered.

Dennis grinned and changed the subject.

“So, you think you have this room all to yourself. I guarantee you, there’ll be interruptions, Kev. You might not know it yet, but there will be.”

“If you mean guys coming by all the time, sticking their head in my room, probably. But I can tell them that I’m studying for a test, or finishing a project.”

“Nah, that won’t work.”

“I think it will. Besides, I can close and lock the door if it gets to be too much of a hassle.”

Dennis shook his head and appeared unconvinced. “I don’t know. I don’t think that’ll work. I’ve got a key.”

I sat there looking at him as he dangled a key between us, trying to absorb what he’d just said and what it meant. Finally he grinned and started to laugh.

I finally caught on. “You asshole! You’re going to be here, a student at Cal?”

He nodded, smiling like the Cheshire Cat.

“You’re going to be my roommate?”

He dangled the key again. “Yup!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I got up, grabbed him and pulled him up off the bed, held him by his shoulders at arms-length, then shook him. “When did you decide to come to Cal instead of the University of Texas at San Antonio?” I grinned, waiting for his answer.

“One of my acceptance letters was from Cal. I didn’t say anything to you about it because I’d also applied for a scholarship here and hadn’t heard. I didn’t want to tell you until my scholarship was finalized. Well, I finally heard. I got the scholarship! So, I dis-enrolled from UTSA and canceled my dorm room there and… tah dah! …here I am.”

“So, you never actually moved back to San Antonio?”

“Nope.”

“Wait a minute… what about all of the email messages I was sending you and you were sending me using your utsa.edu student email address? Was that a fake email address?”

“Nope. It’s a real University of Texas at San Antonio email address. It’s not mine, though. It’s my cousin’s email address. Donna Liu. She’s a student there. I was using her email address, d.liu@utsa.edu. With her permission, of course. I wanted to keep in touch with you, Kev. If I’d ended up at UTSA I would’ve had my own email address and I would have sent it to you saying it had changed.”

“But… why… how did you… well… it’s lucky that I didn’t have a roommate and you came along at exactly the right time and this is probably the only space available in the Foothill Dorm.”

“Uhh….”

I looked at Dennis. “Uhh… what?”

“Kev, I wanted to come to Cal. I wanted to be your roommate. But it depended on the scholarship. I have a great advisor in the scholarship department here. I told her I wanted to be your roommate, but I didn’t want you to know about it in case the scholarship fell through. If I didn’t get it, I wouldn’t have been able to go to Cal. UTSA would have been a lot less expensive for me since I was born in Texas, so it would be easier for me to get a scholarship. Anyway, she reserved your roommate slot for me. I guess she pulled some strings and some seniority to do it.”

“God, I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’re a student at Cal and that you’re my roommate. I’m so lucky!”

“Me too. I especially wanted to be your roommate. You know, in high school I put the moves on you all the time…” Dennis grinned, “okay, often. I could tell you wanted to respond but, like I said, you were chaste. Still… I got vibes that you would have liked to respond. But you were in the closet.”

“In the closet?” I asked. How did he know?

“Yeah. In the closet. And now you are out of the closet; I saw you’d checked the gay box under Orientation on your dorm application. You’re gay, and so am I, Kev.”

“You’re gay? Oh my god! I never thought… but in high school… I really hoped…. Why the fuck didn’t you say something then?”

“Why didn’t I say something then? To Mister Kevin ‘I’m dating girls all the time’ Powell? Why the fuck didn’t you say something?”

We stood there glaring at each other, then Dennis busted up laughing and so did I.

After we stopped laughing I was standing there, grinning at him like a fool. I say fool, because I suddenly understood the reason why he did what he had done, and what it really meant. The University of Texas at San Antonio story was a cover-up. Coming to Cal was what he wanted all along. And being with me was the reason.

“Dennis, I’m going to do something to show you exactly how happy I am that you’re here and that you’re my roommate.”

I kicked our dorm room door closed, then grabbed him in a hug and kissed him, on the lips. It turned out to be a long, sensual, loving kiss. The first of many. The start of our not being just best friends, or roommates, but being boyfriends. And more than that. A lot more than that.

And my ‘first day blues’ were over and done with, forever.