But I Don't Want To Be The Center Of Attention

"I'm sorry folks," boy-Kim called out, clearly more reticent about the plan than girl-Kim who was still giggling with glee, "Wouldn't be college if we didn't get a little bit of hazing in on the freshmen. But I promise that's the last trick we'll play."

"Absolutely," girl-Kim continued, completely unconvincingly before holding up her hand in a salute, "Scouts honor."

Fuck me. This week was going to be a minefield.

My first task when they let us grab our stuff was to pull my hoodie back on over myself. I didn't care that I was drenched, didn't care that my shoes were literally squelching as I walked and didn't care that my hoodie was getting soaked from the inside, I just wanted to be sure that people weren't going to stare at me anymore.

But it seemed that ship had sailed.

Fully half the guys in the group were glancing at me from time to time. I saw a few of them talking in conspiratorial whispers and then glancing over at me. Some of the girls were doing that too, don't get me wrong, but their reasoning and motivation was clearly coming from a different source.

So when the Kims announced a three hour break before the next event I couldn't dash away quickly enough. Even if I knew that I wasn't going to get away for long, I could at least get away for long enough to catch my breath and spend a few minutes in a place where no one wanted to look at me.

And that almost made the idea of the next event bearable. Almost, but not quite.

"It's a retro dance party!" boy-Kim had announced, as if we would be super thrilled about the prospect of that.

"Dress from a time that you're not!" girl-Kim had explained, with basic grammar clearly beyond her ability.

And when Eddie piped up with an unsurprising question she did clarify. Attendance, unfortunately, was mandatory.

I didn't want to go. I didn't want to be doing this. I knew that I could skip it and realistically there was nothing that would happen to me. Technically none of this was mandatory, I could skip the whole rest of the damn week if I wanted to.

Maybe I would because honestly none of it seemed appealing to me exactly and I didn’t see a compelling reason to keep putting myself into these situations.

Hazing. Those fucking nightmare visions of a future I could barely begin to understand. Misunderstood by people I like and don’t like alike. Stared at and leered at by the last people in the world I want to see me.

I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew that before I made any decision at all I needed time to catch my breath.

I was heading out across campus towards the place I was going to live. It was maybe a five minute walk from the edge of the large campus, a little mid-century home on a quiet street just off a main thoroughfare. At this rate I'd be there in maybe ten minutes which wasn't much in the way of notice for my landlord but given the unpredictability of my schedule it was all the notice I could give to him.

So I pulled my phone out of my pocket, grateful that somehow it was still functioning in spite of the drenching, and fired off a text to my landlord. I got two back in response.

No wait, not in response. I got two texts back and they were from two different numbers and neither of them were in the text chain that I had with my landlord.

Blake and Rachel. Both of them were texting me.

Flipping from one to the other was an object lesson in how the tone of a text can come through very differently depending on who sends it. Because remarkably, both of them had managed to text the exact same phrase down to the letter.

"What are you wearing to the party tonight? Maybe we can match?"

From Rachel it came across as fun and friendly. It was her extending a lifeline to the girl who seemed completely out of her depth and maybe needed a little bit of help. It was the first step on the path to friendship.

But from Blake there was a curling sense of intention behind it. I could almost predict that if I responded to him I'd find him asking for pictures and sending a few of his own, ones that would likely involve little to no clothing.

Honestly I should have done two things right then and there. I should have texted Rachel back and engaged, told her that I wasn't sure and asked her for suggestions and maybe had a little help.

And with Blake, well I should have blocked him and deleted his number.

But I did none of that. I just slid my phone into my pocket and pulled my hood up tighter as I walked towards my new home.

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