05⎜The Blonde

As I exited the classroom, a sense of respite washed over me. It was nice to be back to a regular school schedule, but the hour-long periods of informational sessions weren’t exactly my—or anyone else’s—idea of enjoyable. There was just a lot to take in and the whole aspect of time made everything pretty intense. In my most recent class, the professor stood in the front of the room at a podium with one of those white curtains that projectors used to, well, project directly behind him. His voice retained no animation whatsoever, so it was a pretty boring period, but I was just happy to be there. It was Stanford.

           Though it may have come across as a surprise, I liked school. I was good at it, and knowledge and education were two intangible things that I would have forever. With football, I always knew that there would come a point where I physically could no longer play. But with school, one was never required to stop learning. It was comforting to know that intelligence wasn’t temporary.

           I stepped into the midday sunshine, the warmth with which I was slowly getting familiar instantly hitting me like a tornado of heat. It wasn’t the type of weather where it was simply too this or too that to operate, but rather perfect. The temperature was in the region of eighty, but slightly less, due to the insistent breeze that would pick up at varying times. It was a day that possessed the most vivid sky I had ever seen—a swirl of ocean-like colors, ranging from blue to blobs of cotton-ball white. As a whole, everything was just perfect.

           As planned, Seth had gone home on the weekend and brought back a mini fridge. After not bothering to read the instruction manual, we had set it up adequately so that we now had a cooling system for food in our room. Because of this new progression, we had been able to store food. Seth explained that despite his alleged religious restrictions, he had no issue with any form of nutrients—except squash. He hated squash, and made a point of it.

           Thus, this morning after my early workout, I had gone to one of the cafeterias and bought a sandwich in preparation for the day ahead. I went back to the room, utilized our snazzy (the word was an underappreciated one) mini fridge, took a shower, and then dressed to get judged for the day ahead.

           Like with everyone (or maybe just girls and me) my first day of school outfit mattered to me. It was the first thing that people would see me in and be able to judge me based on. Generally, people had a tendency to misjudge me. They either assumed that I was this godlike creature, or a complete asshole with no brain, personality, or basic comprehension of others’ emotions. No matter the assessment, those who chose to judge me were always wrong. They didn’t know who I was. No one was all good or all bad, and that just so happened to be the case with me. I was fallible, just like anybody else.

           Anyways, what I wore for my first day of school always set the mood for the rest of the year. Some—like my dear roommate, Seth—elected an ensemble of sweats and a T-shirt to establish the tone for the year to come, while others—like me—dressed slightly more, well, formally. I had always been told that I looked good, regardless of what I wore (surprisingly, my ego wasn’t that big), but I personally preferred the colors white and blue in comparison to the rest. With white, it made my tinted skin stand out even more, and with blue, I just liked it.

           And so, when I was sifting through my limited drawer space at 7:43 AM, I had decided to go with a white button down, rolling the sleeves up to my elbows, and light blue shorts. Brown boat shoes were on my feet, and because I was such a metrosexual loser, I had also put on this rope bracelet that I had gotten on vacation two summers ago. I was happy with the way I looked, and deemed myself acceptable for the day ahead.

           After packing my backpack with all the bare essentials of life (computer, computer charger, phone, phone charger, headphones, sandwich from mini fridge, sunglasses, sunglasses case, glasses because my eyes sucked at reading things close up, pencil, pen, paper, syllabuses for my classes, and my wallet), I said a quick, “Bye,” to Seth, who was still sleeping when I left. Something told me that Seth Newman wasn’t the type of guy who put too much effort into school, though he was somehow still able to obtain exemplary grades. With me, I actually had to try, and I liked trying.

           I survived the first series of two classes, and here I was. Outside on one of the quads at Stanford, ready to eat my sandwich and maybe check Facebook or read something as I enjoyed my break for lunch. I wasn’t really in the mood to communicate with anyone, for I had used up my socializing points at the barbecue on Friday. It resulted in me having an okay time and leaving early, after listening to dismal music for a while with that girl—with Ari. I neither connected with the people that Houston and Scott had wanted me to meet, nor had I tried Houston’s steak. Internally, I wasn’t exactly a wreck about the losses.

           “Hey!” someone called distantly behind me. Because I was 99.99% sure that the exclamation hadn’t been aimed at me by one of the twelve people I was on talking terms with, I kept walking, my objective set as a nice empty table in the distance. “Hello! Cute guy!” the same voice behind me yelled out yet again. And, yet again, I continued to walk, paying no mind. It wasn’t until I was halfway to my destination when I felt a tap on my shoulder, and decided to finally acknowledge the world.

           Standing before me was a girl. She was about average height, though looked taller because she had on those three-inch flip-flops that girls wore that never made a whole lot of sense to me. Bright blonde hair (it wasn’t as natural-looking as Liz’s or Kay’s), simple brown eyes, and a figure that probably made many others of the female gender envious. To describe her body as politely as I could, basically, her upper region was rather, well, large—aka, her boobs were bigger than her head. She was tan, but I had a hunch that it wasn’t the type of tan I strived for—it was fake.

           She wore a snug pair of bright pink shorts that were on the vulgar side, and a formfitting white tank top with the thinnest straps I had ever seen. Unwanted cleavage was displayed by the tightness of her top, and something about her just didn’t sit well with me. She looked fake. I tried not to judge people, but I never followed through with it, for I was only human, after all, and it was in my nature. All in all, the girl who had made physical contact with me was now standing in front of me, and I had to deal with her the best I could, no matter how averse my first impression was.

           “Hey,” she repeated, running her tongue over her plump bottom lip that was shiny from whatever product she had applied.

           “Um, hi,” I said, the nice table in the distance practically calling my name. “Eric!” I could almost hear the inanimate object yell, “Eric! I need you! Come! Sit!” Alas, tables didn’t talk, but the girl facing me did.

           “I’m Tiffany,” she said, her name fitting her like Cinderella’s missing shoe (Yes, I was well versed in the fairytales. I had a cousin about my age, and when we were younger she would always make me watch the classic Disney movies. Not that it was a thing to brag about, but I knew all the princesses like the back of my hand). Tiffany. It was the exact name she should’ve had.

           “Uh, Eric,” I hesitantly introduced myself.

           “We were just in, like, the same class,” she informed me.

           “Oh,” I said, having nothing else better to respond with.

           “So, um, you’re, like, really hot,” she said, probably expecting me to return the compliment.

           “Thanks,” I said, not needing to say anything in regards to her appearance. She wasn’t ugly—just not my type, and I felt no need to tell her.

           “Where are you, like, from?”

           “New York,” I sighed, pondering whether or not it was worth it to start keeping a tally of many times the simple question surfaced.

           “Oh? I’ve been there!” she told me as if it were some deep connection that only the two of us had with one another. “I’m actually from, like, Malibu.”

           “Uh huh,” I nodded, wondering how to appropriately remove myself from the conversation without sounding like a complete asshole.

           Then, as if someone above had heard my silent prayers, another voice that was less nasally in a high-pitched way than Tiffany’s entered. This voice was like the sunshine on a winter day. It was sweet, thick, and if it were assigned a color, it would probably range from a light pink that was full and happy to an overpowering yellow. It was amazing that the mere acoustics that someone possessed had such an impact on me, but it was what it was. “Eric Wilson!” the exultant tone hollered, saving me from what I assumed would be an endless chat filled with tedium.

           Relieved, I turned my head so that I could see the new figure approaching. Today, she was wearing a simple pink dress that stopped right about her knees and had little form to it. Nevertheless, she still was able to make it into a classy look with white sandals, gold accents of her jewelry, and more than a smidge of prep. A large blue handbag was tucked under her armpit, and a grin was plastered to her face as she approached me, another girl right by her side.

           Frayed jean shorts. A white T-shirt with a slight V by the neckline. Black flip-flops. A black backpack. And hair tied back into a ponytail, so that it partially tamed her wide twirls of unruliness. Just like every other time I had seen her, she didn’t appear to be living by the philosophy that one’s clothes were a direct reflection of themselves, though maybe she was. Maybe she was just expressing to the world that she didn’t care about basic norms, or was trying to look like a person who didn’t care about the norms. Regardless of the backstory, she still had the ability to look beautiful in her minimalistic ways.

           “Kay Rodgers!” I returned the southern girl’s greeting with the use of both her first and last names.

           The duo approached us, a sort of overpowering vibe of positivity with a mix of mystery and indifference coming with them. “So, how’s your first day been so far?” Kay questioned, paying no mind to the Barbie lookalike standing by me.

           “Fine,” I shrugged, “and yours?”

           “It’s been just wonderful!” she gushed. “Eric, I love this school—it’s so amazing and just absolutely stupendous! Don’t’cha think so, Ari?”

           “It’s fine,” her friend replied, sending a chill up my spine with the resemblance to rain that so fluidly was expressed within her intonation. She didn’t sound gloomy, just consistent and cold—but in an enigmatic sort of way.

           “You two are such downers!” Kay pouted, though we hadn’t actually “downed” the school. Our responses had simply been less grand than Kay’s, which wasn’t a bad thing. Kay was Kay, and part of being Kay was making a big deal out of most things in life—like the school. On the inside, if I really thought about it, I would probably find that the school was a perfectly wonderful one that I was thrilled to be attending, but I wasn’t one to express that type of gratitude in words. It was just part of who I was.

           “No, we’re just not uppers,” Ari corrected fluently.

           Kay rolled her sparkling eyes of a pale blue, as if to say, “Whatever,” but not verbally, for it was it wasn’t the type of thing Kay Rodgers would say. Instead, her attention shifted considerably from the supposed “downers” to the other human being with a pulse standing by us. “Hi,” Kay said to the other girl in a very energetic and southern manner, “I’m Kay Rodgers, I don’t believe we’ve met yet.”

           “Tiffany,” the girl said stiffly, scrutinizing both Kay and Ari over, as if searching for their fatal flaws.

           “Well, it’s lovely to meet you!” Kay said politely with a smile. “Eric, where were you headed?”

           “Uh, over to that picnic table,” I pointed to the still empty furniture meant for the outdoors, “to, like, eat and stuff.”

           “Sounds wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Mind if we join ya?”

           I thought for a brief moment, knowing that there was truly only one correct answer. “No, of course not. Let’s go.”

           And so we went. All four of us. Me, Kay, Ari, and Tiffany. Jaggedly, we walked the remainder of the way to my previous target—to the picnic table. Now, it wasn’t the type of picnic table that generally popped into mind with long planks of wood and attached benches on either side, but of a more modern variety. It was metal, the color of steel, and had small holes poked into it all about. There were four individual seats attached on all four sides of the square tabletop, slightly rounded at the edges. Personally, I liked it more than a normal picnic table that was big and chunky, for I found this one more esthetically pleasing.

           The four of us sat down—Tiffany and Kay were on either side of me, while Ari was positioned directly across. Almost immediately following our sitting down, Ari whipped a laptop out of her backpack, plugged a single headphone into her ear, and did whatever it was that Ari did. Tiffany had resorted to pulling out her rhinestone phone, and Kay seemed to be taking in all the people and was perfectly satisfied with watching everything occur around her. And then there was Eric Wilson. He was observing the three girls silently as he extracted his cafeteria sandwich, deeming it an appropriate time as ever to eat.

           After taking the combination of stacked bread, lettuce, some sort of milk byproduct generally referred to as “cheese,” a tomato, and a form of poultry I was relatively sure was turkey out of its transparent baggie, I took a small bite, in the back of my head going through my upcoming schedule. I had two more classes to endure, and then I was free for the night to review the course packets handed out and prepare for the day ahead. Because I had a tendency to more than occasionally worry about trivial things, I liked to know what would be occurring in my future. I wasn’t spontaneous by any means, so having a structured agenda worked best for me.

           “So, Tiffany,” Kay began, her daze of exploration cracking as she returned to the world around her, “what’s your favorite color?”

           “Pink,” the asked part answered almost instantaneously, glancing up from her mobile device for a split second.

           “Really?” Kay said excitedly. “Me too! I just love pink! Well, I really like pink and green, but pink by itself is just wonderful too!”

           “What’s your favorite color, Eric?” Tiffany decided to drag me into the pointless discussion regarding favoritism to certain hues of the rainbow.

           I swallowed the piece of sandwich that I had inserted into my mouth, and then willed myself to speak, despite how pointless I considered the topic. “Uh, I like blue, I guess,” I shrugged simply.

           “Blue,” Ari mumbled, shaking her head and dropping the hint that she was half-listening to the mindless banter.

           “I love the color blue!” Tiffany said passionately, as if she was preaching for a cause she truly believed in, like saving the polar bears or democracy.

           “I like navy, but blue’s okay,” Kay stretched the matter out even more.

           “I think that blue is great!” Tiffany persisted, trying hard to force a connection. It was like she had found two puzzle pieces that were from the same box, but simply didn’t fit together, and she wasn’t willing to accept that particular fate.

           “Gray,” Ari muttered softly, “is where it’s at.”

           “Why?” I questioned, having yet to respond to Tiffany’s assertion of her newfound love for blue.

           “Because it goes with everything and is just, well, in between,” she went on to try and explain.

           I thought about what she had said for a brief sequence of seconds and determined that I still didn’t fully understand, so I told her just that. “What do you mean?”

           It was her turn to be quiet, and though it only lasted about as long as my session of silence, it felt like much longer and much heavier—if that made any about of comprehensible sense. “Like,” she paused, searching for the correct words to fill the void, “you have black, and you have white, and then there’s gray—in the middle. It’s a mix of both. Also, gray goes with every other color, and unless you try really hard, you can’t clash with gray.”

           “I don’t like gray,” Tiffany interjected her astute opinion.

           “I do,” I expressed thoughtfully as I tried to find at least three rational reasons that four college freshmen were having an in-depth debate about colors out of the context of an art class. Predictably, I couldn’t seem to find any logic.

           “Me too!” Tiffany quickly added. “I was just kidding before!” Puzzle pieces. She was forcing them again. It wasn’t a smooth fit, she knew it, and yet she persisted to shove them together repeatedly as if hoping for a miracle.

           I noticed Ari shake her head with a smirk, and then shut her laptop, the single white dot of electrical transmissions to the ear remaining in place. After depositing the silver rectangle into her backpack and swinging it over a shoulder, she then proceeded to stand up from the table, but she didn’t go. She just stood, immobile. I looked at her, waiting for her to leave or indicate that she was soon leaving, but she didn’t. She just continued to stand there.

           “So, Eric,” Kay decided to initiate the rest of the conversation, “Houston told me that you were at the barbecue on Friday, but I didn’t see you! Did you have a nice time?”

           Though I did find it slightly odd that her friend, Ari, hadn’t said anything to her about our conjoint music listening, I didn’t mention it. “Yeah, I did,” I somewhat told an untruth. It was stretching the reality, but not by much. I hadn’t hated my time there, but enjoyment hadn’t quite been fulfilled, either.

           “I am so glad!” Kay clapped her hands together in excitement, the action seeming like a very Kay Rodgers thing to do.

           “There was a barbecue?” Tiffany piped up, holding onto the interaction by a thread. I wasn’t quite sure why she was being so obstinate, but just shrugged it off, figuring that once she realized that I wasn’t exactly the ideal Prince Charming, she would back down immediately.

           “Yeah,” Kay nodded slowly, “at my boyfriend’s fraternity.”

           “Oh, are you joining?” the blonde girl who wasn’t Kay questioned with some sort of an indiscernible edge in her tone.

           “No,” I shook my head firmly.

           “Not yet, at least,” Kay falsely corrected with a knowing glint shining through to her eyes. “Anywho! Eric, the guys are going golfing this weekend and Houston said that he would just love if you’d come! It would be so much fun and just wonderful if you could make it!”

           “Who are ‘the guys’?” I asked, assuming that Houston was included in the collective antecedent, but unsure of whom else.

           “Well, Houston, obviously! But a lot of the other boys from the fraternity—like Scott. You met Scott, didn’t you?”

           “Yeah, I met him,” I nodded.

           “He’s such a sweetheart! Cute, too!” she giggled, her cheeks tingeing pink ever so slightly. “So, it would be just wonderful if you could make it!” she went on energetically. I was beginning to think that in Kay Rodgers’ world, everything was “just wonderful!” Nothing was good or okay—no, it was just wonderful. It seemed like a, well, wonderful perspective to have—I just happened to not share it, however.

           “Uh, when is it?” I gulped, knowing that I was me, so I would somehow end up golfing with a bunch of frat guys on my weekend whether I wanted to or not.

           “I think that it’s on Saturday, but otherwise, I’m not too sure about the details! Next time I see you I’ll definitely know!” she assured me with a Kay-watt smile.

           “Sounds like a plan,” I exhaled a good amount of air, realizing that I had finished my sandwich in the time between talking and not talking. All that was left was the baggie and crumbs in the baggie, serving as a physical reminder of all that was.

           I then looked over to where Ari was, but didn’t see Ari. There was only an empty seat where Ari once was, nothing else. She had left without a word or causing a big scene with the whole “Bye! See you later!” drama that so often surrounded departures. Somehow she had slipped away and that was that. Though she hadn’t executed the customary farewell, she had somehow made a deeper impression than if she had. If Ari had just uttered a quick, “Bye,” then I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But she didn’t. Instead, she just left, leaving me wondering why she went, where she went, and for what reason she hadn’t felt the need to inform us. In the end, though, it didn’t really matter because she was gone either way. Ari had most certainly left, and there was no changing that—no matter how much I overanalyzed it. She was gone.

A/N: In the rewrite, I'll probs get rid of this chapter. Yeah.

-Sophie