Confessions of an Estranged College Freshman

by Kitty Parker

  I glanced at my phone. The call had already gone to voicemail.

  "Too late." I failed to keep the note of happiness from my voice.

  "I think we should talk about this, Evie. Come on, it's cold. Let's go inside." So saying, Elizabeth took my hand and led me out of the bitterly cold Ithaca winter and back into the dorm. We went into a deserted lounge area and plopped down on a couch.

  Elizabeth took a deep breath. "Okay, some awkward stuff happened and now you're freaking out. What are you going to do about it?"

  "Hide?"

  She gave me a look.

  "I know, I know. I can't do that forever, blah, blah, blah. So what am I supposed to do?"

  "That's really up to you," Elizabeth told me. "But I think the question is how you feel about Tully."

  "Elizabeth!" I hissed, looking around wildly for eavesdroppers.

  "Sorry, 'Tango Twelve'," she corrected herself, putting finger quotations around Tully's codename. "You told me you have 'feelings' for him. What does that mean?"

  I stayed silent, staring at the floor.

  "Do you love him?"

  My gaze snapped up. "No!" I denied, even as my brain shouted the opposite response.

  She gestured to my neck. "Then why do you wear that necklace every day without fail?"

  I brought my hand up to grasp the silver pendent Tully had given me. When I stopped to think about it, Elizabeth was right. I did wear it every day. Putting it on had practically become a part of my autopilot morning routine.

  Elizabeth lay a supportive hand on my arm. "I think you know what you have to do, Evie."

  I nodded. I did know. It was just a matter of finding the courage to do it.

  * * *

  On January twenty-fourth, the Saturday before Elena's nineteenth birthday, Elizabeth and I threw our friend a small party. It was really nothing more than a bunch of our friends hanging out in the Mews and playing Twister, but that was fine with us.

  For me, the party brought good news and bad news. The good news: Tully was unlikely to come because of his hockey game against Brown, though he could theoretically show up late. The bad news: I had to face Mischa. I'd managed to put this off for the entire week I'd been back, using excess work as an excuse, but he was probably starting to get suspicious.

  "Privyet, printsessa!" he greeted me when he arrived at the party, wrapping me up in a hug and pressing a kiss to my cheek.

  "Privyet," I replied, trying to sound enthusiastic.

  "Later you must tell me all about your Christmas vacation, yes?"

  I gave him a weak smile. "Sure."

  "Where is Elena?" he asked, looking around.

  I pointed her out, thankful for the distraction. "Over by the snacks."

  Elizabeth came up to me while my boyfriend went to give the birthday girl a hug. "Are you going to tell him tonight?"

  I nodded silently, my heart clenching within my chest at the thought of hurting someone who'd been nothing but good to me.

  She gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "It's gonna be okay, Eves. Things will work out."

  "I hope so."

  Trying to lighten up and delay the inevitable, I participated in a few rounds of Twister, even letting out a genuine laugh when one Elena's classmates fell flat on her ass. I was actually quite astonished to see architects at the party. Other than my roommate, I had never met one before. Apparently Elena's birthday had brought a few of them out of hiding.

  Around ten thirty, Mischa came over to me and wrapped his arms around my waist. "Are you having a good time, printsessa?"

  I nodded mutely, a feeling of apprehension growing in the pit of my stomach.

  "You seem upset." Concern danced in his blue eyes, causing a wave of guilt to wash over me. "Is something wrong?"

  I can't lie to him anymore, I told myself.

  "Kind of."

  Mischa bent to give me a peck on the lips, but I turned my head to the side.

  "I'm so sorry," I whispered. "I just can't do this anymore." Reaching up, I gave him one last kiss on the cheek. "I'm sorry, Mischa."

  With that, I disentangled myself from his arms and left the room. As soon as I was out of eyesight, I bolted out of the dorm, tears streaming down my face. I was so upset that I couldn't even see where I was going. Consequently, I ran straight into a solid object.

  "Oomph!" it grunted as I rammed into its midriff.

  It took me a moment to realize that the "it" was actually a "he." More specifically, it was the one "he" that I really did not need to see at that particular moment.

  "Tully?" I squeaked. "What are you doing here?"

  He furrowed his brow, noticing the telltale signs that I'd been crying. "I just came from the game. Are you okay?"

  I shook my head miserably.

  "Come on, let's talk." He started leading me back to the dorm, but I panicked and pulled him in the opposite direction. Although he seemed confused, he decided to go along with it. "Um, okay. I guess we can talk in Appel instead." He draped a comforting arm around my shoulders. "How about a bubble tea? On me?"

  Managing a weak smile, I nodded. I did have to face him sooner or later, after all, and I needed to talk to somebody. So long as I could convince him not to talk about what had happened over break, Tully was more than qualified for the job.

  Once Tully had purchased two bubble teas, we both sat down on a couch in the Appel atrium.

  "Okay, Evie," he ventured. "You want to tell me what happened?"

  I paused and took a deep breath. "I broke up with Mischa."

  Silence.

  "Oh."

  More silence.

  Just as I was starting to feel uncomfortable, Tully pulled me in for a hug. The caring gesture pushed me over the edge and fresh tears began to fall.

  "Shh, it's okay," Tully whispered somewhat awkwardly, letting me cry into his shirt. "It'll be okay."

  It was obvious that he really had no idea what to say (he was a guy, after all), but I could tell that he was trying. That alone meant the world.

  Chapter 17: I Am Yente, Hear Me Roar

  After my breakup with Mischa (which I'd had to awkwardly clarify when he called me to ask what the hell was going on), things in my life went back to their usual semi-normal state. Kind of.

  Tully and I still hadn't talked about what had happened over break, which was just as well as far as I was concerned. I didn't like the idea of discussing my feelings with him so soon after I'd ended my relationship with Mischa. I knew it would have to come up eventually, but I wanted to put it off for as long as possible. Tully seemed to understand this somehow, and he didn't broach the issue.

  For the time being, I was going to take a break from boys and focus more on my classes and my friends. More specifically, I'd decided to finally do something about the Elizabeth/Amory situation. The two of them had such obvious chemistry, but if left to their own devices, they'd probably wind up killing each other rather than admitting it. They were going to need a bit of nudging.

  During the last week of January, I watched them. They were at each other's throats whenever we hung out together, but the arguments had a different undertone than they'd had back in the fall. Instead of an intense, steaming hatred, there was an element of teasing and even a weird sort of subtle flirtation. Amory actually seemed to enjoy getting Elizabeth all riled up, which reminded me of how he'd acted around me before he asked me out. Elizabeth, in turn, would just become extremely flustered.

  When Tully got back from his hockey road trip that Sunday, Elena and I decided that going to the bowling alley in Helen Newman Hall would be the perfect way to cheer him up after the horrendous eight to one loss against St. Lawrence University. Naturally, we decided to bring Elizabeth and Amory along for the ride.

  "That was terrible, Dalton! Who taught you to bowl, Bozo the Clown?"

  Elizabeth glared at Amory as she walked back to the seats after knocking down only three pins. "At least my shoes don't make me look like him."

  Amory glanced dow
n at his feet and scowled. "It's not my fault that the only ones left in my size were red!"

  Elena and I chuckled at their antics as Tully prepped himself to roll the ball. He seemed to be taking his anger at the SLU players out on the pins and was consequently kicking all of our asses.

  BAM!

  "Another strike?" Elena gasped incredulously.

  Tully turned around, looking quite pleased with himself. "Well, what can I say? When you're good, you're good."

  "Yeah, like you were good in the game Friday night," my roommate muttered to me.

  I snorted. "Low blow, dude."

  Elizabeth groaned as Amory knocked down eight of the ten pins and shot her a very smug look. "Don't even say it," she warned.

  "Say what?" he asked innocently.

  She just glared at him.

  The rest of the evening was filled with their bickering as they fought over everything from scoring to who had chosen the better ball. To top it all off, as we left the building, Elizabeth ambushed Amory and mashed a handful of snow into his face. He'd chased her halfway back to the dorm, cursing loudly, until he tripped over a half-made snowman and did an accidental belly flop into the white powder.

  I nearly died laughing.

  At about ten-thirty that night, I knocked on Elizabeth's door.

  "Come in."

  I entered the room, finding my friend sitting at her desk with a giant organic chemistry textbook. Thankfully, her roommate was nowhere to be found.

  "Hey, pal," I greeted her. "Whatcha up to?"

  "Chem stuff," she replied, setting the book down and making a face at it before turning to me. "What's up?"

  I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant and not let on that I'd come to her room on a distinct mission. "Just bored. Have a good time bowling?"

  "Yup." She grinned. "Amory still pissed?"

  "Probably."

  "Good."

  I couldn't hide my smile. "You two seem to be getting along a lot better."

  She raised an eyebrow at me. "Are you kidding?"

  "Nope."

  "We fight all the time," she pointed out.

  My smile widened. "I think you enjoy it." She opened her mouth to protest, but I cut her off. "And I think he does, too. Trust me, I'd know."

  She shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

  "He treats you the way he treated me before we started going out," I told her.

  "So what?" she asked, looking back down at her book and pretending to study.

  I flipped it shut. "So I'm going bug you about it until you admit that you like him, too."

  "I do not!" she insisted.

  I crossed my arms over my chest.

  She gazed defiantly back at me.

  Our staring contest went on for a good four minutes before she finally cracked.

  "Fine," she sighed, training her eyes on the floor. "Maybe I kind of like him a little."

  I smirked. No one could out-stubborn me. "So what're you going to do about it?"

  Her head snapped up and she looked at me as though I had morphed into a giant aardvark. "Nothing!"

  "Why?"

  "Because there's nothing to do! It's a stupid crush. It'll go away."

  I shrugged as I headed for the door. "We'll see. Have fun with your chem."

  * * *

  Though Tully had been good about giving me some emotional space while I went through my post-relationship "mourning period," he'd also taken it upon himself to "cheer me up." The Sunday after his game against Princeton (which I'd naturally attended along with Elena and Amory), he came to my room while Elena was in the studio and announced that he was treating me to takeout and a movie of my choice.

  "My choice?" I asked incredulously. "Since when do you let me pick on days that aren't my birthday?"

  "Since now," he replied.

  I grinned. "You're probably going to regret that."

  "Oh God," he groaned. "You're not going to make me watch Clueless again, are you?"

  "Hey, that's a good movie!" I insisted. "But no, that wasn't what I had in mind."

  "What are you thinking of, then?"

  "Order the takeout and you'll find out."

  He shrugged. "Fine. What do you want to get? I'm paying. Just please don't order lobster or something expensive like that. I'm just a poor, broke college student, after all."

  I rolled my eyes at his theatrics. "You know I hate seafood, Tul."

  "I know," he replied with a grin. "I do, too. So we know we won't get that."

  We ended up settling on a large pizza - half sausage and pepper for him, half pineapple for me - and some breadsticks. While we waited for it to arrive, I set up my laptop, turned off the lights, and started the movie.

  Tully was immediately confused. "What is this?" he asked as the opening credits ran.

  I grinned. "Metropolis. German movie from the Weimar Republic. Great stuff."

  He cocked his head to the side as the black and white scenes began flashing on the screen. "What's going on?"

  "Read the intertitles, dumbass."

  "Hey!"

  I patted his knee in a reassuring way. "I say that with all the love in the world, of course."

  I could only hope that he wouldn't figure out the deeper meaning behind that statement.

  "So when did you start watching old German movies, Eves?" he asked a few minutes later.

  I shushed him without turning my gaze from the screen.

  "What're you shushing me for? It's a silent movie."

  "The background music is good!"

  He sighed in an amused way. "Oh, Evie."

  I became engrossed in the story of Freder Frederson, Maria, and the nightmarish future in which they lived (I even got pissed when the pizza arrived and we had to pause it), but I didn't fail to notice that Tully spent just as much time watching me as he did the movie. Though my inner film buff was slightly offended, my heart fluttered happily.

  When the movie ended, Tully flipped the lights back on.

  "How'd you like it?" I asked him.

  "It was good. Great special effects for 1927."

  I nodded in agreement.

  "I have something for you," he suddenly announced.

  I perked up. "What is it?"

  He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "I kind of left it in my room. I'll go get it."

  He got up off of my bed and made his way out of my room. I waited patiently for him to return, extremely curious about this mystery present. After a minute or two, he popped back through the door with something red and white in his arms.

  "They usually sell these," he told me. "But I kept one to give you. I thought it might, uh… cheer you up or something."

  I refrained from telling him that I wasn't really all that upset and took the bulky garment when he handed it to me, shaking it out to get a better look.

  "It's a game-worn jersey," he explained. "I wore it when we played Dartmouth."

  Flipping it over, I traced the letters on the back spelling out "McFadden" with my index finger.

  He shuffled his feet nervously. "I've, er, washed it since then, of course, so it won't smell or anything."

  A smile spread across my face. "Thanks, Tul. This is really cool."

  Seemingly relieved, he smiled back at me.

  "I'll wear it to every game," I promised.

  "You'd better," he teased.

  I got up to give him a hug, standing on tiptoe and wrapping my arms around his neck. He pulled me tight against his chest and I reveled in his familiar scent.

  It was then that I realized that Tully returned my feelings. Sure, the thought had crossed my mind, like before I'd started dating Mischa and after things had gotten so out of hand over winter break, but I'd never been sure. In giving me his jersey, Tully had dropped a major hint. It was such an intimate gesture, as though he were somehow claiming me as his, sort of like how boys in the fifties would give their girlfriends their class rings. At least, that was how I interpreted it.

  I could have said
something right then and there, but I was too scared to make the first move. It was kind of like trying to make myself jump off of a high diving board: I was pretty sure I'd be fine, but there was still that little part of me that held me back out of fear of taking the plunge.

  It was going to have to wait until I grew a spine.

  * * *

  "Can I ask for some advice?" I asked Elizabeth the moment she opened the door for me the next day.

  "Hello to you, too. Yeah, sure."

  I shut the door behind me. "So… I'm having a Tully issue."

  She raised her eyebrows. "Again?"

  I nodded. "Yeah. But it's not bad, it's just…"

  "Weird?" she supplied.

  "I guess."

  "Want to tell me about it?" she inquired.

  I took a deep breath. "I think he likes me back."

  "That's great!" she exclaimed. "That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

  "Well, yeah…"

  "Then what's the problem?"

  I searched my brain for the right words to explain what I was thinking. "I just… don't really know what to say to him about it, I guess."

  "Just tell him how you feel," she suggested.

  I cringed. The mere thought of doing that gave me the willies. "No way!"

  Elizabeth seemed confused. "Why?"

  "It would be so… awkward!" I tried to explain.

  She sighed. "You really need to get over this whole awkwardness avoidance thing."

  "How the heck am I supposed to do that?"

  She shrugged. "No idea."

  Great. We were back to square one. My awkward situation phobia was deeply rooted in my mind. Just how should a person go about changing an ingrained part of her personality? It wasn't going to be easy, that was for damn sure, and it took me the better part of a week to come up with an idea.

  "Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Elena asked me as we were serenaded by the sounds of our neighbor Annabelle's raucous lovemaking.

  I shrugged, feigning nonchalance even as my stomach twisted with nerves. "Practice makes perfect, right?"

  "Sure, when you're after an Olympic medal in diving. You can't win the gold in being awkward, you know."

  "I know," I replied, taking a deep breath to prepare myself for what I was about to do. "Alright, I'm going in."