I walked over to him and took the pill from his hand. He also handed me a cold water bottle so that I would have something to wash the pill down. When I had the pill down, I looked around for somewhere to sit. I didn’t want to sit on his bed without asking, but I also didn’t want to open my mouth.

The only other option was to sit on the floor, so that is what I did. Richard raised an eyebrow at me when I sat down as if questioning my choice, but he didn’t say anything to me. We simply sat there in silence. I don’t know how much time passed, but the longer I sat there, the calmer I felt.

Eventually, Richard spoke, “how are you feeling now?”

“Much better. Thank you.” I answered.

“Would you like me to walk you to your room, or will you be fine to go on your own?”

“I don’t know. I feel much calmer, but it may not take much to make me flip out again.”

“Then, I’ll walk with you.”

He stood up and started walking out of his room; I followed his example. There weren’t as many people in the hall this time, and we easily made it to my room without another scene. I thanked Richard one more time before entering my room.

Although I was much calmer than I was before, I was still nervous about facing Maelstrom again. When I stepped into the room, he was sitting on his bed, typing on his laptop. He didn’t stop what he was doing to look at me; he didn’t even greet me. I made my way to my bed and started opening my bags so that I could put my things away.

Once I had started unpacking, Maelstrom spoke to me. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

I shook my head.

“Are you sure?” He asked. “I could fold clothes and put them in drawers. I could also place school supplies on the desk or put bathroom products in the bathroom for you.”

I would be able to get things done quicker if I had a little bit of help, but I also really didn’t want him touching any of my things. He was obviously just trying to be nice to me, but I wasn’t sure why.

Did he have sleazy motives or was he just trying to be friends with me? Allowing him to help me even in small ways would give us an opportunity to bond and get to know each other. We would be sharing a room after all.

“I brought my playstation since my mom said you would be bringing a t.v. You can hook that up if you want.” I offered up something to him.

“Sure. Where is it?”

“In this bag. I’ll pull it out for you.” I picked up the bag and pulled out the system and its hook ups and handed them over to Maelstrom.

He took them from me and began to hook it up to his television. I was hoping it would take him some time to figure it out, so that I could think of something else I would be willing to let him help with, but he finished real quick.

“All done. What else can I do?” He asked me.

I looked over my bags and tried hard to think of what to offer to him. I could allow him to put my bathroom items up, but I also placed my medicines in that bag. I didn’t want him seeing my surpresants even though it was a perfectly normal medication for someone like me to have. It was just awkward to allow someone like him to see my omega products.

I could allow him to put my clothes into drawers, but I didn’t care for the idea of him touching or seeing the underwear. I feared that he would judge my choice in undergarments. However, while thinking about my clothes, I did come up with something he could do for me.

“Would you hang my clothes and put them in the closet?” I asked.

“Yes, I can.”

I grabbed a bag of clothes I knew I wanted to hang and gave him some hangers to put them on. Thankfully, this took him some time to do. While he put my clothes on hangers, I put my folded clothes away. We finished around the same time, but even though it took us a while to put away my clothes, I had not come up with something else I was willing to allow him to do.

“What else do you have?” He asked me.

“I don’t know.”

“What about this bag?” He asked as he picked up a small blue bag.

He was just starting to unzip my bag when I shouted at him, “don’t open that bag!” I could feel the blush on my face as he looked over at me. There was no way I was going to let him know what I had in that bag, but the sad truth is that he probably already knew what was in it based on my reaction.

“Okay. How about I slide this bag under your bed?”

I nodded my head and watched as he slid the bag under my bed. I could still feel the heat in my face when he asked me another question. “What if we moved your bags off your bed, and I make it for you?

That wasn’t a bad idea. I didn’t lose anything by allowing him to make my bed for me, so I agreed to this and dug out my sheets and blanket. It didn’t take him long to finish my bed, but at this point most of my things were put up. 

All I really had left was my bathroom items and some school supplies I needed to put into my desk. I knew he was going to ask me for something to do, so I offered up my school supplies and told him to put them wherever he wanted.

Once all of my things were unpacked I sat down on my bed and took in the room. Without anything else to do, I looked over at his side of the room and really looked at it for the first time. I was expecting to see weights or posters of muscle guys lifting, but he didn’t really have anything. His side was plain, but then again, so was my side.

Before sitting back on his bed, Maelstrom took a notebook out of his desk. With the notebook in his hands he sat down on the desk chair and turned to face me. “So Flynn, what is your schedule?”

“Call me Fly.” I gave him my nickname before responding to his question.

I told him what my week would look like and what time all my classes were, and he did the same in return. While I gave him my schedule he wrote it down in his notebook. I found it weird, but I just assumed it was so he would know when I was out of the room.

Classes would start in a few days, so we had the whole weekend before we had to start classes, meaning the two of us had plenty of time to get used to each other. The two of us continued to ask questions to get to know each other. They were mostly questions about what temperature we wanted to keep the room and what time we wanted to be in bed and other questions concerning our shared room.

However, he caught me off guard with one of his questions, “What is your cycle?”

“Excuse me?” I asked back, unsure if I heard him correctly.

“I need to know your cycle.”

“What!? No you don’t!” I blurted out.

“Yes, I do. If we are going to share a room, I want to know your cycle, so I can make sure you take your suppressant on time. I also want to know your cycle so that I can spend more time outside of the room so you can have more private time.”

I was blushing. This was not a conversation I wanted to be having with anyone that was not a doctor. “I refuse to tell you.”

“Why? Two people keeping track of your cycle will ensure that we don’t have an incident by accidentally missing a dose of your serpressat. I’ll also be more willing to leave the room if you ask me to, and I won’t bring people around during that time. It would be a lot less stressful for you if you just tell me your cycle.”

“I don’t want you knowing my cycle!” I protested.

He must have gotten frustrated with me because he growled at me and spoke with a growl, “tell me your damn cycle already. What do you lose by telling me?”

His growl intimidated me and caused me to start crying again. I didn’t want to cry, but his aggression made me want to run. He immediately responded to my response by apologizing to me.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just want to know so that I can ensure nothing happens to you during that time.”

Maelstrom was a nice man, and he was right that it would be better for him to know my cycle. I just wasn’t comfortable talking about it with an alpha like him. He didn’t speak to me again as I tried to calm myself down. I think the pill I took earlier helped me to calm down quicker, and once I was calm, I decided to tell him my cycle.

“I average sixty-one days.” I mumbled.

He looked over me in surprise before jotting it down in his notebook. He looked at me again and asked, “What day are you on right now?”

I also didn’t want to answer this question, but I did anyway. “Forty-seven, I think.”

“You think? You don’t know what day you are on? How are you going to take your suppressant on time if you don’t even know what day you are on?” There was a slight growl in his voice.

I let out a small whimper. “I’d need to look at my calendar to tell you for sure what day I’m on. I just know that I need to take my suppressant Tuesday.”

The room fell silent as he wrote this down in his notebook. He then closed the notebook and placed it back into his desk before standing up and walking out of the room.

But before completely leaving he said, “By the way, don’t call me Maelstrom. Call me Mal instead.”

That was all he said before closing the door behind him. He didn’t say where he was going or what he was going to do. He simply left. I didn’t know why he left, and it made me wonder if I had made him mad by being stingy with information about my heat.

It was weird being alone in the room, and I couldn’t think of what to do with myself. I didn’t want to leave the room and explore because I had already had enough stress for one day. Leaving the room posed a threat. I could bump into another alpha and cause another scene.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to learn the campus on my own. It would have been a lot easier to have a friend, but in order to make friends, I’d have to leave the room and talk to people. I didn’t have a problem talking to people, but I didn’t want to run into an alpha by myself. It would be much easier for me if I had an omega or beta to walk around with.