They say that the best years of your life are during college and I had high hopes for that. I expected to go to college, ace my classes, hang out with friends and maybe fall in love. Well, all of that did happen but not the way I expected. It all started with a group chat...
"Athalia, are you sure about this?" I curled myself up on my bed as I watched my roommate Athalia tap away at her phone. She ignored my whines as she smiled at her phone.
"There. Now you're in the chat. Say hey, don't be shy! Everybody's pretty cool so far," she grinned walking towards my bed.
Soon my phone was blowing up with notifications from this group chat "WHAT IT DO BAYBEEE". It was overwhelming to know I was suddenly connected to a group of people I had never met before. Well, except Athalia.
It was a month into college and I still only hung out with her occasionally. I just felt like this campus was too large to make friends so easily. It didn't help that most people who went to my school lived in the state and knew each other from being in the same school district or neighboring districts. I was just a shy Northern girl who decided that living in Miami would be better than cold cold Boston.
My lack of friends is what prompted Athalia to add me to this group chat despite my best efforts to decline entry.
"It'll be fine! They'll like you! You're amazing Marsai," Athalia attempted to reassure me.
WHAT IT DO BAYBEEE
Brianna: LMAOOOOOOOOOO who is this number you added?
Athalia: it's my roommate, say hey Marsai
Me: hi 👋🏾
Anaya: alright, no more people after her. This is gonna get full.
Jiro: drop your cc Marsai
Me: what's a cc?
"You have a contact card right? In your contact list? Just drop that in the chat," Athalia said to me as she climbed out of my bed.
"Happy chatting!"
She escaped from the room before I could reply to her. I sighed and looked back at my phone. I finally figured out how to shut off the notifications from ringing my phone constantly. Don't these people have class?
WHAT IT DO BABYEEE
Me: *attachment: contact card* is this it?
Athalia: yeah that's it!
Liliana: give us an intro Marsai (:
Me: uh I'm Marsai. I'm a freshman Psychology Major
Ike: welcome to the chat Marsai
I kept scrolling through the conversation, just observing as the group went back and forth about things like music, current events, and surprisingly politics. They seemed like a cool group of people, but it was a group chat. I had no idea how different they may be in person.
I looked at the time and realized I was about to be late for class. I grabbed my laptop, shoved it into my backpack and ran out the door. There was one thing about that group. It sucked you into the conversation in the most distracting way.
I ran across the street and hopped onto the shuttle to the main part of campus. This school was so large that walking to class was basically impossible. Miami Agricultural & Mechanical University took up a large portion of the south side of the city. If the college students here didn't generate a lot of business in the south side, I'm sure the college would've closed a long time ago.
MAMU was my first choice school. I wanted to experience living amongst peers similar to me, so I thought an HBCU would be the best route. Although the school is not heavily black like most others, that just made it more enticing.
I hopped off the bus in front of the Arts & Sciences building and ran inside. This was not a great time for my class to be on the 6th floor. I ran towards the elevator hoping that there wasn't a large crowd trying to get on the elevators.
I lucked out as the large group squeezed into an elevator, the second elevator let out a group of people coming down from the classrooms. Another girl and I snuck onto that free elevator and managed to ride up without anybody else getting on.
"Hey, you're Marsai right?"
Her voice interrupted my thoughts so abruptly, I almost didn't respond.
"Yeah I am. Uhhh I'm sorry, I don't really recognize you?" I muttered back trying to gather my thoughts again as the girl studied me.
"Oh I'm in that group chat you just got added to. I'm Jules, it's nice to meet you in person." She smiled and reached out her hand. I shook it and smiled back. She seemed nice. I studied her a bit after releasing her hand. She was obviously a Greek member from the letters on her shirt, but I wasn't familiar with none of that so I couldn't tell which org it was.
The elevator doors opened and I rushed out immediately.
"It was nice meeting you!" I exclaimed back at Jules as I bolted to class. I just barely made it into a desk with a minute to spare before the start of lecture. I've never skipped a class before and I didn't need to start the habit now.
Lecture began but the growing notifications in my messages were distracting me. I couldn't help but want to look at what the conversation was about now. I glanced up at my professor who had his back turned toward the board, writing some sort of formula. I wrote the formula down quickly and immediately clicked on my messages for the group chat.
WHAT IT DO BAYBEEE
Dante: what you've failed to realize is that as a society, free will is what rules us. Whether you believe in predetermined events or not, we still have a choice for things to happen.
Yaël: yes yes okay Dante, thank you for the philosophy lesson. In other news, are y'all going to Plaza tonight? I'm sure Jules and Jiro will be strolling, gotta show some support
Me: what's plaza?
Anaya: oh honey, they didn't tell you about plaza during orientation? It's basically a giant ass party on campus at the area in front of the library.
Liliana: yeah! They hold about once a month and every month has a different theme.
Athalia: what's the theme this month?
Naima: it's my time to shine, the theme is Bad and Boujee. Y'all better show out
Brianna: or you'll get shut out
Me: I don't know if I have anything to wear for that...
Athalia: don't worry girl, we'll figure it out when you come back from class
Tati: YALL I'VE GOT THE TEA ON PLAZA!!
Anaya: is it piping hot?
Tati: Sis, it's boiling. There's a rumor that students from U of M are coming to plaza and you know they've got some fiiiiine boys over there
Naima: If that's true, my fit needs to be on point
They began to talk about their outfits for the party and I brought my attention back to the lecture. My thoughts kept wandering to the party though. My first college party. I wondered how it would go and more importantly what do I even wear?
YOU ARE READING
Masked
RomanceCollege. A time of stress, parties and most of all drama. The only thing that makes it better is the memories that you make. At least that's what Marsai thought when she entered college. She was not prepared for all that college came with until one...
