by Lane, Bayli
“I’m so afraid we’re going to grow apart, Sander. I just keep thinking you’re tired of me. All this fighting is wearing on me.”
He squeezes me tighter. “I know what you mean, baby, but you don’t need to worry. You’re my girl.” He pulls away and looks at me sympathetically. “We’ll be okay, Lilly.”
I nod sadly but hopefully, and hug him. “I just want us to be happy.”
“I’m sorry I’ve upset you, Lilly. I’m just getting used to this whole college thing, ya know?”
“I figured that’s what it was, but I couldn’t help but think I just wasn’t making you happy anymore,” I say honestly. I deliberately don’t say that I think Bryan is having a negative effect on him. That’s an argument for another time.
Sander kisses me and then smiles, “You do make me happy. We just need to spend more time together. Maybe after your girly movie time with Lauren tomorrow you can come to my dorm?”
“Sounds good,” I say and give him another quick peck on his lips.
After dinner we decide to forgo the movie so that Sander can go get ready for the party he’s going to. As soon as he drops me off at home I text Clarissa.
Me: I’m down. Can u still pick me up?
Clarissa: Yes! See u then. Dress hot.”
Me: Define hot.
Clarissa: Short skirt, tight shirt.
Me: Am I ever going to get to wear comfy jeans again?
I smile down at my text.
Clarissa: Yeah, for class. ;) Maybe.
Me: Whatever. Lol. I have 2 go get ready.
I decide to not text Colton back for several reasons. The first, I don’t know what to say to him. I feel like it would be kind of lame to text him just to say ‘I’ll be there.’ Plus, Clarissa probably already told him. Second, I really need to get ready.
With the texts and plans all in order, I look at the time. Seeing that I only have twenty minutes, I quickly jump up from the wooden chair at my desk and throw the closet doors open, searching for something to wear. I grab my tight, hot pink mini skirt with a black band around the top and a black, thin-strapped top. The top is simple, but looks fantastic when I tuck it into this skirt. I grab a pair of black heels, thankfully only about an inch and a half in height. I slip everything on and run over to the mirror that hangs on our door. I add some make-up, but even less dramatic than last time. I don’t put any eye shadow on. Instead I put on a small amount of eyeliner, some mascara, and a light lip-gloss. I smack my lips together and admire the final product. Not bad, Lilly, not bad at all.
It’s not even 5 minutes later when my phone starts going off. I rush over and see that Clarissa is calling me.
“Hey!” I say excitedly into the phone. Too excited. Whoa Lil, take it down a notch.
“Hey, someone’s excited to talk to me.” Clarissa laughs, “I’m here. Are you ready or should I come up?”
I take a breath, and consciously make the effort to sound less excited about going out, “I’m ready, I’ll be down in a minute.”
I hang up, taking one last look in the mirror. I flip my head over, run my fingers through my hair to fluff it out, and then toss my head back over so that I can see myself in the mirror. Good, now I have some volume.
I spring down the stairs and climb into Clarissa’s car.
“Oh my god! I love that skirt!” She exclaims.
“Why thank you,” I wink at her.
I’m off to see Colton, and I can barely contain my excitement.
We arrive at Colton’s, and my nerves are a jumbled mess. I feel excited, stupid, guilty. I miss Sander, but I’m thriving in making my own friends. I am confused by my own feelings, and what is right or wrong. I didn’t even tell Sander I was going out tonight. I’m sure he just assumes I will be staying home, since I wasn’t going with him and Bryan. I didn’t correct that thought, but he didn’t ask either. Maybe I shouldn’t feel bad, I convince myself, if he didn’t care anyway.
I wonder what he would say if he knew I was going to another party without him. Would I get the sweet Sander that would simply say he wishes I had invited him because he misses me? Or would it be the pissed off Sander that would tell me to stop fucking around on him? I wonder how crazy it is that I started thinking of Sander as two different people—my Sander and Bryan’s Sander?
Looking through the windshield of Clarissa’s car, I watch as a number of other people are parking or walking from campus to the house. Some people knock before they go in, while others just open the door and walk in as if they own the place. If I didn’t know Clarissa, I wouldn’t know what to do in this situation. I guess I’d just walk in behind someone else.
“You ready?” Clarissa asks giving me a questioning look.
“What’s that look for?” I ask, looking back at the house.
She flicks her red hair over her bare shoulder. She’s wearing a strapless grey top and a dangly silver necklace. “You just seem—I don’t know—nervous?” she asks.
I don’t say anything, so she continues, “and it isn’t because you don’t know anyone here—because you do.” She glances towards the house and then back to me, “You know me, Oliver, Jake, Chris, and Colton.”
“I’m fine,” I lie. I’m not fine. Even with the guilt I feel for being excited, I’m jumping out of my skin wondering what Colton’s doing, who he’s talking to, what he’s wearing, I bounce rapidly between questions. Will he be happy to see me? Has he been wondering if I’m coming? Oh my god! Does he have a girlfriend? I don’t even know if he has a girlfriend?!
“What’s going through your head right now?” Clarissa asks, directing my thoughts.
“I’m just excited to get inside,” I say. It’s a partial truth. I’m getting decent at this.
She looks at me for a moment. I think she’s checking to see if I’m being honest. She seems happy with what she sees, “Alright. Well then let’s get in there!”
The layout is much the same as Thursday night. Furniture is pushed to the walls. Music resounds through large speakers set up throughout the house. People are dancing on the hardwood floor in the living room, and alcohol is in the kitchen.
I can already hear Oliver’s boisterous laugh coming from the kitchen. I have no clue what he’s laughing at, but just hearing him brings a chuckle from my throat. He has one of those laughs that cause everyone around him to react. I automatically start making my way towards the room so I can see him.
Jake and Chris are just as nice as Oliver, but Oliver is more outgoing. I feel drawn towards him for that simple fact. Being around Oliver is effortless, because he handles most of the conversation. He has a way of making you feel like you’ve known him your entire life. Between he and Clarissa—I feel like I’ve hit the jackpot on new best friends.
Clarissa walks up next to me as I make my way through the crowd, and together we push through and find our group of friends beside the alcohol.
“Don’t you guys ever move away from the beer?” I ask.
Oliver grins at me and gives me a flirtatious wink and then barrels towards me to give me a hug.
This hug seems like it’ll knock me on my ass. I hold up my hands to keep him from ramming into me, but he just keeps charging forward. I turn, pivoting around on my right heel, and run for the opposite side of the island.
I can’t turn to look because I know he’ll catch me in my moment of weakness, but I hear Clarissa with her high-pitched laughter and Colton joins in huskily. His laugh momentarily stuns me. My hesitation gives Oliver just enough time to crash into my back. His chest rams hard against my back, and he wraps his arms around my front, pinning my arms to my chest, and lifting me off the ground. “Caught you!” he yells. I’m squealing and giggling as he twirls me around. My hair flies away from my face. He puts me back onto the ground, and I turn around to give him a proper hug.
“You could have squished me!” I say, still recovering from my laughter.
I look over his shoulder at Colton and see him watching us. He’s talking to the guys, but kee
ping his eyes on us.
“So how’s the boyfriend?” Oliver asks teasingly. He’s watching me observe Colton.
“Fine,” I say stiffly and make my way towards the group. Oliver grabs my arm and stops me. I turn to face him. He raises a blonde brow and his normally-piercing blue eyes look hazily into my green. His eyes move over to where Colton stands and then back to me.
“You know, none of us our blind, Lilly,” he says seriously.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say in a low voice and look down at my feet. I gulp down air, trying to calm the embarrassment I feel. I’m now seeing that being friends with Colton is going to be harder than I thought. Since his friends can easily tell that I’m attracted to him, I’m obviously not doing a good job of hiding it.
Oliver lifts my chin and forces me to look at him. “I think he likes you too,” he says kindly. His eyes have softened. The humor is gone; the questioning look, gone. He’s simply telling me a fact and possibly taking pity on me.
“Don’t,” I say and shake my head. “I think Colton is great. He’s a good friend,” I say and look directly into Oliver’s eyes. I feel more confident now.
Oliver lets out a puff of breath and shakes his head with exasperation. “If you say so.”
A few heart beats later Colton saunters over to us. He looks skeptically between Oliver and I.
“Is Oliver giving you a hard time about something?” he questions and nudges his best friend, but I can see a slight tapering of his eyes.
“Nah, he’s fine,” I answer and wink at Oliver.
“I’m glad you came tonight, Lilly,” Colton says, stepping in front of Oliver and cutting off my view of him. I guess I’m through talking to him tonight. I hear Oliver chuckle behind Colton and muttering something that sounds an awful lot like “jealous S.O.B.”
“You want to play a game of beer bong?” Colton asks.
I grin up at him. “Sure. I suck, but as long as you don’t mind me bringing you down…”
He laughs, “You just haven’t had the right teacher. I’ll have you playing like a pro in no time.”
“We’ll see,” I challenge.
“Oh, it’s on.”
We make our way to a long, slender table. Colton finds another couple to play against us. He comes up behind me holding the white ball in his hand.
He leans into my ear. “It’s all in the elbow,” he says as he lifts my arm up and points my elbow. “You have to direct your elbow at where you want the ball to go. If you line it up right- you’ll make the shot every time.” He runs his fingers towards my wrist and then pulls my arm straight like if I were throwing the ball. Then he tangles his fingers with mine and pulls my arm back again so that my elbow points once again at the red solo cups. “Now you try,” he commands gently.
He chest is still flush against my back and I can feel his hot, heavy breathing on my neck. Talk about hard to concentrate. I aim my elbow at the cup that I want my ball to go in. I take a steady breath in and then launch my arm forward and let go of the ball.
I watch as my ball spins around the rim of the cup and then falls in, causing beer to splatter over the cup.
I scream with joy and start bouncing up and down. Colton’s laughing behind me as I spin around and look into his hazel, happy eyes.
“I did it!” I squeal.
“See, now you’re a pro,” he says and kisses my cheek.
Colton and I played a few more games. I made nearly every shot. The more drinks I had in my system the less I cared about the guilt. I laughed more, I flirted, I teased, and I had a good night.
I’ve completed my first week of classes. I changed my schedule around so that I could free up my Friday’s. My Tuesday and Thursday classes are going to kill me but having every single Friday off is worth it. I have to take Anatomy. It’s the only science class that will fit in my schedule. To say that this is a problem is the understatement of the century. I took Anatomy in high school and ended up in the emergency room.
It all happened pretty quickly. I could smell the formaldehyde from down the hallway. It was disgusting. The pungent, sickly smell made my insides lurch and my stomach sour. I wasn’t sure what I was smelling until I walked into the classroom. There were dead pigs on each lab table. I somehow forgot that we were going to be dissecting the poor little piggies. When I saw their little bodies and took a deep breath in, inhaling the scent, I nearly passed out. It wasn’t until I walked up to my seat and saw it’s leg pinned to the pan that my ears began ringing, my vision got splotchy, and sweat broke out across my forehead. Before I could ask for help the world went dark, and I fell. When I woke, I found out that I had fainted and hit my head on my desk on my way to the floor.
Having a repeat of my high school years would be unfortunate.
Fortunately, I balanced Anatomy with a class that I’m ecstatic to take, Public Speaking. I took public speaking in high school and performed on the speech time. It was kind of my thing, the one thing I was really great at. So I went ahead and enrolled in the advanced version. Not knowing what I want to major in yet, I threw in a lot of general courses too. After everything, the first semester of college seems to be relatively easy.
I routinely find myself amazed that the professors actually treat us like adults, I still vividly remember the frustration of being treated like a child in high school. At a point in life when adulthood and childhood blur together, everyone gave me the rights of a child but the responsibilities of an adult. When all I wanted was to start making my own decisions and choices for my future, I had to raise my hand to use the restroom. Ridiculous.
But now, every decision I make is exactly that—my decision to make, my consequence to endure. I can choose to show up late to class, leave early, not come at all, or I can walk out and use the rest room if I need too. The consequences are all my own. I don’t have to worry that I’m affecting or disappointing anyone; I’m answering only to myself for the first time in my life, and it feels like pure freedom. I finally have the freedom I’ve been yearning to experience. Going to parties has already shown me a side of life I had been missing by being stuck in the bubble my parents had formed around me at home, but the entire college class experience is so much more.
I’m becoming my own person. I feel myself changing. It’s a slight change—something I imagine most people wouldn’t notice, but I can see the difference. I’m making new friends, which is something I have always had problems with in the past. The friends I have always had in the past I either made through Sander or Lauren. Now I have my very own group of friends that I made by myself. Lauren has her own friends. Sander has his own. The independence is refreshing like walking into crisp, winter air, looking up at those twinkling novas, and taking a lungful of cool air. I want more. I want to taste more of the coolness, I want to find out more of this person I am becoming.
Having recognized that I was growing apart from a childhood friend and roommate, I finally sit down with Lauren to tell her about my worries with Sander. I try to explain to her how he’s been acting peculiar lately.
“His mood swings start from one extreme and shift easily to another. It’s like he’s two different people, all the time.”
She listens intently to my frustrations.
“I don’t even trust his roommate. I think that whatever this change happening to Sander is, is Bryan’s fault.”
No one has really ever taken the time to get to know the Lauren that I do. They see her as a shallow girl with an “I don’t give a shit” attitude. The Lauren I know has her moments when she’s undoubtedly the greatest friend I could ever ask for. This is one of those moments. Lauren, being the best friend that she is, comforts me the only way she can. “Sander is probably just going through a change like you and me. He’s probably just trying to find out who he is,” she explains, giving reason to Sander’s behavior.
Despite the fact that she has recently told me to take a ‘break’ from Sander, I think she must see how depressed I am getting over t
he distance between Sander and me. “Maybe he is just trying to revel in being away from his parents,” she continues with another explanation.
“I can understand that,” I reply. I silently hope that whatever decisions he makes won’t completely rip us apart.
“I kind of like Bryan,” Lauren says, utterly shocking me. I know she’s been meeting new guys almost every day. That didn’t surprise me—it’s Lauren. However, the idea that anyone could enjoy Bryan’s company and actually want to be around him without having a gun pointed at their head—that was a shocking surprise.
“You do?” I am curious about whether Bryan and I just got off on the wrong foot. If so I should make another attempt at being his friend for both Lauren and Sander. I silently make a promise to myself to try harder. Don’t be so judgmental towards Bryan. Give him another chance, Lilly. It has to be worth it.
I decide to spend some much needed time away from Colton.
Although he texts me on a daily basis and I respond, I feel like we’re finally getting a hold of this friendship thing. Not seeing and being around him is allowing me to step backwards from an overload of feelings and analyze the situation rationally.
Colton is smokin’ hot. I can’t deny that. He is. But I know that doesn’t give me a right to jump his bones just because I find him attractive. I decide that the only reason I’m finding myself so drawn to him is because Sander and I are having issues. It makes sense. Think about it, Lilly. You have been with Sander for four years and then suddenly you two are having major arguments and just not getting along at all, how would you react to a nice, attractive guy showing you some much needed attention? I know myself well enough to know that I get carried away with my feelings. I’m sure the feelings are there, but they are more extreme because I’ve been at a low point.
Colton seems to be handling the distance well. Our texts have been purely “friend zone.” Clarissa hasn’t been bringing up Colton when she texts me, so I’m feeling comfortable in my new circle of friends and comfortable with my love life having been restored back to its former self.