Free The Stipulation by M.L. Young Page B

attacker from gaining control of a floor, if that was even plausible. I think they were just too scared of students sneaking off and humping each other around every corner, especially at night, so they tried to restrict access onto dorm floors.
    I inserted my key and turned it, the little button for my floor lit up, and the elevator started to ascend until it abruptly stopped. The elevator always did this when I got to my floor, and it scared me every single time. If I weren’t on the eleventh floor I would just take the stairs to spare my poor beating heart, but for now I would just have to deal with it.
    I walked off the elevator and immediately wanted to jump back outside into the cold when I saw one of the worst sights in the world.
    “Hey, Natalie!” Trevor said as he waved vigorously.
    Trevor was this guy, boy really, who was seven rooms down from me. He was a nice guy, always there if you needed help or something done, but he was weird, and that was being nice. He always wore old striped polos, tucked into his pants, and sometimes even pants that were up too high, separating his balls and giving him the male version of a camel toe. It was distracting and not exactly something that made girls all giddy and wanting more.
    “Hey , Trevor,” I said with a half-assed smile as I went to walk past him and to my room.
    I acted as though I was really busy and tired, hoping he would let me go and not try to talk to me or help me into my room.
    Luckily for me, Clarissa, my RA, saw us and called Trevor, telling him she needed help inside the floor’s community room. I mouthed thank you and sped down to my room, hoping I could get inside before he realized she really didn’t need any help whatsoever.
    I opened the door, revealing the sweet silence and solace of my dorm room, with Jillian not anywhere in sight. I turned on the light and slipped off my ballet flats. I tossed my backpack onto my bed, plopped myself into my chair, and was finally able to breathe—as I heard the squeaking bed of the guy from the floor above me, indicating that he was yet again boning some poor girl that he likely seduced at some party. This was college life, and the situation I put myself in when I decided to live in this cold and unforgiving dorm.

Chapter Two
     
    I opened the tattered and poorly wrapped package my parents had given me, displaying all  the brightly colored and questionable snacks they had sent. I sifted through them, contemplating if I should eat one of them, and pulled out some corn chips, which were in a yellow and orange package. As I opened them and reluctantly looked inside the bag, I noticed they really didn’t look that much different from corn chips on the shelves here. I put one in my mouth and was surprised to find out they even tasted the same as the ones here. It made me wonder, as I sat there with my feet propped up on my desk, if these were the same corn chips produced here. Hell, I bet they were made in the same factory and put in different packages.
    “ He was being such a dick to you, Jillian. You should just dump him already and go work with me,” Tara, my roommate Jillian’s friend said to her as they walked into the room, surprising me as I stuffed my face with Mexican snacks.
    “Oh , hey, Natalie,” Jillian said with a smile as they walked in and situated themselves on her side of the room.
    “I’m telling you , Jillian, you should just come with me sometime and check it out. I have everything done and paid for, and I never have to worry about a single thing,” Tara said, as if trying to convince Jillian to do something.
    “I just don’t know , Tara. I mean, I love Steve and I would feel so bad doing that to him. Besides, I’m not sure I want to be with some old man.” Jillian shivered a little as if the thought disgusted her.
    I sat up, trying to figure out what they were talking about . All I heard was something about things being paid for, and it obviously sounded like some kind of job. If