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WE’RE GOING BACK… BACK TO SCHOOL AGAIN
August 15, 2005
Today is my very last first day of school. Every first day of school since I was about twelve years old, I have always danced around while getting ready to the song Back to School Again from theGrease 2movie. I imagine I’m a Pink Lady—but the Stephanie kind—in her reversed black jacket and not giving two shits what any of her friends think about her wearing pants the first day of school and not a skirt. Granted she does put on a skirt, so I guess we have that in common, we both care what people think about us.
This year isno different.I’m singing and dancing while I get dressed in my dark pinkAbercrombieshorts and plain white tee. My summer tan has my skin glowing. I even woke up early enough to curl my hair which I grew out all summer and put on makeup. I’ve got my schedule printed out, my backpack ready and I’m pumped to start my last first day of college. This is the beginning of the end of an era and I’m planning on rocking out and making this year my bitch.
The day Meg got dumped by Justin changed a lot for me. Irealized my happiness can’t hang in the balance on the off chance a guy likes me. Since that day I’ve distanced myself some from Brad. Do I really want to be with him? Yes. Do I think he wants to be with me? Yes. Has he done anything about it? Nope. It’s because of that that I started to give myself a bit of distance. Little things, like taking longer to respond to one of his messages. Not asking him so many questions when we do text. Not popping online into my profile to see if he’s written to me there. Little things like that. I’m not avoiding him but I’m also not actively chasing him.
What did I notice by doing all of this? He started to pick up the slack. He started reaching out to me more. Did I like that? Yes, and I still do. Hence why I’ve got a little bit more pep in my stepbutI’ve also vowed to make this senior year the best yet and if he can’t man up and tell me he likes me, then I’m going to have to take the bull by the horns and live my life for me and go for the things that I want. I’ve always been someone who knows what they want and goes for it and the girl that I started to become last semester, being insecure and questioning everything I did, that wasn’t me. I mean do I get shy sometimes around guys that I’m interested in and don’t know what to say… sure. That happens to the best of us but I’m not the same person I was a month ago and I’m okay with that. Meg isn’t who she was a month ago either.
Meg has been through the ringer. She’s dyed her natural brown hair red, cutting it off into a short pixie style, lost at least fifteen pounds and her normal, usually sunny disposition hasn’t been seen in weeks. Lola and I take turns making sure she’s eating and leaving her room. Last night we had to force her to leave the apartment so we could attend the first Mu Gamma Phi meeting of the semester. Half of the sisters who hadn’t heard about her breakup were shocked when they heard the news. The other halfweren’t so shocked since rumor had it Justin has already been seen with other girls.
I instinctively flinch when I think of the idea of poor Meg’s possibility of running into him today on campus. I dread that for her but there’s not much they can do since both of them had already set their schedule to match for the semester. Meg went to the school’s registrar, but she could only get one of five classes changed. I tried to console her that night and say at least one was better than none. She responded by eating a pint of ice cream and not saying another word the rest of the night.
Speaking of schedules, I think of my own. While we didn’t plan it, Brad and I have three out of four classes together. This could work incredibly well in my favor or it could be a complete curse come the end of the semester. Today though, I’m going to look at it as a positive. I’m going to march into class, pick out my seat and then I’m going to ask Brad Matthews out on a date. I’ve talked myself up on this idea and so have my friends. Erica is positively giddy that I’m going to finally put my big girl pants on and go for what I want. I mean I have before in other areas of my life and that’s worked out so far. I mean really, if he shoots me down then will I be disappointed? Yeah but then I’m going to move on and live the hap, hap, happiest life since Bing Crosby tap danced with Danny Kaye.
I grab my backpack off the floor and give myself one more glance before leaving my bedroom.You can do this Nikki, I tell myself in the mirror. And with that I’m out my door and making sure Meg is dressed and ready to walk the few blocks over to campus with me.
My first class of the day went how I expected it to go. I knew morethan eighty percent of the people in the room. I’ve had the professor twice before and the workload is going to be challenging. Thankfully, the professor understands that there will be times when I’m not in class because of my athletic responsibilities and won’t count that against me. My fall semesters have always been harder than my spring ones but after three years I think I’ve finally got the swing of things. Once I got the syllabus for my first class I checked out. All I could think about after that was getting to my next class.
Now walking into the room, I quickly look around to see who’s here. I purposely made myself slow down on the walk over so I wouldn’t be the first one in the door. There’s only a handful of people spread out throughout the room. I smile and wave to the few people I recognize from other classes and around campus. It can be a challenge for me sometimes when people wave at me because unless I really know someone and see them often, they may just recognize and know me from games and seeing me on the field. In this class though, I recognize most of the faces that are sitting in the room.
I take a seat in the back corner, making sure to leave the seats on both sides of me open. I busy myself with getting out my notebook and pen from my bag. Anything to keep my hands busy. There hasn’t been one moment leading up to today that I’ve felt nervous but right now I can’t decide if I’m going to poop my pants or uncontrollably start a fit of nervous giggles. I can feel the tremble in my hands so when I have nothing left to do to keep them busy I tuck them under my thighs in the seat.
I take a deep breath and slowly release it. I’ve been doing breathing exercises for years in an effort to calm my nerves when I feel extremely anxious. My mom taught them to me years ago and there’s probably never been a week that’s gone by that I haven’tused them. On the last exhale, Brad walks into the room. It’s like I have a sixth sense when it comes to him. I pretend like I haven’t seen him and beg myself not to react. I haven’t seen him since that night of my formal where he once again gave me the second-best hug then told me goodnight.
I fail in my attempts to play it cool and smile when I see him—heartened by the fact that he’s also smiling. He makes a beeline for me and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from bursting at the seams with elation. When he sits down my brain short circuits as he reaches over and I think he’s going to give me some sort of weird desk hug and I think about what I’m supposed to do with my hands. Instead he grips my shoulder in his hand and I can feel goosebumps run down my arm.
“Great to see you!” I nod my head in agreement. Although, now that I’ve been thinking more about our situation and overthinking it since Meg’s breakup, I wonder why he never asked to hang out during the summer. Yes, he lives in a town about two hours away but that isn’t a huge amount of distance when you only have a part time job and no other major obligations for two and a half months. Especially when you spend most of the day texting back and forth and the other half sending each other random things to look at online.
Instead of becoming the Spanish Inquisition in the middle of the classroom, I let my thoughts slide for now. “Yeah it’s good to finally see you again. After texting all summer, it’s good to see you.”
He gives me a warm smile but then turns to his bag, pulls out his notebook and pen. His behavior mirrors mine and for a second, I wonder if now is the time for me to strike while the iron is hot. We’re in agreement that we are happy to finally see each other. It’s a good segue, and for once I don’t feel overly nervous. I don’t know why our online chats and our texting seem to flow soeasily but in person it’s harder. It’s harder to get him to really talk about meaningful things. When he came to my apartment, we had a great time. Maybe it’s just being in class and around others that he starts to get like this. Maybe he’s secretly shy but he’s so outgoing when he’s involved with his fraternity.
Fuck it. I’m going for it. I’ve been waiting long enough. “So…” I realize the volume of my voice is high as a few people look over to me. I lower my voice and start again. “So… Would you like to come over and hang out this weekend? We could watch a movie.”
He looks at me and is silent for what feels like an eternity. I count inside my head:one Mississippi, two Mississippi.Before I can get to three he speaks.
“Yeah. I’d like that. Which night works better for you? Friday or Saturday?”
“Either works for me. I have the game Saturday but on both days I’ll be done by eight.”
“Ok. Why don’t we do Friday? Sigma is having a huge party at the house to welcome everyone back on campus but I’m more than happy to skip it.”
“Yeah, some of the girls mentioned it last night. I wasn’t planning on going.” He breathes out a laugh.
“What?” I ask him. I think he might be laughing at my expense.
He shrugs one shoulder. “Nothing. I’m just not surprised. I don’t think you’re a big fan of frat parties.”
I just scrunch my nose up in response.
“See. I knew I was right.”
Now it’s my turn to shrug my shoulder. “What can I say, I like to lay at home in my pajama pants rather than have drunk guys trying to get me to play strip beer pong.”
His face lights up as he laughs, a real laugh this time. “Yeah,that’s about right.” He shifts in his seat and I can’t tell if he’s uncomfortable or just getting ready for the Professor to come in. He leans closer to my desk and lowers his voice. “I just think you don’t like going to those parties because so many guys hit on you.”
