A Farewell to Arms

In college, I shared a suite with two girls: one was my roommate Emily, and the other, Kelly, bought out her room. Emily and Kelly had lived in the same suite the year before so she mentioned that when Kelly had been dumped by her girlfriend she turned to drinking to ease the anger. Emily warned me that Kelly could be a bit much, but overall was an okay person. Within two weeks of school starting, Kelly broke both her arms while riding a bike down a flight of stairs. Her bike was safely sitting in our shared living space, where it remained untouched and taking up a lot of space, the entire school year. After breaking her arms, Kelly would walk into one of our rooms to wake one of us in order to do her hair. After about a week of doing her hair we began to sleep with the door locked.

The drinking and anger continued as Kelly’s new girlfriend treated her like shit and she was understandably frustrated with her arms. More than once Kelly would drink to the point of blacking out, start a shower and pass out in bed. The steam from the shower would set off the smoke detector, waking us, but not her. When we confronted her she insisted the showerhead must be faulty, because she had no recollection of starting a shower. Kelly’ girlfriend would show up randomly to ensure that Kelly wasn’t cheating on her. A typical visit from her would start out with very loud fighting, equally loud crying, even louder sex and then more loud fighting. The worst, unavoidable part about Kelly’s girlfriend visiting was her long hair. She shed like a collie and our sink and shower drains would be clogged for weeks after she visited.

I left the room after a semester, but Emily kept me updated. After I left, Kelly threw away a used tampon, but missed the garbage can. Rather than asking her to pick it up, Emily let the tampon sit on the floor next to the garbage can while Kelly kept denying it was hers. I think it was on the floor until near the end of the school year. I’m pretty glad I moved out before that happened.