Page 1 of A Constant Surprise

Chapter 1- Sam

Thump. Thump. Thump.

I laid on my bed tossing my red “stress” ball against the wall. Over and over, it bounced against the wall and flew back into my hand.

I was hoping the monotonous sound would help to drown out my thoughts. I was wrong. I wasn’t sure if any sound could drown out my extremely loud thoughts at that particular moment.

Instinctively, I rolled my eyes as I heard a knock on my bedroom door.

Without opening it, I could hear the voice of my roommate, Emily. “Sam, are you okay? What’s that loud noise?”

That was Emily’s passive aggressive way of telling me to quiet down.

Fucking Emily.

I let out a heavy sigh. “Yeah, it’s me. I’ll stop.”

Looking down, I palmed the small red ball.

Stress ball, my ass.

I started throwing it in the air instead, careful not to hit the ceiling and make any more noise giving her any reason to come back.

I don’t know why I cared if I pissed off Emily. After all, she did just tell me that I had thirty days to find a new place to live. She and her boyfriend, Kevin, were expecting a baby.

Fucking Kevin.

The man never really seemed to care for me, nor did he make any attempts to try to be civil to me…even for Emily’s sake. I had a feeling that this new living arrangement was entirely his idea because even though their baby wasn’t due for seven months, they wanted me out of the house so they could start preparing.

I think that it was just Kevin trying to get me out of the apartment but trying to hide it by feigning some type of romantic gesture.

Whatever the real reason was, I was about to be homeless.

It was mid-September of our senior year of college…which meant that it was too late into the school year to get a dorm (not to mention expensive). And it was probably too early for any other apartments to be empty yet.

In other words, I was screwed.

Emily and I had started living together our freshman year. She was from the area and knew exactly where to find a good deal on a place to rent. I had found her ad online and being from out of state, I jumped on it.

The first year, we had actually made things official with a lease that we both signed. We hadn’t updated anything since though, so I had no legal standing to the place. We were best friends, and I guess I just figured this wouldn’t have been an issue.

Apparently, I was wrong.

Again.

I contemplated trying to find a place on my own, but money was tight enough with me only paying half the bills. I had a tutoring job that I did as often as I could, but it wasn’t very lucrative. I grew up learning how to stretch a dollar, but even I wasn’t that good.

I continued throwing the ball up in the air trying to think of any other options I may have. It was at that moment that I regretted not making more friends. Being able to crash on a friend’s couch would have definitely come in handy.

Besides my friendship with Emily though, I was a loner, and I liked it that way. I liked not having to deal with other people’s drama all the time, and even more so, I really liked not having to share any of my business.

Privacy was paramount in my book.

Emily and I were close, but it had taken us awhile to get there. It started out like it always did…with me keeping her at arm’s length. It took damn near a year for she and I to have a real solid friendship.

But we had. We had gotten to the point where we told each other everything (or almost everything). We had so many good times together. I knew things would end eventually, but I didn’t think it would be like this.

Truth be told, I would really miss her. And as mad as I was at that moment, I knew I couldn’t stay mad at her long.