Days as a Freshman: 140
Mood: Confused

I rolled a pencil back and forth on the smooth plastic-wooden café table. The coffee sitting next to me was still too hot to drink, and I needed to do something with my hands and attention. Even people watching was out of the question; with half the college still tucked away at home or on some exotic island vacation, campus was a dreary ghost town at night. Sometimes I felt like the only one.

But of course I wasn’t. Since I was meeting someone else here.

I looked up at the clock again, squinting my eyes to make out the tiny ticking hand that counted off seconds. Justin was five minutes late. I told myself it was nothing. People are late to things all the time. I was late to things all the time. There was no reason to panic, no reason to think he had decided against coming. No reason to worry.

He had invited me here, after all. He had been the one to mention meeting in the café on Sunday night to “catch-up”. It had been a quick phone call, but he had done most of the talking, and all of the suggesting. Read More »

Days as a Freshman: 90
Mood: Guilty

“Do you have any gum?”

Stacey shifted in the brown leather chair, straightening her blazer. She had dressed for the occasion, opting to go for “mature and classical” instead of her usual “fake and preppy”.

I was sporting my standard jeans and long sleeved shirt look, being under the impression that the Dean of Student Life didn’t really care about our clothes.

“Here.” I reached into my giant purse and pulled out a half-crushed packet of gum. “You sure you want to be talking to Dean Carlon with stuff in your mouth, though?”

“Do you have any gum that hasn’t been through the washing machine?” Crinkling her noise, Stacey stared at my hand like I was passing her a dead rat. “And I was gonna spit it out before going in there anyway. I just have this horrible taste in the back of my throat.” Begrudgingly taking a piece of gum from the pack, Stacey slipped it behind her shiny pink lips and bleached white teeth. “I always get a gross taste in my throat when I’m nervous.”

“Should we be nervous?” I took a piece of gum myself and started to chew quickly, realizing that my jaw had answered my question for me; we should be very nervous. Read More »

Days as a Freshman: 74
Mood: Stressed out

I peeled my apple slowly, concentrating on taking off as little of the inside part as possible. I kept my eyes on my hands. It was easier to talk to them this way.

“So he told you?” Crystal asked, leaning over my shoulder as though the answer was in my lap.

“He really told you?” Naima leaned in as well, pulling her jacket closer as a cold breeze pushed our hair and the leaves in the trees around us. Today was one of those rare November afternoons where it was still warm enough to sit outside in the sun, and Crystal, Naima, Rebecca and I had left our notes in the library and come out to the steps for some air.

“He told me. Probably not everything, but enough.” I handed the apple skin to Crystal who promptly ate it. She hated waste of any kind. Especially food. “He told me about MaryAnne’s cousin. And at least what he remembered about that night.”

“Wonder why he told you” Crystal mused, her mouth full. “He must really like you.”

As a friend, I thought, almost slicing my thumb with the knife I had stolen from the dining hall. I’m a great friend. And that’s all. Read More »

Days as a Freshman: 69
Mood: nervous

“We’ve got a few minutes before class is over, if anyone has any questions about anything…” Professor Mullen looked around the room, taking her glasses off her face and leaning against the board.

English 205 was one of the harder Freshman English classes, but word of mouth had made it one of the most popular, especially with guys. Professor Mullen was around 35, tall, blond, and aggressively smart. She had a good sense of humor but wasn’t afraid to put people in her place, and most guys had a thing for being “reprimanded by Ms. Mullen”.

“What about the soccer scandal?” A girl in the front of the class raised her hand, a bunch of pink bracelets clanking together on her arm. “Don’t you think the school should be doing more to find out what really happened?”

People who had been dozing during the lecture suddenly perked up, and my notebook doodling grinded to a halt. Next to me, Rebecca stiffened, and I could feel her eyes slide over to my face. Read More »

Days as a Freshman: 61
Mood: Heavy

“So…” Sasha pulled a chair from an empty table over to the one I was sitting at, holding a paper cup of tea and chewing on a plastic stirring straw. I watched him sit, look down into his cup, chew on the straw, and blink. What was he waiting for?

“Should’ve put honey in this. Green tea sucks without honey.” He looked up and grinned, the straw bending with his smiling lips, his messy brown hair falling into his eyes.

I wanted to freeze everything; take a picture of him just how he was right now with my eyes and keep it in the back of my head. I wanted to find a way to memorize the little dimple on his left cheek. I wanted to come up with an exact recipe for the smell he carried with him; a mixture of fresh deodorant and warm fuzzy dryer sheets. I needed to never forget the way a simple plastic straw could make someone irresistible.

The moment of realization that you’re sitting across from someone who could actually be everything you’ve ever dreamed about is strange. It’s not a big feeling, not a sharp feeling either. It’s mostly just a warm sensation, like someone’s poured bubbly, fizzy water into your limbs and into your chest.

“People make fun of me for drinking tea.” Taking the straw from his mouth, Sasha stirred the liquid in his cup absently, looking up at me and then back down at his hands, smiling in a quieter way. “It’s not cool or something. But I like it.”

And I like you, I thought, holding my own cup between my hands and breathing as carefully as I could. It seemed like a strong exhale could ruin the moment, blowing away the comfortable yet electric energy between us. Read More »

Days as a Freshman: 50
Mood: Nervous

“Grace! Hey, come here! Have you heard?”

Sitting down next to Crystal and Naima, I set my plate of salad, tuna, and french fries on the table and pretended that I hadn’t eaten the same thing yesterday, the day before, and the day before that.

“I thought maybe you would have heard something…” Naima stirred her bowl of chocolate ice cream and chocolate sprinkles forcefully, whipping the whole thing into a soupy mess. Somehow, Naima could eat ice cream with every meal and never gain a stray pound.

“Heard what?” I looked down at my water glass before taking a swallow. Inspecting before drinking became a habit after finding a stray piece of someone else’s hair a few weeks before.

“The whole soccer team thing, idiot!” Crystal looked at me like I had two heads, and both of them were being stupid. “Last night, at their Thirsy Thursday party? People are saying a girl was assaulted.”

I stopped eating, my fork poised with nowhere to go. “At the soccer house?”

“Who knows what’s really true,” her appetite still in tact, Naima scooped a watery glob of ice cream into her mouth before continuing, “but people are totally talking about how this freshman maybe got rufied and woke up naked in one of the guys’s beds.” Read More »

Days as a Freshman: 44
Mood: Peaceful

“And I was all, ‘you can’t just grab my boobs without asking first!’”

Stacey pushed through our door without knocking; barging in on what had been a peaceful study session between Rebecca and myself.

Dropping her purse by the door, kicking off her shoes in the middle of the room, and letting two shopping bags collapse all over her desk, Stacey continued to scream into her purple rhinestoned phone.

“It’s like, if you’re gonna reach for them, you gotta ask my permission, you know?” Digging around inside one of the shopping bags, Stacey took no notice of the serene environment she had just disrupted. “Seriously. Anyway, I gotta go. If I don’t fold these shirts right now they’ll totally wrinkle.”

Clicking her phone shut with one hand, Stacey raised a pile of newly purchased polos in another and spun around towards us. “What’re you kids doing in here? It smells weird. Something’s burning.”

Rebecca rolled her eyes and turned her back on Stacey. “We’re burning incense. And studying. You know…the thing people do that makes college worthwhile?”

“Oh.” Stacey looked over at us and made a face, somehow completely tuning out Rebecca’s insult. “It’s a Thursday night. Definitely not a studying night.”

Stepping around our history notes and upturned flashcards, Stacey walked over to her bed and began to carefully fold her new shirts, handling each one like snow that would melt at the slightest pressure. “Didn’t see you at the dance last week, Grace. Didn’t you say you were going?” Read More »

Days as a Freshman: 34
Current Mood: Anxious

“Grace!”

Naima grabbed me and screamed into my ear, doing her best shout over the booming speakers. Crystal and I had found a corner to stand in off to the side of the student center, a small alcove to watch hundreds of sweaty people gyrate and generally make fools of themselves in the name of Friday night.

“It’s packed tonight! Dances usually aren’t!” Crystal reached into her pocket and pulled out a small metal flask. “It’s because it’s the first one, I bet!” Unscrewing the top, Crystal passed her flask to me.

“What’s in this?” I held it slightly behind my back, nervous about who might see.

“Just straight vodka.” Crystal squinted into the crowd, holding a hand over the ear closest to the giant speakers. “It tastes horrible, but whatever. Does the trick!”

Naima reached behind my back and took the flask, smiling and putting it to her lips. “Bottoms up!” She shouted, taking a huge gulp.

I waited for the inevitable grimace, but nothing came. Naima just continued to smile and put the flask covertly back in my hand. Read More »