Not Quite Collegiate

Freshman year of college is fraught with issue after issue. Many remember it as the best year of their life, but it has good days and bad. This is just the case for childhood friends Alice and Lilly.

“Please. Can you come?” I mumbled into the phone, a little embarrassed. Tears streaming down my face.

 

“I’m on my way.”

 

I silently thanked every deity I could think of, being alone sounded terrible. With that the line went silent and I sat patiently in my bed waiting for her to come, with a strong smelling drink in my hand and I wrapped myself in the quilt my mom had sent me the week before. ‘A piece of home’ was what the letter had read. I was nine hundred and sixty six miles from home and as much as I wanted to say that it wasn’t difficult, it was. Being nineteen years old is grim some days and whimsical the next. The sad part is that when you’re nineteen you don’t know it’s the best time of your life. Same thing with freshman year of college, partially it’s this beautiful collage of new experiences and independence and partially it’s some prolonged and lonely nights, misguided decisions, and stress. Coincidentally, the previous leads to the latter. That’s what brought me to tonight.

I jumped when a harsh knock resonated through the room, then sighed when I realized who it was. I opened the door and she wordlessly hugged me. Her arms were tight around my torso and my head tucked into the crook of her neck, tears welling in my eyes again. She was familiar and warm, and exactly what I needed.

 

“Do you want to talk about it?” She raised her eyebrows, pulling back from me and walking  into my small room.

 

“I’d really rather not.” My voiced cracked a little and she nodded.

 

“So, what are we drinking and what are we watching?”

 

I smiled, relieved. Grabbing the water bottle from under my bed, I tossed it to her. She opened it and wrinkled her nose.

 

“God why do you like strawberry vodka so much?” She laughed and poured a liberal amount into two cups anyway. She grabbed ginger ale from the mini fridge and filled them the rest the way, handing one to me.

 

We crawled onto my bed, under the quilt, and turned on the TV. Eventually settling on the most grotesque reality TV we could find. I lay, sipping my drink and feeling warm, thinking how lucky I was that this was the kind of friend I had in my life. It had been this way since we were thirteen, when my over sheltered life fell apart. Our closest friends got suspended and we fell apart. She had been there for me and we found our balance after a few weeks. But, the good part of us falling apart is that we rebuilt each other.

As I let the last drops of the bubbling drink drip into my mouth I felt warm and a little less terrible about the night that had taken place. Alice looked over at me, her eyes just a little unfocused. We were about an hour deep into reality television with about four shots down.

 

“Are we gonna talk about it?” She asked, looking concerned.

 

“He has a girlfriend.”

 

“Well he’s a b***h. You’re prettier than him.” Malice tainted her voice.

 

“I know.” I said, and she laughed.

 

“We can go burn his stuff.” This wasn’t a question but a serious suggestion, we’d never acted on it but it was always an option.

 

“That’s the dream. I smiled at her. After a moment of thought I asked, “What’s happening with Jake by the way?”

 

With a dramatic sigh she told me that they’d gone to a party together and he left half an hour later with a girl from Zeta, no one saw him the rest of the night. She didn’t seem terribly upset about this, but that’s likely because she knew she was out of his league. Alice had been an awkward middle school, gangly and hyperactive. But by the time high school came around, her hair had grown to her waist, her legs were about half of her tall frame, and she had more confidence than everyone we knew combined. Guys had always seemed to love the unidentifiable ethnic quality about her, olive skin and green eyes. But, if you’re asking me, I don’t think she realized she was beautiful until we got to college.

 

“Oh did you get the part? You said the audition was rough.” She asked, I grimaced.

 

“Nope, they ‘went in another direction.’” I shrugged, rejection was part of the game. Not that I was trying to make a living out of acting but let’s be honest, most people at those auditions kind of are trying to make a living out of it. “How was your exam in history?”

 

“I got a 73.” She shrugged, her emotions here nor there.

 

We lay on my narrow twin bed staring at the ceiling, the television abandoned for the moment. I sighed and shifted to my side, my back against the photograph covered wall. Each one a smiling and warm memory, in front of Saint Marks Cathedral and after opening night of the first show I had written and every moment in between.

 

“Why do we keep doing this to ourselves?” I asked, partially hypothetical and partially serious.

 

“What? Do literally everything a stereotypical freshman does?” Alice said and turned her head to face me.

 

“Kind of. I mean why do we keep choosing the wrong guys knowing they’re terrible?”

 

“We’re masochists.” She grinned at me.

 

“Let’s make a deal. No guys for the rest of the semester. Be friends with them but nothing romantic, no dates, no touching, no nothing.”

 

“Lemme just text Aaron real quick…” She quipped with a laugh and grabbed her phone, quickly texting a likely blunt message to a hopeful boy. She tossed her phone to the side. “You have a deal. A month and a half of solitude.”

 

“Just in time for a nice little summer fling.” I beamed, excited at the idea of not worrying about any aspect the opposite sex.

 

“Sweet lord knows you love a summer fling.” Alice said, rolling her eyes.

 

“Speaking of which, I need you for a film project. The crew and I are driving down to the beach on Friday to film, we just need you to walk on the boardwalk and look pretty.”

 

“Just my specialty.”

 

“You’re full of s**t.” I rolled my eyes.

 

“I know” She smiled back at me and fell back onto the pillow.

 

“Goodnight, Alice.”

 

“Goodnight, Lilly.”

Author's Note

This is a rough first installment and a little slow in my opinion - any suggestions would be so welcomed.