The Roommate Rulebook

The Rulebook

POV: ZOE

Liam wrote them in capital letters, then I knew he was actually not joking about making the Rulebook

I watched him sit there with his pen and his fresh piece of paper like we were about to sign a contract between two companies.

His handwriting was neat and straight, every letter perfectly formed, no mistakes, no scribbles, no crossing out and starting again.

Everything was just clean, perfect and on a straight line.

Meanwhile, my handwriting looked like a spider had walked through ink and then had a full breakdown across the page.

I pulled my legs up onto my bed and sat down quietly facing him.

He then pulled his desk chair around slightly so we could talk properly.

It was a small thing but I noticed that he was taking this seriously, like very seriously.

This boy had been in New York for what? Just a few hours? And he was already holding a meeting with me.

"Okay," he said. "Rule number one."

"Ooh wait." I held up my hand. "I want to make rules too."

He looked at me over the paper. "This was my idea."

"And it's my room too, we've got equal rights, remember? We just established that twenty minutes ago when I took the window bed."

Something shifted in his jaw. Like he wanted to argue but couldn't find enough reason to.

"Fine," he said after a moment. "We would take turns."

"Perfect." I clapped my hands once. "You go first since it was your idea. I'm being generous."

He gave me a look that said he did not find me generous at all.

Then he looked back at his paper.

"Rule number one," he said.

"Always knock before entering when you are out. There should be no exceptions whatsoever."

I nodded slowly, That was actually fair.

I could respect that because privacy is very important. "Okay…Good one, I agree."

He wrote it down, neat and clean.

"My turn," I said.

I thought about it for a second.

"Rule number two.

No being rude to each other before 9am. Mornings are sacred and I do not function well when people are unpleasant before I've had coffee."

He paused and looked up. "That is not a real rule."

"But can't you see that I literally just made it one?"

"It's too vague. What counts as rude? Everyone has a different definition."

"Liam." I looked at him flatly. "Stop acting dumb, you know what rude is."

"I need it to be specific." He said

"Fine…

No abusive words,

No eye rolling,

No sighing loudly,

No one should be answered in a cold and dismissive tone."

He stared at me.

I stared back.

He wrote

No unnecessary conflict before 9am, it wasn't exactly what I said but close enough. I let it go.

"Rule number three," he said without missing a beat.

"Personal belongings should stay on your own side of the room at all times, the room is divided equally down the middle and that line is to be respected."

I looked at my open suitcase that was sitting at least two feet past whatever invisible line he was talking about. I quietly nudged it back with my foot while maintaining eye contact with him.

He watched me do it and said nothing.

Hmm, smart man.

"Rule number four," I said.

"No eating of my snacks without asking, I have a whole snack box under my bed and I have counted everything in it and I will know if anyone gets missing."

He looked genuinely confused. "Why would I eat your snacks?"

"You never know what hunger does to a person Liam."

"I have my own food." He said

"Great.. Then this rule will be very easy for you to follow."

He pressed his lips together into a thin line and wrote it down without further argument.

I was starting to enjoy this.

We kept going back and forth like that.

So funny that he was busy suggesting something structured and logical.

And I was suggesting something that was more about feelings and common sense.

And he also had to rephrase my rules into something that sounded more official.

I accepted his rephrasing, as long as the meaning stayed the same.

We argued about Rule number five for a full seven minutes.

He wanted quiet hours to start at 10pm and I said 10pm was too early and some of my best creative work happened late at night.

He said that was not his problem and I said it would become his problem when I was up sketching at midnight and he couldn't sleep.

He said then sketch quietly.

I said art could not always be done quietly.

He looked like he wanted to pull his own hair out.

We settled and left it to be 11 pm.

We argued about Rule number seven for another five minutes because he wanted the shared desk area cleaned after every single use and I thought that was extreme.

I told him I would clean up after myself but I could not promise it would happen immediately.

He said immediately was the only acceptable timeline.

I then asked him if he had ever tried to clean up after doing a full watercolor painting with wet hands. He said he had not

I rested my case.

We settled on,shared spaces must be cleaned within a reasonable amount of time.

He did not look happy about the word reasonable. But he wrote it anyway.

By the time we were done, the paper had ten rules on it. Some were his and some were mine.

All of them had been negotiated like we were two very tired diplomats.

The final list looked like this:

The Roommate Rulebook

Rule 1: Always knock before entering.

Rule 2: No unnecessary conflict before 9 am.

Rule 3: Personal belongings should stay on your own side of the room.

Rule 4: No eating of each other's food without permission.

Rule 5: Quiet hours start at 11 pm on weekdays.

Rule 6: No bringing of strangers into the room without a 24 hours heads-up.

Rule 7: Shared spaces must be cleaned within a reasonable amount of time.

Rule 8: No touching of each other's things without asking first.

Rule 9: Respect each other's schedules and commitments.

Rule 10: This rulebook can be updated at any time if both parties agree.

Liam read through the entire list one more time, slowly, like he was proofreading a legal document. Then he nodded once saying “Agreed”

"I'll make a cleaner copy tonight and stick it on the wall," he said.

I blinked. "You're going to stick it on the wall?"

"Yes..So we both see it every day and remember what we agreed to."

I looked at him for a long moment and said

"You know most normal roommates just talk things through right? Like they just figure it out as they go, that's what most people do."

"And most roommates end up in a screaming argument by the second week," he said simply.

"I've seen it happen. My friend had three different roommates in one year because none of them sorted things out from the beginning."

I opened my mouth to say something then closed it again.

He actually had a point.

A very annoying and logical point.

"Fine," I said. "Put it on the wall."

He folded the paper neatly in half and placed it carefully on the corner of his desk.

Then just like that he opened his textbook again and went straight back to studying.

Like we hadn't just spent forty-five minutes negotiating the terms of our shared existence.

I sat there for a second watching him.

Then I fell back on my bed and stared up at the ceiling and said in my thoughts.

Okay, so… This was my life now.

I had moved to New York City full of dreams and excitement and the very first thing that happened was that I got assigned a roommate who color-coded his folders.

Who had memorised the student handbook before the first day?

Who wrote in capital letters and called a list of bedroom rules a rulebook without even blinking.

I turned my head and looked at the little cactus sitting on the windowsill beside his stack of books.

It looked back at me with absolutely zero sympathy.

"Don't judge me," I whispered to it.

"Are you talking to a plant?" Liam said from across the room, still not looking up from his book.

"His name is Spike."

There was a pause from Liam, a very long pause.

"Of course it is," he muttered quietly.

I smiled at the ceiling.

I don't know why but that made me feel better.

The fact that he responded nicely.

The fact that somewhere under all that seriousness there was a person in there who could at least react to a cactus named Spike.

I reached under my bed and pulled out a packet of chips from my snack box, opened the packet and slowly crunched one loudly.

Liam turned a page.

I crunched another chip.

He turned another page, and I crunched another.

The room was filled with the sounds of a regular evening.

My chips, his turning pages, music from somewhere down the hall.

Students are laughing and moving around.

Doors opening and closing.

The whole floor is coming alive with the noise of people starting their new lives.

It felt strange and exciting and a little overwhelming all at once.

I looked over at Liam again.

Head was down, pen moving, he was completely in his own world.

Like none of the noise or the newness or the chaos of the first day move-in was affecting him at all.

I wondered what his story was, and asked myself why he was here.

What he was studying so seriously before classes had even officially started.

Whether he had people back home who missed him the way my mom missed me.

Whether he ever got nervous or overwhelmed or whether he just didn't.

Then I caught myself wondering all of that and stopped immediately.

Zoe.. No..

He is my roommate.

That's just it, that was the whole story.

We have a rulebook and two separate sides of the room and that's exactly how we are going to stay.

I looked at the neatly folded paper sitting on the edge of his desk.

Rule number nine says Respect each other's schedules and commitments.

Yes, that's right, respect should definitely be involved.

Except for a tiny voice in the back of my head, the same annoying voice that had talked me into taking the window bed whispered very quietly saying..

You're going to break every single one of those rules, aren't you?

I looked at my chip packet and thought about it honestly.

Crunched the loudest chip of my entire life.

Yeah, I definitely would think about it.