That morning, he rose just before his alarm went off, ripping himself out of a worriless dream. He tried to untangle his hair but once again couldn’t. Thought about cutting them but postponed it like usual. Put on worn out ripped jeans and the first t-shirt he saw. Grabbed an oversized hoodie with some random passive aggressive quote on it before leaving because he knew it’d be cold in his Monday morning class’ building. Almost forgot his glasses. Skipped breakfast because the mere idea of ingesting something else than coffee before noon made his stomach churn.

The usual, normal, boring day.

At least he loved his major. He loved getting in his own little bubble and make computer programs. Numbers. Solving problems that did not involve social skills and human interactions. Forgetting about everything except the headachingly white screen.

But today he knew something was up as soon as he received an email from the school’s board, even before he opened it. School never sent you an email directly unless it was important.

There was a transfer student from France and he needed a place to stay on campus. The only double room unassigned to two students was his and the new student’s scholarship didn’t cover a single student dorm room. Before Daniel even finished reading, his mind quickly did the maths: the new student was to stay with him and he was to help him around school for his first days.

Daniel can’t speak French and the new kid can barely speak English. Daniel’s new roomie’s part of the initiative international program designed to help non-English speakers adapt to English and the country. He’s coming tomorrow, and Daniel didn’t have a say in the matter of his implication. The new guy's name’s Étienne and Daniel had never heard of such a name. With an accent over the E. How do you even pronounce that? He tried using Google to get the right way of saying it, but nothing worked. He ended up looking like a fool and getting embarrassed all alone in his room even if no one else was there to see him. He shut the blinds and went to bed, but his eyes wouldn’t stay closed.

Daniel would have been lying to himself if he said he wasn’t slightly excited. Actually, he’ll never admit how excited he was. But the stress of having to socialise was slowly overcoming it all. He felt this good old gloomy shadow that perched over him every time he tried to talk to someone new. That he even thought about going up to someone and simply say hi. That same darkness that kept on repeating to him that when people leave it’s all his fault even if there’s this glimmer of hope that he's wrong at the pitch of his stomach, buried carefully under gastric acid and whatever goes in there.

He wasn’t ready at all and he felt like he’d never be as he spent the night thinking about all the possible ways Étienne could look and be like.