A/n- More biographical stuff

The Best Time of Your Life

College was starting in a little less than a week. I would be freshman once again, only it would be in a strange place and at a strange time and with more people around me then I knew what to do with. I mean, I wasn’t exactly from the ‘country’, but in a town where you knew mostly everyone’s car and not necessarily their names, it’s quite exciting to go into the city where everything looks, tastes, and even smells different; and in the city I was planning to be.

My fiancé and I were both attending, but he had gotten a scholarship for having such a high G.P.A. I did not. This fact I had no problems with. They would have to do community service, attend fancy dinners (which I would end up attending anyway), and all have to room together on the twelfth floor of the on-campus apartment complex- which was, let’s face it, more like a hotel then a college dorm- with four people to a room, a kitchen, living space, one and a half bath, and two bedrooms. The school gave him a full ride.

I paid my own way. It wasn’t that bad. I had two college funds, and because I was a going to a State school, only one would be used up and the other I would save for a future down payment on a house. I paid my own way, but it wasn’t my money; a fact that my fiancé liked to remind me of. He was jealous that my parents paid for most everything in my life then.

He had held a job since he had been fourteen. That’s how he was able to pay, in full, for the diamond engagement ring when we were eighteen.

I had never had a job.

My father refused to let me get one, on account that he was afraid my G.P.A- 3.8 or so- would slip lower. I still regret not pushing the issue.

Anyway, college was starting in less than a week.

Up until then, my fiancé’s mother had been acting a little strange. Not that that wasn’t uncommon- both his parents were strange- and neither of us liked them very much, which was a stark contrast to the relationship we had with my parents.

A few days before move-in, where my fiancé would live in his apartment a few nights before the actual commencement of classes, she would send me sympathetic looks over the dinner table and would, if I was standing near, reach out and pet my arm, asking me, “Are you doing okay?”

I was, honestly, put off by this. Of course I was alright, why wouldn’t I be? I had no problem living at home and commuting in. I was saving my money. And I could always stay in the apartments at night anyway, so it wouldn’t be as if I would never see my fiancé. Besides, I trusted him, he was- is- hopelessly devoted, so girls were not a problem for me.

He moved in on Wednesday and I visited him on Thursday during which we had a kind of freshman orientation. It wasn’t so bad. Hell, his roommates were actually pretty nice. None of them were complete freaks. They were all from the same state, so they knew their way around. It was a big relief.
I was sitting on his bed, reading, and one of his dorm friends was talking about his girlfriend, who was down in the southern part of the state. She had forced him to watch “Sleepless in Seattle”. Oh thank goodness, I thought, as if this movie solidified their normalness. I have always liked “You’ve Got Mail” better than its counterpart, but they were both good movies.

Class would start the following Tuesday, so on Thursday night I said good-bye and came home. I’d see him Friday, when he would come back and stay the weekend for my birthday.

It really is a curse to have your birthday so close to school starting. No one can do anything because everyone is busy. You end up having dinner some other night or some other week and then it doesn’t even feel like your birthday anymore. You end up sitting down watching T.V eating old ice-cream cake on your actual birthday because you’re father already had a piece and took nearly, you swear, seventy-five percent.

Let’s rewind a bit, before this, and let me tell you that I, admittedly, had been a little saddened that I would not be living on campus. I loved my parents dearly, and I never rebelled when I was in high school because I was a good kid. No drinking, no drugs. But one feels kind of confined after a while and although, when I sent in my application, I had not even thought of leaving ( really, I had no means to do so), I was now eager to have my own space.

Space. That was what the longing for a dorm was. I wanted to be my own mom.

Back to Friday. My fiancé came home and I drove up to his house. As I walked in his mother was at the door, like one of those porcelain door-stop dogs, all white and cock headed. She pulls me into a long embrace, which startled me. After another squeeze she lets me go and I file down the hallway with her waddling behind, dumbstruck.

We all sat down to dinner, and I noticed that my fiancé was beaming. Now, he’s a quiet person when he wants to be, but he was more excited then I had been expecting.

Over the spaghetti I learned why.

He had been up until three-thirty in the morning.

First, he and a group he had never met sat down by the sister building’s (which were actual dorms) elevators and had created a bonfire-like band, recruiting more and more students who came out the elevators until there were twenty-five people crammed into the little tope colored foyer jamming to six guitars, one bongo drum, two tambourines, and several sets of jangling keys.

Next, at about nine, he and a bunch of other people went to the top of the Student Center and dared each other to shout show tunes and Spice Girls songs out into the night.

After that, they had all crammed into one dorm and watched some movies until, too tired to do anything more, each had dragged themselves back to their respective beds.

Across the table my fiancé’s mother was staring at me. I quickly busied myself with my drink, annoyed and a little frustrated. First, I was frustrated because she would not stop looking at me. Second, I was beginning to get a sinking feeling.

After dinner we were lounging around, my fiancé still gushing over his experience.
“I can’t wait for you to introduce me,” I beamed at him, eager to burst onto the social scene. I love people; to be around them, to talk to them, to interact.

At this my fiancé looked at me a little hard, as if trying to price tag a particularly difficult item. “I don’t want to be mean,” he explained quickly, “but you should try to find your own friends. I mean, I found people I really have something in common with, just by walking up and saying ‘hi’. You should find people you have things in common with.”

Now, I knew he was not trying to be mean. He’s just the type of person when, if he thinks something, he will say it. He was not pushing me away, or telling me that he didn’t want to spend time with me. He was truly trying to help me to find people like me. But still, I took affront to it. This was coming from the boy who had had a nearly nonexistent personality before I came into the picture. I was the outgoing one. I was the one who liked people. I liked him and the stuff he liked, didn’t that count?

And the night that had gone out and had a spectacular time? I had gone to bed at ten thirty because I was too bored to stay up and do anything else.

How would I ever find friends if this all happened after dark and I was home by the time the sun set?
I laughed when he had said his little speech; I smiled and patted his arm and let him make out with me because he hadn’t seen me in private for a few days, but inside it felt like a horror movie. I was realizing that I had signed myself up to be the outsider.

I would never have the same experience of living on campus. Bonding. I would be the fiancé who came to school in the morning and left at night or sometimes slept over on the couch. I would not be permanent.

My birthday was in three days, and my fiancé had promised his aging uncle that he’d visit and chop wood for him the next day. So that night he loaded up his truck to drive out and see the uncle and I got my purse, ready to go home.

I was contemplative, moody, and not at all myself.

My fiancé’s mother came out of the laundry room and looked at me, saw my expression, and gave a weak smile.

I knew what she had been trying to say.

It hit me like a kick to my chest.

She knew long before he had told me and long before I figured it out.

I don’t know, I still don’t, if it happened to her; if her husband had been living in a different place. Or maybe it was one of those maternal moments, where they just know things.

I got into my car after saying goodbye and drove out to Longs. I bought some school supplies I knew I would need and some Windex. I walked over to the Hardware store where I had to buy some plastic tubing.

I explained to the worker that it was for Quill pens, because if you don’t have a feather you can use plastic tubing for a pretty good, temporary pen. But he didn’t believe me, and I think he thought I was going to make a mini- bong or something. I sighed, lying instead and telling him that it was for my fish tank but I didn’t want anyone to know because I wasn’t allowed to have pets. This was an outright untruth. We had a dog.

But he seemed satisfied and rang up my purchase.

All the while I was trying to cope with the new information that I would not have the same life, for a year at least, as my fiancé. I watched little snippets of cliché college movies- of everyone singing camp fire songs and watching movies until three thirty in the morning, which, apparently, was true- flash through my mind. I also saw myself trying to meld myself into my fiancé’s already established group only to be shunned like I had been from most cliques in my life. I had always been a tad ‘healthier’ then most girls my age, and I had an active imagination, so I was usually ignored or ditched throughout my early school years.

It was like elementary all over again.

I didn’t cry. I don’t know why, I’m usually a very emotional person, but I think it was because I was so easily resigned to the fact that I would not have a normal college freshman experience that I really had no reason to be sad. I was angry. I was angry at myself for putting myself in this situation. I was mad at my parents for not paying for a room.

I was also angry because I remembered, when my fiancé moved out a few days earlier, my mother had cried like it was the apocalypse. I asked her why she wasn’t sad I was going to college. She just looked at me and said, as if it were very obvious, that I wasn’t going anywhere, so I didn’t count.

Lastly, I was mad at my father who was insisting I stay two or more years at home to save my money. I would have none of that. I would move out after my freshman year, when my fiancé and I were to get married, and I would have an apartment off campus.

Off campus.

So, I really had no hope or rectifying my situation. Tears would not help me.

I got home and saw that my parents were still out. I looked around the dark house, checked on the dog, put my purse and my shopping bag on the dining room table and sighed.

After a few minutes I got my purse again and went out to Blockbuster. I usually hate backtracking; driving the same road a second time seems wasteful to me, but I did it anyway.

I rented “You’ve Got Mail” and “Sleepless in Seattle”.

I also had a piece of cake, despite my mildly successful diet plan. The cake was leftover from a congratulatory dinner my mother had thrown my fiancé the night before he moved into the dorms. I asked if the dinner was for both of us, because we were both ‘going off to college’.
No, she had said, as if it were very obvious, I wasn’t going anywhere, so I didn’t count.

After, I watched “Pride and Prejudice”, which I owned, for good measure, just in case.