What It Is

Year 0

Chris

This party is shitty, but the music is ok. There she goes again, quiet girl sitting by herself. She's cute.

I take a swig of beer and cock my head to the side looking at her. I laugh. She doesn't notice me looking at her; she's too busy pretending to look at her phone. I can tell she doesn't want to be here. I notice the way her hair is sticking up in the center, and wonder if she knows a piece of her hair is too short.

Her skin is dark and smooth, and she looks younger than she is. Eighteen? She barely looks fifteen.

I take another swig of beer and survey the freshmens playing board games and drinking. Aint too many of them, and I'm not exactly happy to be here, but one of my old friends is trying to acclimate them to college life. I'm one year away from graduating...why do I care?

I sigh. I care because I'm a nice guy and this is the shit that I do: play with freshmens. I'm like that quiet girl...what's her name? I barely heard it when she whispered it an hour ago. Tia? Yeah. My eyes flicker back over to her sitting on the arm of one of the couches that our college furnishes for every apartment. She's alone, and she looks lonely.

The wall feels like it gives away slightly as I push away from it and set my eyes on her. I take a few steps and try to shake myself of those old shy feelings. I tell myself that I'm just going to talk to her and make her feel less lonely, but I feel my stomach flop. I tell myself to stop fucking around and just say hi and I'm a few steps away from her when I feel soft fingers on my arm

"Chris, right?" A pair of cat eyes peer up at me. A girl with a wide gap-toothed smile.

"Yeah," I'm thrown off course, and I begin to ease into a conversation with this girl, "And you're Desiree?"

She nods, and I allow myself to be overtaken by this confident girl. I like that. I want that. She's like a light illuminating a dark room. A tiny little thing with skin as dark as the other girl, but with a liveliever spirit.

"Yeah. Somebody said you play the guitar, and I was saying that I needed to get you to teach me a lil something"

I blush, "Yeah, that's cool."

Tia

Would you believe me if I told you that I'm one step away from walking in front of a bus? My whole life is ahead of me. I'm a freshmen in college. I'm at a party...and I'm so lonely.

This phone can't even hold me. I can't find anything interesting on here except stories that I'm reading on this writing website, and even that can't cure my loneliness. I want to be less like myself, but the more I look at my classmates...the more I feel alone.

I look up and see a girl I went to high school with. We graduated around the same time. We know of each other, but we've never ran in the same circle. I'm suddenly jealous of her ease. She's always busting jokes...always the life of the party, and she's made a friend out of every one in the room. I really shouldn't be hating like that because she's going to be my roommate for the rest of this semester and the next.

Desiree is wearing flat sandals and skinny jeans, so she looks like a dwarf beside the guy she's joking with. He's tall, light-skinned with a beautiful smile and droopy eyes.

I can't even remember his name, but he's semi-babysitting us, I think. Upper classmen. Senior. Computer science major...what is his name? Something with a C...He's cute.

I slip off the chair and feel jealous again. It's so easy for her to talk to guys. I look away when he looks up and locks eyes with me.

I blush, chew my lip and wonder if he can sense the jealousy rolling off of me? I don't wonder for too long, I quickly walk away and lock myself in my room.

In no time, I find my ipod, put my headphones on and lay on my bed while the music blasts away.

I close my eyes and his name appears in smoky letters against a black background: Chris