They’re already gone.

And I’m alone.

Now, this is the point where most people might blast some music, strip down to their boxer briefs, and eat Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and ice cream simply because they can. But all I feel is the resounding silence of Mom and Taylor’s departure.

Once the metal door to the suite clicks behind me, I take a look around. The suite smells faintly like lemony bleach, thanks to Mom obsessively cleaning both bathrooms, and a little bit like fresh wood chips and dirty socks. The common room is stark, save for one uncomfortable couch and two equally uncomfortable chairs, all with low-to-the-ground wooden frames that look like slightly elevated Tinkertoys—but far less colorful—with rough, grayish-blue cushions. There’s a TV stand on the opposite wall. At either end of the common room is a doorway to a two-person room. Right now, it feels empty. Un-lived-in. Save for the micro-fridge, a microwave-refrigerator hybrid, and the latest PlayStation console that my suitemates decided I would bring.

Heading back into my room is like stepping into Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. Half the room is covered in posters of my favorite animated films, from Sleeping Beauty to Beauty and the Beast to Moana and The Nightmare Before Christmas on the Disney spectrum, to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Spirited Away, Paranorman, and Coraline from the more experimental indie studios. I guarantee a lot of my classmates in the animation program are going to give me flack for being a corporate hack with dreams of working for Disney one day, but I don’t care.

The other half of the room is bare—for now. I wonder what my roommate, Benigno, will bring with him. He’s mentioned on the CIAChat that he loves football, and the way he texts is super masc, but he’s also a major Ariana Grande stan, so who knows. When I casually brought up the fact that I’m gay in the suite group chat, all three of my future roommates—Aaron, Xavier, and Benigno—were super cool about it, though Benigno was fairly quiet, which makes me glad I didn’t bring up that I also think I might be nonbinary. Or genderqueer; I’m not sure. I haven’t figured it out, untangled all the ways I feel slightly different than every other guy I know, and I definitely haven’t figured out the whole pronoun question, which, why can’t I just be he and him and nonbinary? Either way, it’d be my luck that Benigno ends up being a super straight-cis-dude-bro who is queerphobic and has a chiseled body.

Stopping in front of the mirror built into the sliding closet door, I try not to hate every square inch of what I see. From this angle, I look like unbaked bread dough, and—

No. This is what my old therapist told me to avoid. Don’t compare your body to food. Instead, focus on what you like. Okay. I like my hair. It’s got this wavy, swoopy thing going. But, uh. That’s all I got. Then the other thoughts wander in: You’re too masculine and lumpy, but not masculine enough to be a real man. I shudder at the term man and all the expectations that come along with it that I’ll never meet.