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The College Years (Chapter 14)
By Vader
THE COLLEGE YEARS
Entry II: A Student Who Loved Me
Continued from Chapter 13 . . .
CHAPTER 14
After retrieving my bike, I returned to the club, carefully watching my step due to the stinging pain that shot forth from the muscle at my ankle. I must have looked like a mess, with a hole torn in my shirt at my abdominals, plus dirt and dust smeared across my pants and face. No wonder all the pedestrians turned to stare at me in wonder of what I’d been through. Ignoring their gaze, I offered my Mesa College I.D. and entered into the exciting dance center.
The crowd had shrunk a bit, but things were still thriving, and the music was still played ongoing. I looked around to see if I could fixate on Luke, and sure enough, found him still waiting at the bar next to the victim of the crime. With a grunt, I came into their line of vision, evoking both of them to pop out of their seats in amazement. “God, what happened to you?” Luke emphatically questioned, causing me to give him a bored and irritated stare.
“I got run over by a monster truck,” I sarcastically told him, moving beside the woman who displayed a worried expression on her face concurring with my giving the wallet back.
“I can’t believe you retrieved it,” she stammered, opening it up to find that the money was still secure inside. “Thank you! But you still shouldn’t have risked your life like that – you could’ve been really hurt.”
“It’s no big deal,” I made an effort to look like I felt spry and unscathed by standing up straight and putting my hands on my waste, but only resorted to wincing from the ache that clamored up my side.
“You sure you didn’t break anything?” she asked, reaching out and rubbing my arm gently.
“It’s just a few sprains; it’ll be gone in the morning.” Since I’d done my best to convince her that nothing was seriously wrong, she looked back down at her wallet to put it into her purse, and gazed back up at me, a smile appearing on her face. Out of the blue, I recognized something about her features, sure that I knew her from somewhere, but unable to recall the details from my well of memory.
“You look familiar,” the student acknowledged before I could speak the same.
“So do you. I’m trying to think . . .” I paused, remembering that distinct, sunny smile from the very first day of college as belonging to one of the variety of people I’d met that day. “Erin?!”
“Yeah, and you’re name is . . . Jack, right?” she grinned widely, resting her chin in the palm of her hand.
“Yup. Jeez, it’s been so long since we talked!”
“It has. But I’m glad we met in here, it was good fortune.” We stood still, staring at each other, and without my noticing it, our eyes strayed into each other’s and locked there, unable to move again. I was dazzled by her indescribable beauty, loosing myself and drifting into a feeling of . . .
I flashed my gaze downward, stuffing my hands into my pockets nervously when realizing what I was doing, becoming extremely uncomfortable. A moment of silence went by, until Erin spoke up, “Well, thank so much, again, for doing that. It was very heroic of you,” she teased, on the brink of flirting. Slightly embarrassed, I shook my head and rubbed the back of my neck.
“Nah, it wasn’t heroic, I just . . .” Unable to think of anything to say, I heard Erin break out in laughter.
“You know it was,” he touched my shoulder. “What can I do to replay you?” I glanced at Luke, who had an obvious smirk on his face that I ignored, and then turned back to Erin.
“Nothing. You don’t have to do anything,” I rushed to assure her, backing away out of nervousness which, at the time, I couldn’t explain. “Look, I have to get home, but, ah . . . I’ll see you tomorrow in English.” I gave a final wave to Luke and turned to make my way out as quick as possible, questioning my uneasiness only after I’d left the club. I was instinctively horrified by my behavior around Erin. How could I feel an emotion about her that even in the slightest sense resembled how felt about Rachel? How could I look deep into her eyes, when I only did that to Rachel?
I found Luke’s words scarring my psyche once more, about how there were so many women at Mesa that had the potential to take Rachel’s place as the object of my affection. I was scared of it . . . I was scared about any possibility of a change like that in my life. I shoved it away, refusing to care about it any more, but still knowing in the back of my mind that it would come back to torment me sooner or later.
I hopped on my bike, and was back at home within a half an hour by the time it struck twelve o’ clock. Making a special effort to be as silent as nonexistence, I took my shoes off and leaned down to carefully place them next to the door. I slid on my socks through the glossy kitchen floor to grab a glass of milk only to notice I’d received a message on the answering machine. Turning the volume down several notches on the speaker, I pressed the ‘play’ button to recognize it as Josh’s voice: “Jack! What’s up? Where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in weeks. Anyway, we’re having a barbeque at my house and we wanted to invite you. Chris, Sean, Bobby, Linzy, and Rachel are coming too, so we hope to see you here. It’s at three o’ clock tomorrow. Be there if you can, okay? I hope everything’s been alright. Bye.”
Oh yeah, everything had been just dandy. I leaned back against the wall, taking a giant gulp of my beverage and resting my eye-lids. Hearing someone else say Rachel’s name for the first time in at least a month haunted and chilled me to the bone. Never before in my life had I been at such a terrifying crossroad of emotions, and I felt as if I had been plagued. Something strange told me that a huge change in my life was about to occur that would have a permanent effect on me, but I couldn’t face up nor accept that gut feeling.
Instead, I was just horribly sickened by how much was weighing on me recently, and how it appeared that every day managed to worsen the situation. I was convinced that time wanted to disturb and vex me non-stop. I wanted to get away from it all, to go back to when things had been so much simpler, when I knew exactly what I felt, and what to do about it.
Too pained both physically and mentally to stay awake, I finished my milk and headed for bed, throwing myself under the covers as thunder monstrously threatened me with its barrage of earth-shattering rumbles. Lightning lit my room within a millisecond, before the soft sounds of rainfall echoed through the hallways of my house.
Morning came unnaturally soon, and a few hours saw me sitting in my usual spot in English class, reading along with Instructor Sim in a short story entitled “From Outside, In”. Nobody could deny its academic tone, with a variety of descriptive words to clearly convey the emotions of the main character. Once the surfer teacher, who wore board shorts and a Spider-Man T-shirt, finished, he looked up to gaze throughout his bunch of students, singling out an individual near the back of the classroom.
“Zig! What do you think of this segment of the story?” The middle aged, graying, snobby-looking man who’d been addressed pushed his glasses against his nose and turned a page in the book, then facing the rest of the class.
“I think its immaturely written, poorly delivered, and utterly nonsensical,” he arrogantly critiqued with a sniff. There wasn’t one student who didn’t turn to look at this man as if he were insane. Everyone broke out in laugher at once, the teacher leaning back in his seat and throwing his head back.
“Dude, you’re f**kin’ hilarious,” Sim dozily replied, being cut short at the end of his sentence by a tiny beep coming from his wrist watch. He snapped back into a more serious tone and spoke up, “Okay, I’ll see you next class. No homework!” Due to practically all (excluding Zig) having gotten into such a casual mindset whenever we came to this class, thanks to the instructor’s relaxed (maybe even a little too relaxed) aura, they all cheered wildly at Sim’s announcement, the words “Rock on!” protruding from some faceless bum amongst them.
I, however, wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic, feeling like I had what could only be describe as a psychological hangover, and calmly turned to pack up and leave . . . just when I felt a light tap on my back. Knowing exactly who it was before turning around, I flashed back to the night before, her face appearing in my brain as clear as day. “Jack?” her relaxing voice asked.
“Yeah, Hi, Erin,” I spun around to confront her, giving a toned-down grin.
“Feeling better this morning?” she inquired, simpering and biting her bottom lip.
“A little bit,” a chuckle escaped from me, trying to stretch my arm. She covered her mouth with a quiet chuckle.
“Aww. Why don’t you let me treat you to lunch in the cafeteria? I feel like I have to do at least one thing to repay you.” At first, I was hesitant, and it must have showed, yet I felt an inclination to go with her, if it truly were possible that I wanted to talk to her some more. “Come on, please?” she pleaded with a wide smirk, folding her arms together. I glanced at my watch, seeing that I had plenty of time before Josh’s barbeque.
“I guess so,” I eventually caved in, unable to help a smile creeping onto the edges of my mouth.
“Great! Let’s go!”
(More to come)
1/15/2003 2:15:01 AM
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