She is beautiful. Everything I'm not in the looks department. Tall and thin with a cute face. An upturned nose and rosebud mouth. Wavy, beach blonde hair. She's the quintessential hot girl. I'm slightly overweight, and my greenish gray eyes are too close together.
Even if she were in my league, she's straight.
I'm straight too. At least I always thought so. Now I'm not so sure,
Angela Wright.
It's her talent that attracts me more than her looks. She's a creative writing major, and every time I read any of her work, it blows me away. She has a way of describing things that I'm not able to do. She's a master at showing rather than telling, and using words in ways that elude me. One word from her seems to be able to convey an entire range of emotions, whereas I tend to be verbose, requiring paragraphs to get the same feeling across. She'll probably be a best selling novelist before we graduate.
For me, writing is a hobby. I wish I could major in it. Really focus on it and create something meaningful and profound, but my parents insist on a "safe" major, so I chose computer science. It's ok. I probably wouldn't be very successful at a writing career anyway. It's better for me to stick with numbers and data.
Angela looks my way, and I snap my eyes back to my laptop. We're supposed to be doing a writing exercise where we imitate the style of a famous author. I have Emily Dickensen. I wonder who she has.
"Alright now, finish up your prose and have it in by 5:00 on Friday." the professor says, looking at the clock in the back of the room. He's a short, balding man in his 60's, and has had this job far too long. I bet he's been assigning and grading this particular exercise for 30 years.
Computers close, book bags are thrown over shoulders, and a collective murmur erupts in the room as everyone flies out of the lecture hall.
I follow the herd out double doors and onto the quad. Angela catches my eye and smiles.
Shit.
I quickly look away, wondering if she is going to call me out for staring at her in class. I hope I don't make her feel uncomfortable. That's not my intention. It's just that I admire her so much. I wonder how one person can have both talent and looks. I bet she's great at athletics too. Great at anything she tries. She was probably a popular cheerleader or a volleyball player in high school.
"Hey!" she calls out, and I turn around. "I really liked what you said about the Peterson article today." she says in a sort of sing-song, reminiscent of a valley girl voice.
"Um, thanks." I mutter.
"You're right about how biased it is," she continued. "I wouldn't have seen it as propaganda before you pointed it out."
"Well, it's religious, so..." I blush. I hope she won't be offended by my comment. Oh God, what if she goes to church 3 times a week? I should have just said thank you....
"I think you're really smart." she tells me. I sigh with relief and shrug with a hint of annoyance. She means it as a compliment, but I don't take it as such. Everyone says I'm smart. I'll always be the slightly plump, dirty blonde who is just a little bit too good at math. Most of the time I just want to disappear. I guess that's why I like to study; so I can disappear into books and away from reality. I also wear black all the time for the same reason: to fade away figuratively if not literally. I'm not talented, beautiful, or athletic. I'm book smart, and that's it.
"Thanks." I reply. "I think you're really good at writing." I return.
"Really?" she asks, genuinely flattered, like she has no idea. Like nobody in the history of ever has told her that.
"Probably the most talented in the class." I tell her, I mean it too. Every time we have a writing assignment, the professor gives us another student's writing to critique. I've read about 10 other stories over the course of the semester, and hers is not only good, but it sticks with me.
We all had the same assignment: to write about a trip, real or imagined. She wrote about a trip to the supermarket to buy flowers. I actually feel sorry for whoever had to read my story about flying to the moon. I tried hard to make it from an astronaut's point of view, but it fell flat. I know it did. Like I said, I'm smart, so the details were accurate. There were too many details though. I had mostly thrown them in to show I had done the research, but it bogged the story down. Creativity, the story fell flat.
I can tell she is genuinely surprised to get a compliment. "Are you going to lunch now?" she asks.
I wasn't. I was going back to my dorm room to take a nap before I had my data structures class, but now that the pretty hot girl is speaking to me, sleep all of a sudden doesn't seem important. "Sure." I tell her, and we walk towards the cafeteria.
"I can't stand the food at this place." she says once we get our treys, find a table and sit down. "It's basically garbage on a plate." she tells me sticking her fork in her veggies like it's offensive.
I come from a family that considers boxed mac and cheese home cooking, so the food tastes fine to me. There is green salad, mixed veggies, and some kind of chicken pot pie, which I like, but agree with her anyway.
We talk about class, college life, Mr. Williams the creative writing teacher, and then come around to the topic of her boyfriend, Cameron.
I don't really want to talk about Cameron. He's probably a jerk. He certainly looks that way. "We've been dating since freshman year." she says and shrugs.
"Well, he's very handsome." I tell her. Maybe if I say so, she'll get off the subject of her boyfriend and I can pretend she's single and can have her to myself.
Cameron really is handsome though. Definitely one of the more good looking guys I've seen in my entire life. He's tall and athletic with dark hair. He's the type of boy who was probably cute from the time he was born and never had an awkward phase between then and now. Nothing like me, who was awkward at birth, and will stay that way as a lifelong sentence.
Thankfully, Angela didn't want to keep talking about Cameron, so I gratefully let the subject drop and we went on to other things. I find out Angela is from New York City and grew up going to broadway shows and the symphony. Her father is a Russian immigrant, and her mother American. Somehow they got together in college, got married and had two girls. She loves all things high fashion, and modern, and seems to genuinely miss the hustle and bustle of the city.
I tell Angela a more glamorous version of my growing up. I tell her I come from a big family with five kids, all of them my biological siblings, and no twins. I'm the second in line. My older sister is two years ahead of me in age, and the youngest, (the only boy) is 6 years younger than I am. I talk about how nice upstate is in the summertime, and the beautiful colors of fall.
I leave out the harsh winters, how my parents work all the time to keep a roof over our heads, and how our tiny house was too cramped and loud most of the time. Nothing is ever clean, and I almost had to go to community college, except I managed to get a great scholarship, thanks to my grades and financial hardship.
As she listens to me give a sanitized account of my life up to now, I notice how blue her eyes are. How rosy her mouth is, and her thick long blond hair enchants me. It comes down to the middle of her back, and spills over her shoulders in gorgeous waves. I don't think my own thin, stubborn dishwater shade could grow past my shoulders, even with the most expensive treatments and serums to coax it along.
In the next few weeks, we become good friends even though we don't have much in common on the surface. She is a gorgeous creative writing major who is effortlessly talented, and I am a super nerd who majors in computer science and can't write anywhere near as well as she can.
Still, we discover we never run out of things to talk about. I want to know what she thinks about everything. I want to tell her about my day, and even adjust my schedule so that I can eat meals with her and bump into her after classes more often.
After a while, I reluctantly get to know her boyfriend, who I actually like, and ultimately determine he is no real threat to my relationship with Angela.
He's a genuinely nice guy. I had assumed he was an asshole, given his looks and membership in a frat: but after spending some time with him, I honest to God don't think he knows he's attractive. He has more depth than to think his looks define him, and is even kind of a nerd underneath his cool guy exterior. I find out he has an artistic streak too, (which I like), is from California, and enjoys D&D and other card games deemed nerdy by the cool kids. He doesn't care about coming across as nerdy though. It's what he likes, and he's fine with it.
I also find that when he talks about something he is passionate about, he becomes the biggest nerd in history, morphing into someone who practically tripped over his words with excitement. I think it's endearing.
I sometimes wonder why the most attractive couple in the entire University want to hang out with me, but decide to go with it. They clearly liked me. Both of them, and I liked them. They didn't seem to care that I wear glasses and my fashion sense all but screams I am a child with hand me down clothing. They don't care that I don't come from anywhere glitzy or glamorous, like California or New York, and that I am slightly overweight while they are trim, slim and athletic looking.
Then one day, Angela asks if I was going to one fo the big frat parties. "It's Cameron's frat" she said, "Wanna come?"
I had never been to a frat party. I know, I was a sophomore then, and it seems unbelievable that a college girl in her second year wouldn't have been to a party, but for some reason, going to a beer fueled sex fest never appealed to me. I had tried drinking a beer in the dorms with friends in their rooms, but decided I wasn't really into the party scene. I guess I saw myself as above it, opting instead to stay in the dorms watching YouTube videos in my down time. Besides, I HAD to do well. As a scholarship student with parents breathing down my neck, I couldn't risk throwing all that away. Hell, I even lived in the "quiet" study dorm. Still, since Angela wanted to go, I thought "why not?" After all, you only go to college once, and it's just one party.
I wasn't sure what to wear, but Angela assured me less was more, so I pull out my one pseudo risque outfit. A black dress I would typically wear with leggings, (but didn't this time), and put on some black flats, since I am never truly comfortable in heels. I also smear on some lipstick and mascara, deem it good enough, and leave the dorm feeling pretty good about myself as I head towards the noisy frat house.
As soon as I set foot inside, I spot Angela. She looks fantastic in a fire engine red dress and heels that make her seem as tall as I am.
She thrust a beer in my hand, and then we start dancing with a big group of her friends. Some of them I recognize from class. I think they are all creative writing majors, or English lit majors anyway. People destined to teach English in middle and high schools when they graduate.
It seems as though she and her friends are making a show of touching and grinding against each other, and I notice the frat boys are looking at the girls with wide eyes, wanting to get in on the action. I have to admit it makes me a little uncomfortable, but it turns me on too.
After a few beers, I started to feel a little woozy and began to loosen up a little. Everyone else was too, from the looks of it, and I even saw a couple full on making out in the corner. That was when Angela screams something I couldn't understand.
