{"id":2459,"date":"2014-02-09T16:49:25","date_gmt":"2014-02-09T16:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=2459"},"modified":"2017-10-28T03:54:54","modified_gmt":"2017-10-28T03:54:54","slug":"roommates-angela-carlton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/roommates-angela-carlton\/","title":{"rendered":"The Roommates by Angela Carlton"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"funer\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

The Roommates<\/h2>\n

by Angela Carlton<\/p>\n

Michelle lived alone now. She was a second year student at Tulane, and was studying journalism. She liked mysteries, cracking codes, exploring the Who? What? Where? When? Why? Sometimes she stayed up all night studying, researching the internet or reading so she didn’t mind her time alone. Besides, a good roommate was hard to find.<\/p>\n

The first roommate Melanie had a tremendous amount of energy like a wind-up doll that wouldn’t shut off. She was feisty, too chatty until it tended to wear a person down. She took up space. Melanie made each room feel small, and she talked-talked a lot about nothing.<\/p>\n

The second roommate, Holly was more interested in pursuing a man then a degree. Soon men began to file in and out of the tiny apartment: the intellect, the joker, the drunk. It might as well have been a Motel 6. The garbage cans were overflowing and their bathroom was a wreck. Over time, things got crowded and loud, too loud.<\/p>\n

The third roommate, Claire was from up North, one of the M states Michigan or Minnesota , somewhere. Claire spoke with a fierce accent and had an ice-cold personality. There was no comfort during that time, no warmth in those days. In the end, Claire was basically a body moving from room to room just sucking up air.<\/p>\n

Now her place was usually quiet. Today she listened to the radio and did hear the phone. It rang 3 days a week at 10 o’clock sharp. Gradually, she moved toward the receiver for she\u2019d been up far too many hours to count.<\/p>\n

\u201cHello Michelle,\u201d her mother beamed. \u201cHow are your studies going?\u201d<\/p>\n

But Michelle found it hard to push out words. It was like trying to breathe under water<\/p>\n

\u201cUm\u2026\u201d she managed.<\/p>\n

The mother could hear her daughter\u2019s heavy breathing on the end of the line. \u201cAre doing ok?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUh-huh.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh Honey,\u201d her mother sighed, \u201cDon\u2019t you think it\u2019s time you finally got a roommate? That\u2019s why your Daddy got the extra room. We don\u2019t like you living alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUm,\u201d Michelle said again, fumbling through drawers for her prescription sleep aid from the infirmary.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, think about the roommate idea, alright. Don\u2019t forget to take vitamins. I\u2019m going to run along. Don\u2019t want to be late for Bridge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOk,\u201d Michelle heard herself say, loudly. Then she hung up.<\/p>\n

She stood before the mirror gazing at the one blood shot eye. \u201cThere-there,\u201d she blurted out, smoothing back dirty hair. \u201cFilthy-filthy,\u201d a voice said. But was it Holly, Melanie or Claire?
\nThere were days when nothing was clear.<\/p>\n

She quickly shoved pills, two mini blue ones into her mouth. They tasted bitter, harsh but she let them rest on her tongue. She let them sit while she searched for a cup. Then she washed it all down with hot water to drown out the noise that clatter, those voices filling up her brain.
\nYes, in time things would be silent, but only for awhile.<\/p>\n

###
\nAngela Carlton\u2018s fiction has been published in Every Day Fiction, Camroc Press Review, Pedestal Magazine, Long Story Short, Pindeldyboz, Storyglossia, The Dead Mule, 6S and Coastlines. In addition, she won the Reader\u2019s Choice award with Pedestal Magazine in 2006. Her story \u201cThe Beach Cottage\u201d can be found in The Best of Every Day Fiction 2008 and \u201cThe Man Named Ray\u201d can be found in The Best of Every Day Fiction 2009. Presently, Angela is in negotiations with a press for a new novel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Angela Carlton\u2018s fiction has been published in Every Day Fiction, Camroc Press Review, Pedestal Magazine, Long Story Short, Pindeldyboz, Storyglossia, The Dead Mule, 6S and Coastlines. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literary-story"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2459"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3613,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2459\/revisions\/3613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}