Admiring Myself

I grab the front of my tank top, at the bottom of it, and bundle it up. It cinches a little tighter around me and hugs the curves of me an inch or two above the waistband of the shorts I'm wearing.

All told it has the effect of highlighting just how petite I am as well as showing off a little bit of the flatness of my tummy. A little line of skin that entices and draws in, bringing the eye to me in a subtle yet undeniable way.

It makes me a little harder to miss and god I think I like that. I don't want to be the center of attention but maybe one day I could see that for myself. I could see myself being more than just a wallflower.

Center spotlight. All eyes on me.

Not right now but this is a start. It's a beginning of accepting the possibility that maybe destiny had a hand in things here. That I was right where I was meant to be.

This morning was entirely free. I guess the powers that be who were in charge of the schedule were well aware of the likelihood that the first night of freedom combined with a dance party would probably lead to inevitable hangovers for more than a few freshman and so they'd decided to make it so that none of us had to be anywhere timely until the early afternoon.

For my part I had woken up without a hangover but I'd also woken up late enough and then dallied a bit in my bed afterwards so that a free morning wasn't quite that much of a free morning for me as it was a free hour or two after I'd managed to make and down some breakfast.

God, I had forgotten how good it was to wake up without any kind of real schedule. I think that's a part of college life that you never truly appreciate until it's in your past.

The house was empty, Lucas having either gone out to get something or gone out to give me space in the hopes that things would be less awkward when we came face-to-face again. I did give a passing thought to what that would be like, and not just him either.

I thought of Blake and how hard it would be to be around him. Lucas at least had the forethought and the good grace to give me space but Blake would do nothing of the sort. Rachel at least I had plausible deniability with. But the same couldn't be said for either Lucas or Blake.

And certainly not for Eddie.

Eddie who maybe I was looking forward to the least because with him I'd said the most. And while Lucas might be looking for a way to get into my bed without crossing a line, Blake might be looking for the nearest line to drag me over, and Rachel might be looking for ways to give me the strength to cross those lines myself, Eddie was something different.

Eddie knew too much, because I'd said too much. And in the back of my mind I knew that was something that I'd have to address and explain at some point. That at some point I'd have to tell him how I knew all about him, about his family about all of that.

And frankly the only good answer I had, the truth, was the one answer I couldn't reasonably say.

At least I didn't have to worry about that too much. Our group wasn't due to get together again until the tour of the city tomorrow, so I could theoretically spend the whole day without having to see him or address this at all and that was a good thing.

It meant I could focus on the more important matters at hand. It meant that I could search for answers.

And as far as answers went, there was one clear place I could think of to start. Because if you're trapped in a maze and looking for a way out, someone who'd been there before was probably the best guide you could ask for.

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