Sam woke up in a good mood, which was very unusual for him. He couldn't remember what he dreamed about. It must have been a good one. He was chipper all the way out the door of his dorm room and on the way to his first class. He knew that this feeling would be crushed soon enough. Today was another date in the corridor with Tricia.
More often than not, Sam was a "gay" friend. He was a normal heterosexual male in every sense of the word. It's just that he always seemed to get trapped within the dreaded "friend zone." He was a good listener. He was a shoulder to cry on. For some unknown reason, girls would tell him things that they didn't tell their closest girlfriends. But, they would never accept a date if Sam asked them out.
Currently, his heart was aching for Tricia. She shared a few classes with Sam this semester. She was only about 5'2", but she was adorable. Tricia had soft brown hair perpetually tied back in a loose ponytail with two loose strands arcing around her ears. Her black eyes always twinkled with the happiness that her smile consistently radiated. She had a well-proportioned figure for her size. Sam guessed that she had B-cup breasts bordering on C-cup. When she wore a tight shirt, Sam had to try with all of his might not to slip his hand around one of them to prove that they would fit within his palm perfectly. And with college came a little bit of an ass to Tricia. She didn't have a big posterior at all. Just enough so that she had the perfect hourglass figure. If looks could kill, an alley cat like Sam would have wasted all nine lives by now.
Although, looks aren't everything. Sam had learned that lesson in his 21 years on Earth. What really got his blood rushing was her personality. She had that happy outlook on life that Sam sorely lacked. She was cynical enough to share Sam's hate of the frat-slob, drunk-off-his-ass, party-animal dickheads that proliferated on all college campuses. And she was always quick with a joke or good comeback. Sam had never had banter with anyone like he did with Tricia.
As with all things that were too good to be true, she had a major flaw. Of all the offensive 4-letter words in this world, none was more upsetting to Sam than the 9-letter "B" word. Tricia's boyfriend since high school. Sam had never met the guy. Tricia had shown him a little picture of them dressed for the high school prom. Jamal was good looking, athletic, dreadlocks... Sam couldn't compete. He really couldn't. He wondered if Tricia only liked black guys.
At first he tried to stay away from Tricia. Out of site, out of mind. The problem was that she kept chasing after Sam. If he moved to a different corridor to wait for class, she would seek him out and sit with him again. She liked talking to him. He liked talking to her. Neither of them could deny the friendship. It was just killing him that he could never be anything more than her "gay" friend.
As he entered the hallway where his next class took place, he could immediately see that something was wrong. Tricia was staring off into space. It wasn't until Sam sat down next to her that she halfway turned her head and gave him a weak smile. She looked sadly into his eyes as he settled into place on the floor.
She wasn't saying anything so Sam had to make the first move. "Hey."
"Hi." Something was definitely wrong. Her voice was deflated. The sparkle in her eyes wasn't there. Her smile was even showing little signs of life.
"Are you OK?"
She broke her gaze from Sam and looked straight ahead. "Not really."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No. My boyfriend and I had a fight."
"Ahh." She was going to talk about it, of course. Sam knew how her conversations worked.
For the next fifteen minutes she went into lengthy and vivid detail about all of the actions taken after the initial argument. He had visited her last night and they had quite a fight about something. It looked to Sam that they might be done for good. He noticed that she skillfully avoided telling him what they were fighting about in the first place. Sam listened to her sympathetically. He only showed her a caring face and a warm expression. Inside he was jumping for joy. His heart went out for Tricia with her painful ordeal, but this was the opening he had been dreaming about.
When she finished telling Sam how Jamal had thrown her against a wall on the way out of her dorm, Sam put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a little hug. Tricia rested her head a little bit on Sam's shoulder. Sam moved his extended hand a little bit to rub her upper arm.
"Ow."
Sam stopped moving his hand.
"Sorry. It's just that I hurt my arm there when he pushed me into the doorknob."
"Sorry."
"No. It's not your fault."
Sam needed to keep this contact going. He couldn't let her get away from him today. "Do you want to skip class? Get something to eat in the cafeteria?"
"Yeah. That sounds good."
He took his arm back and helped her off the floor. She walked slightly behind him as they made their way to the school cafeteria. Breakfast had just ended so it was fairly empty. There were still some scraps of breakfast left out, but they both decided to forgo any food. Instead they both got some coffee.
After they both had some coffee flavored sludge in them, Sam decided to ask the big question. "So. Umm. What were you guys fighting about in the first place?"
Tricia looked over his shoulder for a second apparently lost in thought. Then she looked down into her cup. "Well... you know, I told you that I'm still a virgin. I'm saving that for marriage."
Sam did remember that conversation. He felt a lot better knowing that she and Jamal had never been "lovers." It was also a big turn on that she talked to him about something personal like that.
"Yeah. You told me that a few weeks ago."
"Well. He said that he needed to 'test the merchandise.'" She looked back up into Sam's eyes.