“My roommate is driving me nuts!” Robb storms into my dorm room. I turn down the music.

“Still?” It’s the third week of January. Freshman year, second semester. You’d think they’d have pulled it together by now.

Robb throws himself down across my bed and starts fiddling with the throw pillow fringe. All the guys make fun of me for that damn fringe, but Ma said we needed to dress up the place a little. Whatever. Between the throw pillows and the homemade quilts and the cookies she sends, my half of the room is cozy as hell and everyone knows it. Where do they all come sit when they’re feeling out of sorts? That’s right.

So, I’m making friends left and right around here. Ma knows what she’s doing. Can’t deny her. Not that she’d let me.

“He never wants to do anything interesting,” Robb gripes. “Studies around the clock.”

“It’s almost like he’s in college or something.”

“I know, right?” Robb sighs.

I half laugh. “You know you’re gonna have to make your peace with it eventually. Half a year to go.”

I don’t want to hear about this from him. His roommate is black and the way Robb complains about him … I don’t know, it’s not racial in a serious way, but it feels like it might be underneath. Robb doesn’t quite get that some of his aversions are coded.

“It’s madness,” Robb says. “We have scheduled music hours and quiet hours.”

“Sounds fair.”

It’s hard being the one everyone comes to gripe to. I’ve already decided that I’m applying for RA as soon as possible. Might as well get paid if I’m doing the work, right? And it does feel like work. It doesn’t really seem like my suitemates or any of the guys on the floor really like me that much.

Robb’s my one good friend on campus so far. All semester he’s been cool to me, when some of the other guys around here come across pretty standoffish. I wasn’t expecting that. I thought there’d be more of a community feel, but for some reason that doesn’t work when you’re one of only two black guys on the whole floor.

It’s weird. All my friends from high school were white. I feel perfectly comfortable here. But I also feel like I’m coming from some other place, or they think I am, and there’s a distance there. If it wasn’t for the damn throw pillow situation, I’d probably have no friends at all, and be stuck in my room all the time, like Robb’s roommate.

Sometimes I feel guilty for not making more of an effort with him myself. Black guy to black guy, or something. But I also don’t want that kind of obligation.