Simon Cruz was excited. Here he was, aged 17, and it was his first day on campus. The long days of summer are over, and he was finally moving into his new dorm room for the very first time!
The lady at the orientation desk couldn’t tell him anything at all about who his new roommate would be, but she assured him that the new person would be just as nervous as him. Simon struggled to get into the dorm, carrying his suitcase, his backpack, and a stack of papers at the same time. He had his hands full, but the excitement and the anticipation kept him going. A new school, new dorm, new roommate, new year! Everything was just going to be ready like a new start for him, and his mind and his heart were racing. He just wanted to get to his room!
When he finally managed to carry everything up the stairs and down the hall, he looked at the label on the key. Room 206. Here it was! He frantically tried to unlock the door when he realized that the door was already unlocked! Maybe his new roommate was already there? He pushed the door open and walked in.
The dorm room smelled faintly of new carpet and detergent when Simon pushed open the door, as he was dragging his suitcase behind him. He looked around. Everything that he saw so far was what he had expected. Two beds, two desks, two dressers and two small bookcases. There was even a small bathroom. Then, his gaze fell on the large figure who was sitting on his bed on the side of the room. This guy was BIG!
That’s when he froze. Simon didn’t expect that!
Inside, a mountain of a man was already settled in—clothes neatly folded, textbooks stacked like bricks, and a set of dumbbells gleaming in the corner. Ryan Vandersteen, towering at 6’10” and built like a fortress, turned with a grin that seemed to fill the room.
“Hey there, new roommate!” Ryan’s voice boomed, friendly but overwhelming. He flexed instinctively, his biceps bulging like cannonballs.
Simon, at 5’4” and barely 150 pounds, adjusted his glasses nervously. His heart thumped as though he’d just walked into a lion’s den. He muttered a quiet “Uhh… Hi,” and shuffled to his desk, trying to shrink into invisibility.
Simon was a nerd. A very nerdy-looking nerd. He had short brown wavy hair and brown eyes, and he was skinny as a rail. He only weighed 150 pounds or so, so seeing this huge, towering giant of a man in his dorm room struck fear into his heart like you could not imagine. Was this giant supposed to be his new roommate? Simon’s first thought was to just sulk in the corner and try to be quiet and stay out of Goliath’s way.
Ryan didn’t let him, though. Over the next few days, Ryan filled the silence with his presence—calling out Simon’s name, blasting music, laughing loudly on the phone, and clanking weights like cymbals. Simon barely responded, retreating into his calculus notes and computer screen.
Simon was the math and science geek. Yes, he loved all the sciences, math, and all the other hard subjects. Simon had short brown hair, big glasses, and he had green eyes. He was used to being an only child and he would spend hours in his quiet bedroom studying, reading, playing video games and writing code. Things are different now. Having this huge monster as his roommate was not part of his plan. Simon was hoping to have a roommate who was a bit more like him, someone who was also a little bit of a science and math nerd, not a giant who looked like he resembled a caveman!
As classes got underway, Simon attended his lectures, and he quickly started getting his assignments. Yes, he would spend several hours in the library quietly studying every day, so he wouldn’t get in the way of Ryan, the huge, hulking giant. When he came home, Ryan was often in the gym. Once Ryan came home, he took a shower, and he went to bed. The two barely talked, until Ryan started coming home with math assignments as well.
And calculus became Ryan’s biggest enemy. He stared at his homework, muscles useless against the stubborn equations. Simon noticed.
“Urgg… I don’t get this stuff…” Ryan would grumble in his deep, baritone voice, as he sat at his small desk. Ryan’s huge frame seemed massive, compared to the small desk and the even smaller laptop screen. “I can’t figure this out! How do you do this?”
With a hesitant voice, Simon offered, “I… I can help.”
Ryan’s grin widened. “You’re a lifesaver, man!”
Simon pulled up his chair and wheeled it over to Ryan’s side of the room. Ryan, who was so huge, he had to scoot aside, just to make room so that Simon could get close enough to the laptop so he could read the screen. Ryan made a mental note that he would order a larger second monitor online, just to make it easier to look at stuff on his small laptop screen together.
Simon patiently pointed at the problems and the equations on the laptop screen. Then, he took his large, letter-size notebook, and he wrote down the problem. Using pens, color pencils and a highlighter, Simon would work out the problem and show Ryan how he came up with the solution.
“Genius! Man, you’re a math whiz, little man!” Ryan grinned. “How did you get so smart?”
“Aww… I just like math! It’s like lifting weights in the gym. If you do a lot of math problems, you become good at it!” Simon explained.
“Well, if I do more math problems and get better at this, then you need to come and join me in the gym where I can show you how to do a workout and lift weights, my man!” Ryan just smiled, as he playfully ruffled the hair of the nerdy roommate. “We need to get you to bulk up!”
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