When we made it back to our dorm room, I rid myself of my jeans and threw on some sweats. I was beyond tired but found that sleep wasn’t coming as easily as I thought it would. My bed with its nice, cool sheets had only brought me back to a cool set of gray eyes. Would I ever be able to forget them? This was all so crazy to me; here I was lying in bed daydreaming about a stranger. How much more stalker could I get? But it was true, those eyes would forever be burned into my brain and I drifted off to sleep still thinking about them.

“Kelsey! Wake up!” I couldn’t understand why my bed was shaking so much and for a minute I thought there was an earthquake. But, no, it was just Jessi hovering over me, shaking the mattress with her tiny arms. To be so little, she sure was a strong one.

“I’m up! Now stop shaking me before I get motion sickness and throw up all over your pretty little outfit.”

Of course Jessi was already dressed. She was wearing her tiny black shorts that she swore made her butt look perfect, and her blood red halter top that had her girls on full display. Her makeup was fixed to perfection, like always. Jessi could do a smokey eye like no one’s business, and it made her green eyes pop.

Looking at the clock I saw it was already 9:30 P.M. and we had been planning to leave around 10:00 P.M. That only left me thirty minutes to get ready. I was going to kill her for letting me sleep so late!

“Jess! It’s already 9:30! How could you let me sleep that long?”

Shrugging, she turned around to the mirror to put yet another coat of gloss on her perfectly plump lips. “I was trying to let you rest. Then I got distracted by what I should wear.”

Perfect. Just perfect. I hated getting ready in a rush.

“Jessi, how in the world am I going to get ready in thirty minutes? Maybe we should just stay in tonight,” I said as I pulled the covers back up around my neck and rolled to face the wall.

“Come on Kels. I told that guy I would meet him there. He’s gorgeous too. You saw him! I can’t just stand him up.” She pouted.

I really was torn. While I wanted to go and try to have a good time, I had become so accustomed to staying in and letting Jessi go do her own thing, but I couldn’t just let her go to a bar all by herself. This was a new town. We didn’t know anyone else here. So I grumpily sat up in my bed and sighed. “Fine, let me throw something on real quick. Since I obviously won’t have time to get all dolled up like you.”

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“YES! That’s my girl! Here, let me help you pick something out,” she said as she went to her closet and began to dig around. “No matter what you wear you’re gonna look hot, girl. You could wear those old nasty sweats and tank you have on now and the boys would still be falling at your feet.”

I rolled my eyes. I wouldn’t consider myself ugly, but I was not all that attractive. I had my mom’s lean body and long, light brown hair that always had a nice curl on the ends so I never really had to worry about styling it too much.

Looking down at my sweats, I actually considered keeping them on for the night. They may be stained, but they were the most comfortable pair I owned and I would never part with them. The stains were actually from when Jessi and I painted the spare bedroom in her house where I’d lived these last six years. For the first couple years I lived in that room, I refused to change anything. Not the wall color, not the pale flowery bedspread that screamed guestroom … nothing. It wasn’t my home. Not to me anyway.

It wasn’t until my sixteenth birthday that Jessi and her mom surprised me with a trip to the hardware store and Bed Bath and Beyond for all the supplies to make that room my own. I told them it wasn’t necessary. That I wanted them to still be able to lend out the room to family that would come in from out of town, but they insisted that the room was mine and mine alone. That it was time that I started living like a member of their family, and not a guest.

The bedspread I bought that day was the one I brought with me to college. Being it was only a few years old and finally losing that new bedspread stiffness, I passed when they offered to take me out to buy a new set just for my dorm.

Jessi was still raddling on and I pulled my eyes away from my sweats and their special memories to look at her.

“You’re going to have a great time. Just wait ‘til all the hotties there see you walk in. You’re going to be thanking me by the time we leave and you have a nice piece of man candy to play with.”

“One”—I ticked off on my finger—“I’m not looking for any hotties. Two, I’m just doing my best friend duties and accompanying my promiscuous friend to a bar so that I can be sure she’s not slipped a date rape drug, and carted off to be sold as some sex slave.”

“Sex slave? Really, Kels?” Jessi said, rolling her eyes at me.

I shrugged. “I just call ‘em like I see ‘em.” I finally got up and walked over to her closet to help her find me something to wear. I wanted to look good but I didn’t want to look like I was parading my girls for everyone to see. Jessi and I used to be alike in so many ways except when it came to fashion. Where my fashion tastes were more along the lines of leave-them-guessing hers were a little on the stripper side.

“My God, Kelsey! Would it kill you to actually have a good time?” Jessi huffed and stepped out of my way to pull her long, red locks up into a high ponytail. She had already perfectly curled it so that when she pulled it up it framed her face nicely and stuck out in all the right places making it look all messy chic.

“I’m sorry, Jess. Just with classes starting tomorrow, and now that I’m going to have to keep my grades up to keep my scholarships. I’m just stressin’ I guess. Plus, you know how long it has been since I have actually gone out. I probably don’t even remember how to have a good time anymore.”

I hated being the stick in the mud, but it was true. I was so used to keeping to myself that I’d probably lost all the social skills I’d once had. And my scholarships were the only thing keeping me here so I couldn’t go crazy and have too much of a good time like most college kids. Jess didn’t have to worry about anything like that though. Her parents had saved for her brother and her to go to college since they were born. Mine … not so much. I didn’t work my ass off all through high school and take AP classes to get here and flunk out.

“Kels, if anyone can do this it’s you. You have always been the most driven person I know,” Jessi said as she crossed the small dorm room and wrapped me up in a tight hug. “It will all work out. I promise.” She held up her pinky and I wrapped mine around it. From as far back as I can remember, we had being doing this. It was always our way of letting each other know it was going to be all right.




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