Admissions

Episode 9: First Level of Hell

Episode 9: First Level of Hell

Skyler always liked the first day of school.

Oh, definitely not the nerves. Not the thousands of students moving along like a tidal wave up and down halls, most of them looking around, clearly lost and nervous as well. He wasn't a huge fan of figuring out where to sit in his first class either. Looking around at all the faces that watched him, analyzed him, like they were trying to appease the inner beast called anxiety by checking out their surroundings with a unique sense of paranoia.

No, he just liked that the first day wasn't full of work.

He liked sitting down, knowing that they weren't going to be slammed with assignments right off the bat. Just a syllabus and a course description and hopefully an early dismissal.

So now all he had to focus on was the nail biting fear of being around complete strangers, who, for all he knew, could be judging him silently, or even with sneers behind his back.

This is different, he fought to remind himself.

College wasn't high school.

Things were different.

He was going to be different.

It was why, instead of dressing in the heavy sweatshirts and pajama pants he wore all through high school, he was going to dress the way he wanted to. So he'd thrown on a cute mint green sweater that came just past his waist and a pair of black leggings that disappeared into a pair of cute brown boots that had been on sale at Payless a couple weeks ago. And instead of shying away from makeup, he went with it. He'd always wanted to wear makeup, always watched the tutorials on YouTube, envying the abilities of women, and now guys too, to make makeup into an artform. So he'd gone with his gut, went with black eyeliner with a perfect wing, soft eyeshadow, and pink lip gloss that he'd gotten addicted to wearing last summer.

He actually felt really good about himself when he'd left the house.

Especially when Ivy had told him he looked stunning and Akira complemented his outfit. He'd ran out of the house before he could bump into Jethro or Devondre, though. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear either one of them say something. Jethro would probably put his big foot in his mouth and Devondre...

Skyler was still confused how he felt about Devondre. He definitely had a crush on the guy. He was everything Skyler wanted in a boyfriend... except Devondre already had a girlfriend.

Anyway, now that Skyler was in a classroom full of people, he was anxious again. He wondered if he'd gone too far with his new self. Maybe he should've just worn jeans and skipped on the makeup. If he ended up having a mental breakdown in the bathroom, his eyeliner would smear and he fucking forgot to bring a backup. He was new to this whole makeup thing and now completely understood why ladies carried purses the size of Montana with them.

He sat in as comfortable and safe a place he could find in the large classroom, in a back corner with his backpack slung over the back of his seat. He sat with his phone in his hands, nervously scrolling through Facebook and pretending to be interested in the status updates from overseas friends, and the few from high school who he still didn't really consider friends. Thankfully, he spotted that Akira was online and sent him a quick message.

Sitting in class. Kind of nervous. Hbu? He sent the message and anxiously looked up as more people filed into the classroom, looking around for seats. The room was filling up quickly now. The desks were really just long tables lined up by threes with two aisles down the middles. It was a good size larger than high school classrooms, but at least the set up was similar and less nerve-wracking. On the whiteboard in large block letters were the words welcome to fashion merchandising 2000.