PREDATORS. EAT. PRAY.
The trees across the Perion Campus were nearly barren. Winter was right around the corner. The temperature had dropped. The student body had bundled up...
...And HATE was in the air.
UDW Week had finally arrived at Perion University.
UDW. The University of the Divine Word.
The private, religiously-founded academic institution that rested a mere 30 miles from the Perion campus.
Home of the UDW Paladins.
Hated rivals of the Perion Predators.
Perion vs. UDW. It was one of College Football's oldest traditions...and it marked, each season, the final regular-season football game for each team.
This week--or any other week, for that matter--Perion students could travel over to the university bookstore and purchase official, Perion-licensed "Go Predators! Beat the Paladins!" shirts. They could even find a few pieces of Perion-sanctioned "I'd never let my child go to UDW!" apparel.
But these weren't the shirts that actually sold.
These weren't the shirts that were purchased by the caseload from unlicensed, off-campus dealers. The shirts emblazoned with the play-on-words anthem that was as ingrained in the mind of every Perion student as the Perion fight song was.
The shirts that at least 200 of the 500 students sitting in the lecture hall today for Kelsie McCollum's Introduction to Psychology course were proudly sporting. Each shirt dyed royal blue...with those three proud words stamped in gold across the chest.
PREDATORS. EAT. PRAY.
Kelsie didn't know much about the game of football itself...but she nonetheless understood, with crystal clarity, exactly what mattered this week.
The Perion Predators tackle football team had dragged itself to a half-decent season. Yes, there had been that slump in the middle, and no, the team hadn't looked tremendously impressive while escaping with tight victories over the past several weeks. But this had been precisely the kind of season that so many Perion fans were familiar with: The kind of season that would ultimately be defined, for better or worse, by how the team played in this game, this week.
And as Kelsie knew oh-so-well...this glaring reality applied just as strongly to Perion's starting quarterback as it did to the team as a whole.
Unfortunately--both across campus and within the sporting media--people didn't seem to think that Chris Weathers had a great performance left in him this season. It was obvious to everyone who watched the Predators play that Chris remained unfocused and tentative on the field.
Only a select few, of course, continued to understand the stressors that were really at the root of his problems.
Chris was, Kelsie knew, caught in a vicious Catch-22.
If he played better football--and over the past two weeks, he had, indeed, improved slightly--that performance was likely to re-energize the interest of a certain Pi Shop vixen.
Which it had.
Cooper Deering had begun to regularly message Chris again. She was prodding now, clearly looking for updates on his father. She had no doubt decided that she was sick of answering questions from her sorority sisters about when she'd next be seeing this giant boy...who might still, apparently, have a future in professional football after all.
And, of course, the return of Cooper Deering into the life of Chris Weathers had only made Kelsie's man more stressed, and more worried about Kelsie's well-being...and all of this, of course, was only going to make it more likely that he performed poorly in his most vital game of the year.
This would have all been bad enough on its own...but it got worse.
Chris's parents, previously too nervous to come watch him play for Perion in person, would be attending this week's home game against UDW. His father, in particular, wanted to support Chris during what would be, thus far, the most crucial moment of his college career.
Which meant that Chris's Dad would be sitting with the other Perion fans within the Predators' stadium...very much not sick, very much able to talk, and ultimately, very much right there...right where the emerald-eyed Captain of the Preditorettes dancers could see him--and then realize that Chris Weathers had been lying to her for more than a month.
In other words: The Kelsie McCollum & Chris Weathers train was about to run out of track.
They both knew it. They'd both been obsessing over it. They had no idea what to do about it.
And, in Kelsie's case, this was an ordeal that, lately, she had been enduring alone.
Chris was now practicing and preparing for the UDW game nonstop. Kelsie had barely seen her man in days. The rest of the members of Kelsie's tiny social circle had been just as absent from Kelsie's life; they were now just as occupied as Chris was--In their case, occupied by lust.
Recently, the only friend Kelsie had seen more of than usual was Erika Lim...and that was only because Erika now attended nearly every Perion Flag Football practice...so that she could glue her eyes to Jacqueline Sullivan, her new romantic partner. Jason Lim, meanwhile, remained just as present at Perion practices as ever, and he was just as invested in Alexia Ramos's presence as Erika was invested in Jacqueline's.
To quote Bridget Orikeke: "Eye-fucking my teammates is now a Lim FAMILY activity!"
And, of course...outside of Flag Football practices...Kelsie almost never saw Alexia, Jason, Erika, or Jacqueline. For very obvious reasons.
Alexia and Jason were now attempting, daily, to melt the walls of Brain Residential College with the heat of their sweaty, nasty passion, within Jason's electronically enhanced dorm room...or, as Kaykay called it: "The FuckTrix".
As for Jacqueline and Erika: Who knew where they were every day? Jacqueline's dorm? Erika's dorm? The off-campus apartment for "Kelsie and Chris" that Jacqueline had, after all, paid for, and had every right to use?
Wherever the two lesbian lovers were tasting each other's bodies every day...it certainly wasn't anywhere near Howard Hall or Kelsie's dorm room.
And so, even now, surrounded by hundreds of other undergrads within this cavernous lecture hall...Kelsie McCollum felt alone. And scared. And more obsessed with UDW Week than any other Perion student, for reasons that other Perion students couldn't possibly grasp.
As the day's Intro to Psych lecture reached its conclusion, the course professor remained at her lectern to make a special announcement.
"First things first!" she began. "PREDATORS?"
"EAT PRAY!!!" the lecture hall thundered in response.
"Well done!" the professor returned. "I'm sorry, none of you get special course credit for that! But you have all done your proud duty as Perion students!"
"Now, moving on..." she proceeded.
"...I know that you are all aware of today's special after-class lecture..."
The hall broke into a mixture of cheers and whistles.
Kelsie had completely forgotten. There had been so much going on in her life that she had overlooked a semesterly event that was quite well-known on the Perion campus: The notorious Psychology of Human Sexuality lecture.
There was no grade to be earned by sitting in on this after-class lecture...but that didn't stop it from being one of the most popular academic offerings at Perion University. Students who weren't even enrolled in Introduction to Psychology would drop in after the normal lecture and remain for the entirety of the two-hour presentation that followed it. The reason, of course, was the subject matter.
Sex.
The lecture was devoted to discussing how men and women could react very differently in various sexual situations. The goal was to educate Perion students on sexual biology...so that these students could then apply this understanding within their own romantic relationships.
Don't blame your partner personally for something that is hardwired into his or her biology! Understand your differences so that you can appreciate and work through them!
Kelsie had been incredibly interested in listening to this lecture, given the nuclear explosion that had recently occurred within her own sexual world. She had simply forgotten that it was scheduled for today. But now that she had been reminded, Kelsie was most definitely sticking around. If anything...she simply needed the distraction.
And so, for the next two hours, Kelsie remained in her seat, and listened to the full presentation...
...And then, about 90 minutes in, during the discussion of one particular topic...
...The seed of an idea sprouted in Kelsie's mind, and then took root.
Now, the idea wouldn't go away.
No matter how hard Kelsie tried to shoo it from her thoughts.
It was ludicrous.
It was reckless.
It was, honestly, a quite distressing concept, in-and-of-itself.
But as Kelsie departed the lecture hall, and marched through the cold November air to catch the end of Flag Football practice, she was plagued by one overpowering thought.
This was something.
And Kelsie had nothing else.
**************
"Girl..." Kaykay ventured, "...Are you HIGH?"
Jacqueline, for her part, was briefly at a loss for words.
"...Look, Kelsie," the fire-haired model-quarterback finally managed. "Let me be clear here: I am very, very grateful to you! The LAST time you had a very un-Kelsie-like idea, it worked out EXTREMELY WELL for me! But, um...THIS ONE?"
Kelsie's cheeks were a deep red. She stared, embarrassed, down at the grass of the Flag Football field on which she was now standing.
"It could work...maybe..." she mumbled.
"Yes, Kelsie!" Kaykay exclaimed. "Just like I COULD go back to Howard Hall and find Michael B. Jordan in my bed waiting to stick his tongue in my pussy! What COULD happen and what WILL happen have a way of not being the same thing!"
The blue-and-gold-braided athlete, sensing that she had overstepped, reached out her dark arm and put her hand on Kelsie's shoulder in sympathy.
"Kelsie," Kaykay offered, "This definitely is a good idea for SOMEBODY! Like...ME, for example! I just don't think it's a good idea for Y'ALL!"
Kaykay withdrew her hand...then used the same toned, muscular arm to deliver a punch to the shoulder of the curvy Latina standing to her right.
"Alexia...a little HELP here?" Kaykay demanded.
Alexia Ramos didn't respond.
Instead--as the eyes of her teammates and her blond bestie shifted toward her, expectantly--Alexia stared off into space, lost in thought. Her tanned brow was furrowed. Her focus was deep.
The conversation tailed off...as Kelsie, Kaykay and Jacqueline all watched Alexia furiously assemble the pieces of a mysterious mental puzzle.
Alexia finally looked up.
Kelsie could now detect a slight gleam in her roommate's eye.
"But, what if..." Alexia began slowly.
"What if...it DID work?"
"WHAT?" Kaykay exclaimed. "Alexia, you're not helpi--"
"THINK." Alexia interrupted. Now she was looking up at Jacqueline. "THINK about it, Jacq..."
"...What if it DID WORK?"
Now it was Jacqueline with a glint in her jade eyes as she appeared to slide together the pieces of her own mental jigsaw.
Kaykay remained flummoxed.
"What's with you two? What am I not--"
Alexia grabbed Kaykay with one hand and Jacqueline with the other. She dragged her teammates away from Kelsie, threw her arms around them, and huddled with them as if they were preparing a Flag Football play.
For several minutes, Kelsie watched as her athletic friends conferred in animated, hushed tones. As the conversation proceeded, the eyes of the brilliantly-shaded trio grew progressively wider. At last, the three stared into each other's eyes and shared a uniform, resolute nod.
Alexia, Kaykay, and Jacqueline broke their huddle and returned to stand, with pregnant intent, in front of Kelsie.
