Kelsie McCollum tried to control her breathing as she padded up the walkway toward the dormitory.
She was finally here. Perion University.
Kelsie had scrolled through as many tiktoks as she could watch, consumed as many IG posts as she could manage: How to put on her makeup just so, how to dress "sexy" but not "slutty", how to manicure the wavy blond locks that cascaded down her back without looking like she'd tried so hard to do it. Kelsie had once spent an entire summer day trying to figure out how to use bronzer to take her skin from "snow white" to "lightly-tanned"--but had only succeeded in turning her face into an orange mess before she gave up for good.
All of this trial and error, success and failure: Kelsie hoped it would be enough in the end. Her small midwestern hometown--with a high school numbering just a few hundred students--was nothing like this sprawling university. Kelsie just wanted to fit in.
Early that morning, she'd boarded a Greyhound bus, accompanied only by her small collection of belongings stuffed into a suitcase, "K. McCollum" barely visible on the luggage's worn label. The pockets of by far the best pair of jeans she owned contained only her phone, license, a single credit card, and a meager gift card for her to use at the Target near campus. Now, as she gingerly made her way toward the entrance of Howard Hall, she mentally noted every clothing choice that every girl around her had made. What was the "right" way to look? How could she pretend she wasn't just a simple nobody from six hours--and a world--away?
It was at this moment, Kelsie would remember long afterward, as she awkwardly wheeled her things toward the front door of Howard, that Kelsie saw Cooper Deering for the first time.
Cooper didn't notice Kelsie. Not then. It was immediately obvious to Kelsie that this wasn't a girl who, generally, "noticed" other girls. This was a girl to be noticed. An Alpha Brunette for the Beta Blondes to follow--which appeared, judging from the three attentive girls tucked just behind her, to be a literal truth.
Then there was the way Cooper dressed: Her tight university-branded tee-shirt hugged her slender, supple body, accentuating the perfect breasts that Kelsie wished she herself possessed. Below the shirt was the white pleated skirt that somehow descended just far enough, no doubt making every guy on campus desperate for just one more inch of view of the incredible butt hiding underneath. The Perion Predators--the University football team--would be playing that evening in front of 80,000 fans, and this vixen clearly had the perfect gameday outfit already assembled. This was a girl with gravity. Other girls orbited around her, and it was obvious.
"Wow," Kelsie couldn't resist whispering. "Every boy in the stadium is going to be watching her tonight."
"Oh, she won't be wearing THAT!" a smokey voice next to her matter-of-factly replied.
Surprised by the comment--and embarrassed to have been heard thinking out loud--Kelsie wheeled to her right, her milk-white cheeks already flushing red. She immediately recognized someone who she had, up until now, only seen on Facetime. The light-tan skin; the chocolate curls that poured across her shoulders and down her back; the short, voluptuous figure: This was Alexia Ramos, Kelsie's new roommate!
The two had been texting and facetiming for weeks; finally meeting Alexia at Perion had been the single thing about college that Kelsie had been most looking forward to! In many ways, Alexia was everything Kelsie was not. Kelsie was from the heartland; Alexia was from the Bronx. Kelsie was skinny; Alexia's full figure looked positively shrink-wrapped into any shirt or pair of jeans she owned--without looking the least bit overweight. Kelsie was shy; Alexia couldn't wait to talk, in her thick New York accent that Kelsie adored.
If opposites truly did attract, there wasn't a better proof-of-concept than the powerful bond that the two girls had formed so quickly. Now, they squealed and hugged each other, overjoyed to finally be meeting in person. Alexia explained excitedly that she'd already moved in earlier that afternoon and couldn't wait to help Kelsie set up. They'd go to the store in a few hours and pool what little money they had to accessorize their room.
"Wait, about that girl?" Kelsie remembered, turning to watch the gorgeous raven and her entourage proceed down the sidewalk. "What did you mean, 'she won't be wearing that?'"
"Oh." Alexia replied with an eye-roll. "THAT is Cooper Deering. She's captain of the University Dance Team. If you think THAT outfit is sexy, wait until you see her down on the sideline in her dance gear. But you're not wrong. Every guy in the stadium IS going to be eye-fucking her tonight."
Kelsie blushed again. "Alexia, stop!" She had long-since realized from their online exchanges that her new bestie's mouth was going to put her in awkward situations. "But how did you know who that girl was to begin with?"
"Because," Alexia explained, "Cooper Deering is the President of Pi Shop."
Kelsie blinked. "Pie Shop? What is that? A charity or something?"
Alexia laughed. "Um, no. Not Pie with an E. P-I. The Greek letter. As in, 'Pi Pi Pi'."
That, Kelsie knew immediately. Pi Pi Pi. The most elite sorority on campus. The gleaming brick house from which model-beautiful girls descended in their best "year-round-Halloween-slutty" outfits to be frantically ushered into whatever Frat party they chose to attend. Kelsie had consumed every bit of Pi Pi Pi content that social media had allowed her to see. To join this house was to climb the Social Mount Everest. The impossible dream...but that didn't mean that Kelsie (and every other freshman girl) wasn't going to try.
Alexia was clearly thinking the same thing--although, perhaps, for different reasons. "Pi Shop is THE path to dick," she grinned, with a side-eye that was clearly intended to make Kelsie blush again. "Whatever dick you want. Just point, and it's yours." Alexia punctuated her statement with a shake of her butt and a brief serenade: "You get into the Piiiii Shop! You get to lick the lollipop!"
"Ew! Get away from me!" Kelsie laughed, praying that no one else was watching this display.
Soon Kelsie was following Alexia into the cavernous common-space beyond the imposing wooden doors of Howard Hall. The place was a frenzy of activity as students scrambled to situate themselves in a new world.
Kelsie felt unmoored--even more so when her roomie suddenly darted away: Alexia had just spotted a throng of girls who, Kelsie immediately understood, were Alexia's new teammates on the Perion Flag Football team.
Alexia, Kelsie knew, was part of an exciting new movement in college sports: Women's Flag Football, which was now an Olympic sport as well. The same thighs that Alexia no doubt turned boys' heads with were also powerful tools that she'd used to earn herself a partial athletic scholarship. But all of that athleticism was now quickly carrying Alexia away and down the hall. Kelsie was left here, alone, twisting in the wind, in a busy, strange place.
She wandered meekly through the sea of humanity to the large dormitory map on the wall near the stairwell that led upwards into the four-story building. She knew her room was on the fourth floor and quickly located it on the map. Yet she didn't move.
It was as if this map was a tiny cabin in the spooky forest that was Howard Hall and Perion University: A place to hide, to not have to push on alone, to appear as if she was simply occupying herself for a moment until her oh-so-many friends showed up.
After several minutes, as Kelsie stood frozen, practically trying to disappear into the map, she gradually became aware of something.
