Welcome to First Semester. It is the 'continuation' of my short story 'Final Fight', although 'Final Fight' was originally written as a sort of prequel to First Semester while I was in the process of writing it. The novel itself is basically complete except for a bit of editing and a few scenes near the end, but I'm not going to put it all up at once. I'll put the first three chapters up now since I'll be on vacation for a week, and when I get back I'll put up about one chapter a week.

I got the idea for First Semester back in December 2005 when I was looking out the window waiting for my now-ex boyfriend's car to appear outside my house. I observed how cold and gray Ohio was in the winter, and how the weather seemed to mirror the confusion I was feeling in basically every part of my life. I had two 'love interests', and I knew something about someone who I had previously had feelings for that, if I told anyone, could ruin his life; and if I didn't could potentially ruin someone else's. Then it hit me: set a story in a similarly cold and gray place, one year later, exploring what could happen if I did do something about my second problem, had never met my then-boyfriend, and met my 'second love interest' then instead of when I did. When my now-ex-boyfriend finally drove up, the first thing we did was drive to CVS so I could purchase a notebook for this idea. The whole way there I was blabbering about how my 'mooses' (Muses, two dudes who I knew my freshman year of high school) were gifting me with such an awesome idea.

Now, onto the story.

Disclaimer: In this chapter, I have included quotations from Fleetwood Mac and The Shins. Fleetwood Mac's song 'Illume' may be found on their 2003 album Say You Will. The Shins' song 'This Celibate Life' may be found on their 2001 album Oh, Inverted World. I own no rights to either of them, although I do love both of them. I also have no affiliation with Ithaca College, although I did apply and got accepted there, but in the end I chose a different school.

Chapter One "Heartache"

"What I saw on this journey, I saw history go down, I cannot pretend that the heartache falls away" -Fleetwood Mac

I always thought that on the day I left for college, I'd take one last drive around all the places here I love: Riverview Road in Peninsula, said by Bob Dyer to be the best road around here; Twin Lakes; Oak Hill Road with all of its twists and turns, which I first drove up on my seventeenth birthday when I was mad at the world; all the bends and twists of Seasons Road in Franklin Township; the 'suicide bridge' from North Hill to downtown; and of course downtown Akron itself, the miniscule metropolis where I've worked for the past year.

Today, though, I got as far as Ira road and said: "Screw this," turning and making the loop that is Glengary Road, and then heading out onto Route eight north, bound for Ithaca, New York. A new, frigid home for my equally frigid soul.

Somehow I had convinced my parents not to come with me. Considering that no one can tell what sort of mental state I'll be in ever since Prom Night, it probably wasn't as difficult as it seemed. A six-hour drive with an angry, guilt-ridden college-bound eighteen-year-old couldn't have been too appealing. So I would drive Bjorn, my lovely baby car, to Ithaca, and three days later the moving van would come with the rest of my stuff. No one would ever have the opportunity to exclaim over the tininess of my dorm room. Just the way I wanted it.

I sang along with my CD player as Ohio became Pennsylvania. "You led no celibate life, no skirt while chemicals danced on your head, you stole the key to this ride and your fables are falling tonight." Ah, the Shins. Images of me, Chelsea, Gabe, and Devin singing that in the back of the limo flooded my mind. We didn't know what we were saying-- what fables actually would fall that night.

"No," I commanded. "Please stop thinking about this. Now is not the time."

You should have stopped her, you should have stopped him, you should have stopped them, I thought despite my inner protests. Who had the vision, anyway? And the truth of the matter was--I knew that the person I really should have stopped was myself. I shook that off, screaming at myself: "Stop! It was his own fault!" I changed CDs. Angry Nirvana. Anger with no mention of anything having to do with Prom. I accelerated, passing a hundred anonymous Pennsylvanians, at least half of whom flicked me off.

I stopped at an old YMCA campground in Erie on a whim. I used to go there every fall, from the year I was six until the year I was twelve. Seven peaceful years along the north coast of America. My ex-best-friend Margaret and I would spend endless hours on those weekends simply walking around the grounds. That ended when we both got too old, when she got a boyfriend, when we went to different high schools.

I parked my car and walked out to the beach the campground is actually on. Lake Erie is the only one of the five great lakes to actually have waves. I picked up a few stones and put them in my pockets, weighing them down. They looked beautiful, shiny and black when wet. I knew from experience that they were less so when dry, but I wanted them anyway for luck in my new home.

I got back into my car after saluting a dead fish on the beach and put the Vaselines in, joining my voice with Frances McKee's in the way I always did when in my car, alone. We had always said life would be better if it was a musical.

Flash: December. I am at home, alone, in my bed. It's about six-thirty pm, but I'm already exhausted and it's darker than it is at nine-o-clock in June. I test our theory because somehow even now I can't sleep. "Why man?" I sing. "Why do you have no control? Why man, why did you do those things to them, why man, why?" I supposed Rent is influencing this song: The 'why, mans' are reminiscent of Roger's 'one song, glory's and Mimi's 'goodbye, love's. But it doesn't stop and soon I have this endless litany of questions aimed right at Him. "Who knows, man? Who knows what kind of man you are?"

Well, everyone does now. Thanks to me. "I never wanted to ruin your life," I said to the sky. "Just the opposite really. But this isn't my responsibility."

I breeze past Breezewood. My parents told me to stay in a motel here, but they've got to be crazy to think I'd want to have one of my nightmares in some motel in Pennsylvania. At college I'll have a roommate there to tell me to shaddup, at the very least.

I've only gone through upstate New York at night once before, and I wasn't driving then. I should have been sleeping, but I wasn't doing that either. It was sophomore year on a trip to Salem, Massachusetts. So really I guess I was visiting a lot of memorable places on my journey to Ithaca, even if I was too much of a coward to go to any of my memorable places in Ohio one last time.

Sophomore year, I thought this road was boring. Now I see that it's not. Our bus driver took it at ninety miles per hour, and I'm effectively imitating him. There are no cops in upstate New York at eleven pm.

What do I do when I get to Ithaca? I thought. Go to my dorm room and unpack? Find a bar and a fake ID and get drunk? Jump off of a stone gorge? All options seemed viable at that time of night.

After seeing signs that informed me that I was in Tompkins County and then in Ithaca, I made my way up South Hill to the campus and parked at the admissions office, which was sadly closed. "Damn," I said. I had no idea where in Ithaca to find a fake ID or a bar, and I didn't feel like doing that anyway. Didn't feel like killing myself, either, for that matter. So I did what any girl would do under those circumstances: get my throw blanket from the trunk and sleep in the backseat of my car. "What would be worse, having a nightmare here or in Pennsylvania?" I asked myself before I went to sleep.

One more trip through the labyrinthine halls of Edwin J. Thomas performing arts center. "Why if it isn't the editrix?" his voice asks, mocking me, echoing in my head.

"I didn't do it," I say. "It didn't change anything..."

"Step away from her," the voice of a policeman says to him.

"No," I say. "Please just let us talk."

The cop shakes his head. "Court orders."

He is led away. They all surround me, gyrating and grinding against each other, the dances they did at prom. "Editrix, editrix," they taunt. "You ruined his life."

I see Her off to the side, gown wrinkled and cap askew. Not at all the glamour queen she used to be. I run away. You did this, I think. You did this to them. "Nooo!" erupts from my lungs.

The cold New York night air filled me as the door opened. "Girl, are you all right?" a voice rasped. I turned over and blearily looked up to see a very muscular red-haired guy standing over me.

"Yeah...no," I responded, shivering. "Bad dream."

"I'm sorry," he said. He smelled like two packs a day and leather. That was probably because he was smoking and everything he was wearing was made of leather. He sat down on the seat near my feet, and the two dead cows became acquainted.

"So," he said. "Who're you?"

"Ivy Soerensen. You?" I was still half-asleep, with my blanket around my shoulders and no idea what he wanted or why I was telling him my real name.

"Roger Lawrence." He took my hand and kissed it, giving me an ironic smile. "You have lots of bad dreams, don't you?" He was still holding my hand, so I nodded, hoping he would let go. He started to caress it instead. I flinched. "Hey, just trust me," he said.

I sat up a little straighter. "Look," I said. "I might look like some gullible, out-of-state freshman, but I have worked in downtown Akron for the past two years and I am not that kind of person."

"I'm from Massachusetts," he said. "I go here, I ain't gonna hurt you." He began pressing on some nerve, and it felt like I was going to explode. He registered the expression on my face. "See?" he asked. "Would you just trust me?"

Any other guy could have had me in love with him after that. But most guys don't have bright red hair, electric blue eyes, and smirky looks. Roger Lawrence was not my type.

"What time's it?" I asked through a mix of grogginess and sheer bliss.

"Seven. The office will open in an hour. But why're you sleeping here?"

"Got here at eleven at night. Office wasn't open."

"Didn't maybe think of stopping at a hotel on the way?"

"Didn't feel like it," I answered. "I didn't want to have my nightmare in some strange place."

"This isn't strange?" he asked. "Instead of a motel, you'd rather wake up to some stranger getting into your-- unlocked-- car and massaging you?"

"I locked it," I said.

He grinned. "Yeah, I know. I was just wondering if you did."

"How did you-" I asked.

"It's my specialty," he said. Then he pulled me out of the car. "Come on," he said. "Breakfast."

After breakfast we checked back at the admissions office to find everybody there in some sort of fervor. Students were everywhere, but no one seemed to be paying attention to them. "What's going on?" Roger asked somebody-- a girl.

"One of the incoming freshmen OD'd. They're calling it suicide," she said. She was about a head shorter than me and blond, but was wearing baggy black cargo pants and an oversized t-shirt.

"What's her name?" I asked.

"Jen Scirocco," the girl answered.

"She was supposed to be my roommate," I said.

"Did you know her?"

"We talked on the phone a few times--" I had to sit down.

"Georgia Linderley," the girl said.

"Ivy Soerensen," I introduced myself. "And that's Roger Lawrence--" He bent down to kiss her as I said that. I got up, went to the desk, and asked for my key. "All I want to do is get into my room," I said. "Please."

The lady gave me a sympathetic look and handed it over. I walked back over to Roger and Georgia.

"Hey," Georgia said. "We're going on a walk--"

"I'll meet you in your dorm for lunch," Roger said. "I know where it is."