Socially Detached

(Ch1) September 18th, 2:05 PM

Next, two girls walk in together, talking to themselves about a party they attended over the weekend loudly.

"Yeah, I'm just SO hungover." One of them said. "I can't believe Luke had hopped the fence to grab my bra after it fell off!"

"Well, you know how he is. I'm sure he would do anything for you." It seemed like the other girl felt a little embarrassed about the conversation, now that their conversation seemed to echo off the walls of the lecture room. That's what the room is designed for, right?

"We should totally throw another party for Halloween. That would be SO awesome. It can be a costume party!" The first girl had sat down towards the middle of the room and was leaning over to reach her backpack she placed on the floor. Her long, dirty blonde hair was falling all along her back, with some of it sticking to the back of the seat from friction. "Look, we can start planning it in the cafeteria after this class! It'll be fun." She set down her notebook she took from the backpack. "What do you think?"

The second girl sat down next to her and sunk into the chair. I watched her nod her head and smile. "Sure, that sounds good."

I'm not sure what exactly else that conversation entailed. Partly because the conversation they were having wasn't interesting anymore, and partly because they finally stopped yelling their sentences. I did notice that once I had stopped paying attention to the two of them; I missed several other people filing into the classroom, one of those people being the professor.

Professor Deidrick was, overall, a nice professor. At least, I had thought so. She never made anyone's day harder than necessary, or kept class late, or made her office hours impossible to attend. I'm not sure what other's people's opinions were on her, but she was OK in my eyes.

"Good afternoon everyone. I hope you all had a good weekend..." Deidrick had placed her laptop on the stand and opened it up. "Now, I'm going to get set up fully here in a minute... If everyone could open up their notebooks to a blank page, we'll begin learning chapter 3."

I opened up my notebook and took a peek over at the clock. 2:49. This class is already dragging on. It doesn't help that all of Deidrick's slideshow notes and class material are posted online after class, anyway. If attendance didn't matter, I wouldn't show up.

It was around the time between Professor Deidrick opening up the slideshow and one of the older men in the front row coughing like crazy, that I lost track of time and started writing in my notebook.

... She poked her head above the water and peeked over the rocks along the edge of the river. The trees were taller than anything she had ever seen before, and the colors of the leaves were gorgeous. Without realizing it, her full upper body was now outside of the water, as she stared in awe at the surrounding forest around her. What snapped her out of her trance was the loud snap of a branch behind her. She whipped her head back to see a young boy—

"Alright everyone. That will cover the lesson today. I'll see you all on Wednesday to cover the second half of this." I snapped my head up at the clock. 4:00. Class was over, and I had written up 4 pages! I stuck my pen in the notebook and closed it to keep my place and began to put it away in my backpack.

I stand up, putting my bag on my shoulders, and begin to file out with the rest of the class.

As I'm walking down the hall, I stop at the doors of the cafeteria, and I realize I hadn't eaten yet today, had I? Might as well eat while I'm here. Otherwise, I'll just end up pulling over at the first McDonald's I see. Better to eat the campus greasy food than to eat the alternative.

The campus greasy food of the day ends up being a sandwich wrap and a bag of chips, for a grand total of $8.50. I swipe my card at the checkout and head over to all the tables and chairs. There's a lot more people here than I anticipated there to be. Almost every table has someone sitting at it. I stand on my toes for a second to get a better view of the cafeteria, and luckily, I find a small corner table at the back of the cafeteria that's empty.

As I reach my seat, I put my backpack on the floor and my tray off the table. I reach into my backpack to grab out my math notebook and my earbuds. After I open up the notebook to where I left off, I put my earbuds in my ears. I don't intend to actually plug my earbuds into my phone or an MP3 player. I just found out over time that if I put my earbuds in, no one tends to bother me. Not that anyone often does in the first place, but it's good to be prepared.

I tap the page of my notebook with my pen. 'She whipped her head back to see a young boy?' What did he look like? Was he going to be hostile towards her? Maybe I'll just have the boy run away from her. It might be too soon in the story to have her meet someone new. I hadn't even decided if she should speak a different language than everyone.

Laughter broke my thoughts. I look up and see an overcrowded table cheering each other on. The table should only fit 6 people, but they all seemed to have fit 11 around the ends.

"There's the party girl!" One boy at the table yelled. More cheering from the table. The group was looking at two people approaching. My eyes focus beyond the table to see that the two people were actually the girls from my class. Both of the girls each have a chair in their arms to set down once they reach the table.

"I didn't think you were going to show up today after what had happened this weekend." One of the other boys said.

"Well, you know, party girl at night, nerdy girl by day." The one with dirty blonde hair said. The boys she had approached at the table had moved their own chairs over to make room for both girls to sit at the table, though now there was obviously not enough room for all of them to sit at the table, if that wasn't apparent before.

"So when's the next rager going to be? I'd love to keep talking to this party, girl." The boy seated closest to her said. He put his arm around the back of her chair, careful not to touch the girl herself.

"Yea Jess! It really was a good party. You should totally host the next one, too." One girl on the other side of the table piped up.

"Oh, for sure I'm gonna host the next party. I was thinking, Halloween at my place would be awesome. We can have a costume party and everything!" Jess smiled. "And, if one of you boys could get another keg, we can..."

I had looked away and tried to forget the conversation. Parties aren't really my strong suit. There's usually too many people pretending to be cool and too many poor decisions made over the course of a couple hours that follow you. At least, in my experience, that's the case.

I looked back down at my notebook. Why does this water nymph care about the world beyond her river? Doesn't she have a water-nymph job she needs to do? I scratched my next sentence in:

She turned back around and dipped under the water, tending to the fishes below the depths.

I closed the notebook after writing that sentence and continued to eat my $8.50 meal.