Layne wasn't a bad roommate. A bit studious, and not exactly social, but we didn't mind her. The only time she ever annoyed either of us was when she asked X to stop exploding things so loudly, and -- to be fair -- X probably deserved it. Virginia, however . . . she was a headache. She never stopped talking. She even jabbered in her sleep sometimes! I'm not sure if it was X or Virginia that convinced Layne to request a different apartment for our next semester, but I suspect it was Virginia, because that was who she'd shared a room with.
We weren't expecting to miss Layne . . . until she was replaced by neurotic Kelly. Between Virginia's constant stream of chatter and Kelly's frequent breakdowns, X and I spent a lot of time in our room during that second semester. It didn't help when we discovered Kelly had some kind of multiple personality disorder and wouldn't admit it -- especially since we figured this out when one of her personalities decided to become a chatterbox like Virginia. X and I were quite relieved when summer break came.
For sure, I thought, our new roommates will be good. If nothing else, they can't be as bad as Virginia and Kelly. And then we met Georgia and Suzanna. Georgia was obnoxious -- she believed she was extremely popular, no matter how much evidence presented itself to the contrary. (She got extremely upset when X chased her out of the building with a string of stink-bombs.) Suzanna had a fascination with astrology that persisted in her trying to "convert" me and X. And then Suzanna made friends with Virginia. Needless to say, we left as soon as the semester ended.
We changed apartments again the next semester, finally escaping Suzanna and her new friend. One of our new roommates was a shy Austrian girl I rather liked. Unfortunately, the other one was Lexie . . . and Lexie was completely insane. Despite copious evidence to the contrary, she insisted she was a werewolf, and would spend days bawling before every full moon, soaking up Inge's sympathy and incurring my increasing aggravation. Lexie was delighted when I bought her a dog collar one day, and she wore it from then on, pointing out her "mark of shame" to everybody.
Our fifth semester, I decided to try something radical and get my own apartment. X was surly about this all through summer vacation -- we'd never not shared a room before -- but I was relieved to find three normal, pleasant roommates at my new place. X, on the other hand, wound up with Aylia, a wizard-in-training from Dad's old country. Goooooooody. X's other two roommates seemed fairly normal -- if grumpy, in Nicole's case -- but Aylia took the cake for "weirdest roommate yet."
Trust X to decide she liked the wizard girl and wanted to keep sharing a room with her. The grumpy girl left, and X wound up with a sword-obsessed new roommate instead. (Needless to say, it was obvious by this point that X really was the one attracting all these weirdos, not me. I'll admit to being relieved.) X's other roomate, the normal one, apparently decided to marry Aylia's cousin, and we attended their wedding a few months later. Which was when I found out Aylia was actually our cousin. Goody.
When X actually complained about her new roommate, I knew their latest acquisition had to be a piece of work. And sure enough, when I ran into that girl later, Sissy turned out to be a total brat. Apparently Loretta chased her out eventually, and then a werewolf came to live with them. (A real one, not an idiot like Lexie.) Meanwhile, Aylia found out about us being related, thanks to X and me growing wings on our birthday. Fortunately, Aylia took the news better than I would have expected.
How does X manage it? Really? I mean, our last semester, I wound up with a freshman and two other studious seniors; she wound up with a dragon, a werewolf, the sword-obsessed girl, and of course Aylia. Granted, they apparently had fun together, but it makes me wonder how X managed to get all her schoolwork and graduation paperwork done before me. Still, I'm glad X had a happy last semester, and I suspect she might even miss those roommates when she moves on to whatever she's doing next.