The room was silent except for the ticking of the clock. It was almost hard to see because the only light in the room was a dim desk lamp, but I knew she was there, waiting for me to explain. She was waiting patiently now, but I knew she would start to get impatient quickly. It’s not everyday something like this happens, and she just wanted to make sure I would be okay.

“Lauren, come on, talk to me.” Annie prompted, touching my elbow gently, encouraging me to speak. “Tell me what happened. Tell me about tonight, Lau.”

“I don’t know where to start.” I confessed, sniffing a little and wiping at my red rimmed eyes.

“Try the beginning.” Annie suggested softly, her brown eyes earnest. “I’m all ears.”

One.

The first week of college is generally an overwhelming experience, especially because you don’t know anyone. It’s a struggle to fit in, to make friends, to coexist peacefully. Finding your classes also presented somewhat of a problem, especially for me.

The first time I tried to find my history class, I walked myself around in circles for the better part of ten minutes in the pouring rain. I just had no idea where the building, Jefferson, was. All the large, brick buildings that made up the classrooms of Lovell University were terribly under advertised and I had no idea which was which.

So, to sum up, I was pretty much a drowned rat who was clutching her schoolbooks to her chest, looking desperately for the right building because I was already late for class. On a whim, I decided to try the other direction, so I spun on my heel and plowed ahead, looking off into the distance to see if I could find the right building.

As fate would have it, I slammed right into someone who was walking oh so casually through campus, a hood covering his head because of the rain. My books were knocked out of my hands and onto the ground, right in the middle of a puddle. They landed with a soft i splash /i , and I groaned in frustration. This day was not going well.

“Sorry, are you okay?” I couldn’t even bring myself to look up as this poor guy apologized for me bumping into him. To rub salt in my wounds, he even bent over to pick up my (sopping) books. “Here you go.”

“Thanks. Sorry I, ah, almost took you out.” I offered timidly.

“Don’t worry about it.” He assured, and I finally lifted my eyes. He was about five nine or ten, which basically towered over my five three stature, sort of broad but sort of wiry, and had the greenest eyes I had ever seen. “Are you going to McPhearson’s class?”

He motioned to the books he was holding and I saw that they were the same as mine. I nodded affirmatively. “I can show you where it is. I assume you’re lost?”

“Is it that obvious?” I asked with a slight blush as he motioned with his index finger for me to turn around completely and walk in the other direction.

“You pretty much have ‘confused freshman’ written all over your face.” He admitted with a gentle laugh, wiping a little water off the top of his book. “It’s cool, though. We’ve all been there.”

“So you’re not a freshman?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Sophomore.” He replied as we walked into an unmarked building. “It gets easier, don’t worry.”

He took a left into one of the first classrooms and was immediately greeted by a few guys who were sitting in the back of the classroom. He went to join them and I sank into a seat near the middle, next to a girl who I recognized from my floor. She smiled in recognition at me, and reminded me with a casual introduction that her name was Angela.

Our professor walked in shortly after that. She was probably in her mid-forties, with a trim figure and short gray hair. She looked pleasant enough, and I hoped that this class wouldn’t be too difficult. Basically all we did was go over the syllabus and the expectations of the class, and we got out early, although Professor McPhearson promised that that was pretty much a once in a semester offer.

Angela and I were walking out together, bracing ourselves to bear the rain once more on our way back to our dorm. We were chatting about our hometowns; I was from North Carolina and she was from Rhode Island, when someone tapped on my arm.

“Hey, I never caught your name.” Ah, my savoir from earlier.

“Lauren.” I told him, and waited expectantly for a reply.

“Lauren.” He repeated. “I’ll remember that.” And then he walked off without offering his own name in return. As he disappeared, I noticed that his windbreaker said Lovell Baseball on the back.

“Who is i that /i ?” Angela asked as we stepped outside into the rain once more. I made a face and shielded my eyes, which already felt a little dry.

“This kid that I met on the way to class.” I answered somewhat guardedly, unsure if Angela and I were quite at the level of friendship where I could confess my embarrassment to her.

“Last night we had this floor meeting and my RA said to stay away from baseball parties because the guys were sketchy.” Angela said in a light tone. “I don’t know if your RA said anything like that. What was your meeting like?”

We lived on the same floor but in different wings, so we had different Resident Advisors, whose main job was to basically make sure none of us died of alcohol poisoning. My RA’s name was Lila, which I thought was an absolutely gorgeous name. She was from Colorado and called soda ‘pop’, which she told us we were not allowed to make fun of her for.

“I don’t know, it was just a meeting.” I told Angela with a shrug. “We talked about the alcohol policy and how we can always talk to Lila if we need anything, that sort of thing.”

“That sounds pretty tame compared to my meeting.” Angela observed as we walked into our dorm. She paused to shake her head a little, causing water droplets to splatter across the entrance of the building. “Candice kept talking about how all these boys were going to try and rape us and slip roofies into our drinks. I don’t know, I guess it’s good to be careful, but it seemed sort of excessive to talk about it that much.”

“Yeah.” I agreed as we walked up the stairs to the second floor where we lived. “So I’ll see you later, then?”

“Sure. Wanna get dinner tonight?” She asked, extended the standard gesture of freshmen friendship; an offer to get food together.

“Sounds good. Around 6:30?” I replied, and she agreed, so I stepped into my room, which we came to before we got to hers.

The door was unlocked, leading me to believe that my roommate, Madison, would be inside, but she wasn’t. I assumed she was probably in the bathroom or something because we weren’t supposed to leave our doors unlocked because things might get stolen.

I couldn’t quite peg my roommate as anything yet. When we met, she gave me a huge hug and practically squealed in excitement that we were the same size so we could share clothes (size four, it would be like having a sister) and her parents seemed pretty nice.

They seemed a little wary that it was just my dad and I. It’s always a little bit uncomfortable when someone asks me where my mom is, and I have to tell them that she’s out of the picture, but she’s been gone for so long I don’t even really feel emotional when I explain it. I have my dad and that’s all that matters.

Madison’s mom was pretty surprised when she asked me if my mother packed my clothes for me and I told her no because I didn’t know my mother. (Sometimes the shock value is worth it).

That’s all beside the point, I guess. I was trying to talk about Madison and why I couldn’t quite peg her. She had pretty great ambitions and huge notions of how far she was going to take her International Development BA, but I hadn’t seen her crack a book yet, and she always seemed to be slightly hung over, no matter what time of day it was.

I wasn’t against drinking or partying or anything, but I wasn’t about to go out constantly like she was. So we didn’t hang out with the same people or anything, but I was pretty sure we could peacefully coexist, and that was exactly what I told my dad when he called me on my third day of college.

I told him that Madison was okay, that Angela was really cool, and that I missed him tons. My dad and I were really close; it’s just been the two of us since I was two, so he’s been everything to me. That’s actually why I’m sort of a tomboy; I met Annie and her mother far too late into my teenage years for them to teach me everything about style and makeup, so I’ve settled into being a jeans and a t-shirt kind of girl.

At dinner that night, Angela and I were sitting at the very end of a long table that was partially filled with a group of students who all seemed pretty ecstatic to be together after a long summer of being at home.

“So, do you do any sports or anything?” Angela asked me conversationally, twirling some spaghetti into her fork. She tried to eat it gracefully, but I had to make a joke about how it was a good thing we weren’t on a date. She agreed with a laugh, her hazel eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Well, I never did any sports in high school or anything.” I told her, remember the pact Annie and I made to never become jocks. Our school had sort of an ‘us and them’ mentality when it came to sports. “But my dad and I always ran together. It was nice, I guess. What about you?”

“Oh, God.” Angela laughed ruefully. “I was like Ms. Sport in high school. I played soccer, basketball and softball, and I usually played intramural lacrosse all year round. It was ridiculous; I barely had any time to myself.”

“Are you doing any of those here?” I asked curiously, wondering if I was going to lose my friend to a team.

“I’m going to play softball in the spring, but the coach told me they don’t start practicing quite yet.” Angela explained. “I’m glad I can just concentrate on one sport now, it should be better.”

“Yeah.” I agreed. “I wonder if I’ll continue to run without my dad, it will be weird without him. It was like our bonding to go out everyday and run for an hour or so.”

“Whoa.” We were distracted by the sudden outburst of one of the girls sitting at the other end of the table. “Excuse my eavesdropping, but I must have you on my team.”

Holy sketchy. “Um, what?”

“Oh, God, I sound like a crazy person.” The girl who spoke, a tall blonde girl, laughed. “My name is Chrissy. I’m one of the captains of the cross country team here at Lovell, and I couldn’t help but hear you say that you used to run for an hour everyday. I think that you would probably do our team some good. Have you ever run on a team before?”

“Oh, no.” I shook my head negatively. “I just used to run with my dad for fun. I don’t really think I’m team material.”

“Um, I think you are.” Chrissy decided, but her smile let me know that although she seemed sort of like a dictator, she was just kidding. “Seriously, though, I think you should give it a try. We only have six girls on the team right now, so we really need a seventh to even be able to score at meets. I mean, that sounds kind of desperate, but we all have a really good time and it’s lots of fun so you should try it.

“Chrissy, leave the poor girl alone.” The boy sitting next to Chrissy laughed, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “This is how you drove Greg to the baseball team last year, you know.”

“Greg sucks.” Chrissy returned. “And he would not have been good for the team. We still see him all the time anyway.”

“So, our team is basically insane.” Another girl piped in. “I’m Jenny, the other girls’ captain. Give it a try if you want to, come to a few practices, no pressure. If you like it, you can stay, if you don’t, there’s no reason for you to come back.”

A/N: Well I hoped you liked it! I have the whole story written already, so if I get some comments, I will post post post away! It gets very juicy from here on out, I promise.