Chapter Two – Freshman Mistakes and Too Many Dates

Chapter Two – Freshman Mistakes and Too Many Dates

Like the other athletes at Draper Adam had begun practice in early August. He was at school long before I arrived, and I knew my parents planned to take him for lunch on my move-in day. I was nervous about the meeting in a way that’s not quite explainable.

I’m sure at this point you’re all rolling your eyes. Either annoyed with the cliché or laughing at my pathetic-ness. You probably think the next thing I’ll speak of is a ball of nerves in the pit of my stomach, a recreation of pre-pubescent lust for the person who was always just outside my grasp. Don’t worry. It’s not coming.

My nervousness had nothing to do with feelings of lust, either past or present. The source of my nerves was much more real than tween-aged infatuation. Adam had been my best friend for five years. One third of a summer trio. The third Musketeer.

He was the one who carried me two blocks home when I broke my leg. The person I had spent hours with teaching our siblings to read and ride two-wheelers. He had been my best friend once upon a time, but in recent years he treated me like nothing but a worthless child. Just as I was trying desperately to enter the adult world I was being forced to meet up with the person who would hold me in the realm of childhood.

It’s not that he was ever mean or teasing. He just ignored me altogether that last summer he spent at the beach, he became too absorbed in Ally Huntington to remember fishing or penny candy or bike rides… or his best friends. We were too young for him, not cool enough.

I had trusted him and he broke my heart without any need for romance, love or infatuation.

Little did I know that very first day in Draperville, NY how much more heartbreak was yet to come. If I had known, I would have been much more nervous.

The lunch was uneventful. Adam directed us to Lito’s, a bistro in Draper’s tiny downtown. The restaurant was one in a row of similarly artsy looking shops which reminded us that this was a college town whose population tripled whenever school was in session.

My father conducted the majority of the conversation. The questions were directed toward Adam, mostly random things about his studies, the University, and the surrounding area. I kept quiet most of the afternoon, aware of the obvious tension between Adam and myself. He offered me his cell phone number as he climbed out of the car in front of his dorm. He said to call if I needed anything but I knew it was merely a formality. The tension was thicker than his naivety, and even a former friend should remember my hatred for strained situations. I shoved the paper into my purse with little thought.

The coming weeks found time for new friends, studying, classes and parties. There was no reason to call Adam even if I had wanted too. I lived in the freshman honors dorm and my roommate and I got along great. At a university notorious for its parties, I’d found a roommate was serious about her studies; and, in a dorm of studious and snobbish bookworms, we were the ones to let loose. Jillianne and I were the class on Friday, party on Saturday, study on Sunday types. We contrasted with both a campus of six day a week partiers, and a dorm of six day a week studiers. And somehow, we both loved it.

The weeks flew by quickly. Weekdays found me dressed practically, trudging miles across campus toward humanities seminars, science labs, and nursing exams. Weekend nights found me side-by-side with my partner in crime, trudging across the same campus. Sneakers and backpacks were traded for spike heels and skimpy clothing; classes and labs, for parties and frats.

I knew the behavior was exactly what my grandmother has warned me against when she talked about the “secular promiscuity” of college campuses, but like the clichéd co-ed experiencing her first taste of freedom, I didn’t care. Jill and I were diligent enough in our work to maintain Honors, and yet the weekends we partied became increasingly more frequent than those we did not. My success was enough to justify my lifestyle.

Jill and I were one another’s opposites in physical appearance, and while we both thought the other more attractive we both knew how to work our bodies to our advantage. I accentuated my large chest with shirts so tight they made mini-skirts look classy; the skirts themselves barely reached mid-thigh, they covered the bare essentials while emphasizing the despised hips I knew men loved. Jill’s slender body called for push-up bras and halter tops, the smooth skin of her back and stomach always on display. The styles drew attention to ourselves and we reveled in it.

The multiple parties of an average weekend yielded multiple partners a piece. Not sexual partners, but dance partners. Their hands groped our bodies in inappropriate but un-protested manners, their lips burned against our mouths and the skins of our necks, leaving their trademark red swelling. Pounding headaches, swollen eyes, make-up residue and hickeys were a standard part of the Saturday routine, and despite the morning agony Saturday evenings were always a repeat of the night before.

I was hardly picky in the boys I allowed to kiss or fondle me each week. I’m sure others would regard the behavior as repulsive, sinful, or dirty, at other points in my life I believed the same. As an eighteen year old freshman however, it was merely drunken fun. How cute the focus of my attention was depended on nothing more than how many drinks I had consumed, if it depended on anything at all. While the attention I was given, and the bodies of those who gave it to me, were enjoyed to my full advantage, guys were never invited back from parties to the dorm room even in my most drunken stupor. Sluts we were not, and neither Jill nor I wanted the label.

Like many others, the more I flirted with temptation the more blurred the expectation became, until eventually lines were being crossed. We had started visiting the few bars and pubs of downtown Draper with our newly obtained fake IDs. As we grew more confident in our abilities to balance studying with partying we attended parties even more frequently. Somehow, no matter how drunk I became or how hot I believed him to be, Adam never became a temptation. Occasionally we saw him around campus or out at parties, but I never bothered to call him as he’d suggested. Even in my most drunken stupor Adam rarely received more than a hello. Somehow whether I was sober or drunk I knew that he was off-limits. If anything, my anger toward him grew after a few drinks.

Though Adam did not become an added temptation as the drink count rose, other men became irresistible. Soon enough the set in stone rule of not inviting anyone back to the room was broken. Jillianne broke the rule first, but to be fair she didn’t do anything she wouldn’t have done back at the party.

So, thus, it was not Jill but I who really broke the ‘keep-it-at-the-party’ standard. He fit the tall, dark and handsome cliché to a T and I recognized him from my Anatomy lab, “he” referring to the person who finally brought me across the blurred remains of that final line. The fact that I recognized him made no difference, I had ignored or made-out with many people I recognized in the past, my drunken discretion made no distinction between those I knew and those I did not. He had no more of a drugs, sex and rock-and-roll reputation than I did, and resisted the “slut” label just as fervently. He was less than a week out of a long-term relationship and I suppose I was a rebound. At the time it didn’t bother me.

From the beginning the night got off to a slightly different start. He was different in the fact that he was one of the only boys who bothered to introduce him self. And I was different because I allowed his hand to make it way into my shirt less than two full drinks into my night. Though the past had involved saliva exchange and wandering hands, I doubt my activities had reached the level of borderline indecency they did that Friday night. On the crowded dance floor of an Alpha Pi Omega fraternity party his hands groped my chest while we danced. A few drinks later I found myself pinned to the wall, his hand massaged my thigh, and as I lifted my leg high around his body my short skirt no doubt exposed me to half the fraternity brothers.

He was the one who suggested we leave, and I made no protest. My dorm was closer, and within minutes we were there. He was obviously more experienced than I was, and his take-charge attitude was sexy in a way I wouldn’t have imagined. The elevator door had hardly closed before his hands began to reach back for my skin..

“Wait…” I started to protest, as he began lifting my shirt to a level of complete exposure, but his lips started to touch my body before the words finished leaving my mouth. I made no more protests, not because he wouldn’t listen but because I didn’t want him to. My shirt was dangling around my neck before we reached my room seven doors from the elevator. Two hours later he left, taking my virginity with him.

That was night was one of the least clichéd part of this story. It was, well honestly it was nothing. Nothing, but a not-quite-drunk mistake, I was to sober to blame on alcohol.

In the clichéd response I know you are expecting that night made me realize change was in order. You may think that means I stopped partying. Gave up alcohol. Threw out all my provocative clothing. None of that is true. I still accompanied Jill on her weekend adventures and had as much fun as she did. The changes were subtle, but for me they made a difference.

I drank, but not enough to require a personal escort home. My clothing was flattering and sexy, but didn’t scream for negative attention. The weekly make-out tally no longer exceeded six on a regular basis.