Freshman Year

A rough draft of the first chapter of my first novel.

Freshman Year…..

It was August 19^th, finally the morning of the big move-in for freshman had come I had barely slept the night before. The excitement had been killing me. My parents and I had been buying stuff all summer for school. I had all my stuff packed and organized in my room at home for almost a week. That morning when we pulled out of the driveway, I turned my head and looked up at the sky. It was gloomy for a August Morning. I tried to wiggle my butt in the jam-packed car to get more comfortable in the seat. Even in my Dad’s Dodge Caravan, all my stuff barely fit. After driving for a while with all that stuff in my lap, my legs soon became numb but I didn’t care. Ever notice how excitement some how can make you forget about stuff?

 

We were halfway there when I just couldn’t hold it anymore. My mom started to sound like a broken record. I wasn’t sure if she was nervous about me leaving, sad or was just loosing it.

“You know I never got to go away to college.”

“I wanted you to be able to experience things that I didn’t get to.”

“I’m so proud of my baby.”

I looked at my dad in the rearview mirror and saw that he was smiling at me. My parents were so proud of me and I could feel it. It was just us and our dogs. That’s the way it had always been and I knew I would miss them. My parents had met back in the early 70’s in high school like me and X. They lost touch with each other for a while and then met again in the late 70’s and discovered that it was more than a friendship. That fairytale stuff had always had a way of being so dreamy to me. I knew that things had not been so good lately with my parents though and I felt I was the glue holding our little family together but I had to go.

When we arrived on campus there were people everywhere moving their things.

Cars lined the curb out side my L Hall like people were there for a concert or some huge event. I stopped to dig in my big bag to find my cell phone to call and let Xavier know I had arrived. After numerous rings his generic voicemail came on……”This is X, you know what to do”.

I pulled the phone away from my face slowly and hung up the phone. I hadn’t heard his voicemail in months. I pushed his speed dial number again and it went straight to voicemail so I left a message:

“I’m here, just wanted to let you know, call me when you get here. Love you”

I hung up the phone and tucked it in my shorts pocket. If he called I wanted to make sure I was there to answer it so he could tell me where he lived and stuff.

I figured he hadn’t arrived yet since it was so early and he would have to wait on his dad or mom to help him move his stuff. His little 1980’s model sports car wouldn’t hold anything bigger than a box of shoes.

 

My parents helped me move everything into my room, and set up. They hung around for while and I kept my door open in the 4 room suite as new dorm mates came to introduce themselves to me. Next door, the girls I shared a joining bathroom with were Shelly and Theresa. Shelly and Theresa were both tall thin girls with blond hair. They were built like volleyball players and seemed really nice. In the room across from me was Trina and Karrissa and they shared a bathroom with Laura and Melissa a girl from St. Louis and the other one I forgot already where she said she was from. Trina was a white girl, medium build with dark jet-black hair she had obviously dyed. The first thing I noticed was her colorful tattoos on her wrists and a large one on her ankle. She seemed like a real character and was the first to come over and introduce herself to my parents and me. She wasn’t shy at all and went on about who she had met and what crazy things she had seen so far. Karrissa was a short black girl with glasses who seemed to be quite cordial like the rest of my new suite mates, she was light skinned like I but very thick. Her parents seemed older than mine, which told me that she was mostly likely the baby of the family.

I met Laura coming up the stairs when she had bumped into me and then just looked at me and didn’t say anything. “There’s one in every bunch,” is what my teacher used to say. That one was probably going to be her, I noted to myself. Laura’s roommate must not have made it yet because I hadn’t seen any new faces pop up that afternoon. The night was still young and she’d probably be on her way.

Afternoon approached and my parents said their goodbyes and left. It was time to party! Freedom at last! I walked my parents downstairs to their car and I felt a sense of happiness. I never really was the kind to get home sick really. I used to spend weeks with my grandparents in Oklahoma visiting my great-grandmother with out my parents. I had all kinds of fun. Plus I would see them next weekend. No need for tears but I could tell my mom was trying to hold them back, so I knew I’d better make it quick. I hugged them both and told them I loved them.

 

 

“We’ll call you when we get home”, my dad said.

“Have a good week baby”, my mom said.

My mom was so cute. She only called me baby when she was sad or I was hurt .

I waved and turned around to jog up the stairs back to my room.

It was 5pm. I called X once more and got his voicemail. “What the heck, where is he”, I said to myself out loud. I decided to put on a cd and continue cleaning up and organizing my room to my perfection. I turned up Jay-Z Unplugged on my cd player and jammed.

 

I could tell my roommate had been there already because she had already decorated her closet door with numerous pictures of what I guessed to be friends and family and had a mini tv, similar to mine on her desk. But the bed was bare. Just a mattress.

As night approached the orange glow of the florescent lights that lit up the dooms crept in from outside my window.

I figured I’d go outside and see what was going on before going to bed, plus it was too loud in our suite to go to bed yet. Seemed like everyone had their choice of music blasting all at once on stereo systems.

As I sat there for a moment before opening the door to the outside commons area I heard voices, music, the chit chatter of people talking, laughing and yelling. Students getting reacquainted, slamming doors from upstairs and the noise from the loud metal staircase that was adjacent from our outside wall. I sighed to myself and knew this would be much different than living in my room I had at home with my parents in our four-bedroom home. I hurried up and tried to finish putting away my things so that I could go see what was up outside and maybe run into someone I knew possibly or X who I still hadn’t heard from yet.

 

I grabbed my room keys, locked up and stepped out. When I stepped outside it was like another little city in it’s own city. There were guys outside playing basketball under the big florescent floodlights on the concrete court. There were people with their suite doors open standing in the doorway on the phone and people downstairs sitting an old wooden picnic table in the courtyard by the residential life office where I had picked up my keys this morning.

 

Although I couldn’t reach X, maybe I could probably scope him out or if I saw Mark I’d ask him. I wasn’t sure what dorm or room he was in or I’d go pay him a visit.

Leaning over the thin iron railing in front of my suite I felt newness. I wondered what classes would be like? Would I make friends? Or would it be like one of my all time favorite sitcom TV shows “A Different World”? So many emotions were racing through me it was overwhelming but felt so good at the same time. I loved new experiences.

I turned my head to left and saw a fine slim tall light skinned dude walking by and his crew and we locked eyes for a moment. See my problem always was I knew how to spot ‘em out but I was too shy to catch ‘em and go for them myself. Well with the exception of Xavier. I don’t know what my deal was with him. I just went for it! But he had always been my exception to the rule so he didn’t count in my mind.

 He glanced at me for a moment and I thought I was in a slow scene out of a music video. “Mmmmhmm”, I hummed softly under my breath. A basketball player maybe, maybe just a regular dude. If  X didn’t get his act together I knew I would be in trouble for sure around all these fine guys. But then again I thought, “Who would even notice little ‘ol me”??? and smiled to myself. My older cousins and other people had told me stories of college life and how hectic it could be and all the trouble you could get into but for some reason since I hadn’t been able to relate to it yet or been through it, most of it had went in one ear and out the other.

 

I anticipated that this would be a great 4 years but I had no clue of the trials and obstacles I’d have to go through just to get one very nice piece of paper in a leather bound folder……A degree.

When I looked down over the balcony I spotted a familiar face that was walking toward the residential office. “Kei-sha”, I yelled. She looked up and spotted my face and I started smiling. She waved a little wave and held up one finger with her free hand. The other was holding her phone up to her ear.

I had known Keisha __________ since high school she was one of the popular girls. A cheerleader and and on the dance team. She was one who always kept her hair done and nails done and had the hottest gear. Keisha was always cool with me though because she wasn’t like the other popular girls. Keisha was real cool laid back type. If she knew you no matter what she would speak to you in front of anyone. She wasn’t stuck up like a lot of the other “popular” clique chicks at our school. I was relieved to see a familiar face. Even though we weren’t the best of friends at least I’d have someone to talk to.

Keisha came back out of the residential life a couple of minutes later and came up stairs. She still had the phone glued to her ear, I figured she was talking to her boo the way she was still holding the phone. As she approached she hung up.
“Hey girl”, she said with the same enthusiastic smile she wore most times. I smiled back and she reach for a hug like we were old friends.

“Oh, my god I didn’t know you were going here”, she said. “Yeah, I got accepted like last fall”, I said. “Me too”, she said. “How did I know that you wasn’t going here to”? I thought that you had said you were going to school at home at UCK, didn’t you get that track scholarship. “Yeah but I had to get out of the city”, she said. I was tired of seeing the same people all the time. Half our graduating class is staying at home. I needed to get away from that. I knew the feeling. I didn’t want to stay at home either.

“Do you know anyone else going here this semester?”, she said.

“Yeah you know Xavier is up here with me but other than him and his little Arrington crew I don’t know anyone else”, I said. For real? Ah, so you up here with you boo huh? I remember y’all been together for a minute right. That’s so cute! She paused for a minute. Yep, I know, I remarked.

“I know, but this is going to fun right?, She said”. “Yesssss, I said breathing a sigh of relief.

“She looked downstairs, and off in the distance and was like “Well I guess I’ll go back to my room”. Is this where you stay at, she said pointing to my suite door. “Yeah, were are you at?

“I’m over here in J Hall on 3^rd floor in 315”, hey what’s your number. “Aww, it 2387” I said. “I’ll call you maybe we can have breakfast, girl I’ll catch up with you later though.

 

I turned and went back inside my room and decided to take a shower after being outside in the sticky humid air for a while I felt dirty. I still hadn’t heard from Xavier and I was getting antsy. After I hoped out the shower I looked at both my room phone caller id and my cell phone to see if I had any missed calls and I didn’t.

I crawled into bed hoping that the coolness of my freshly made bed and TV Land re-runs would put my mind at ease temporarily, and it did.

Author's Note

Please leave comments :) Don't just say it was good or bad. Please explain why you think it was either or. Thanks!

Reviews

[Elijah Gleaves]

I liked the idea of it. But I feel like there needs to be more detailed also don't candy coat things lol. As a fellow college student I know what the reputation of the dorm life come out and say it . ( Sex Alcohol and Parties) I know that it isn't the case for every college experience but it's the case for a lot of them

[Nicole Alicia]

Thanks!

[Elizabeth]

aw, really nice :))) Great writer you are!

elizabeth*