With confidence!

Honestly everything went pretty well for the first two weeks. I made it to all my classes. I took solid notes and understood the lessons. While I wasn’t the only goth girl on campus it was rare enough that I definitely stood out. I even became more comfortable talking to Clarissa and helped her study for several classes. Not math, she was underselling her math skills on that first day. She could probably teach the class and the next class in the curriculum too. She was planning on being a theoretical physicist, so I guess math skills were important.

There was still one problem though. I still couldn’t talk to anyone else. Clarissa was in my room, and no matter how intimidating someone is I will eventually get acclimatized to them if I literally spend a good portion of the day with them. Plus she’s just so nice. Even when I get flustered she just brushes it off.

She’s patient too. The other day I got tongue tied and a little panicky while trying and failing to describe the bug I had seen in the women’s shower. Not only was the bug disgusting, I was getting more frustrated because I couldn’t think of the right word to describe it. Multi segmented. I eventually got there and then realized that description wasn’t really helpful enough to justify the effort it took to remember, but Clarissa was really sweet about it. She even got rid of the bug.

But still, outside of the bare minimum I couldn’t hold conversations with anyone but Clarissa. So when she came back today and told me about a party she had been invited to and asked if I wanted to come, naturally I stared at her in awkward silence before squeaking out “yes, of course. That would be lovely.”

She laughed at my nervous slip into a random speech pattern, forgiving as always. “Okay then my fair lady. I shall escort you at 7 o’clock this fine evening.” She said it intentionally obnoxiously, but still looked and sounded beautiful doing it.

And so this evening I changed into my fanciest dark attire, which was the same clothes I arrived in my first day. Of course I changed alone in the room when Clarissa stepped out. She had never seen me change and I had never seen her. I think she picked up on my skittishness and avoided putting me in a situation in which I could embarrass myself. She really was the best, no wonder she was so popular in high school.

When we met up at the stairs, a now common meeting place for us, I was surprised to see she wasn’t dressed much differently from her usual clothes. Large jeans and loose T-shirt looked fantastic on her, but it wasn’t much different than the sweaters she normally wore in terms of fanciness. She was wearing some makeup, something she hardly needed but still looked amazing on her.

“Hey Corvid, you look fantastic. Are you ready to get crazy tonight!”

“Um… yes?” I had almost forgot that this whole deal meant that I was about to face my own personal nightmare. Thank you for reminding me, giantess friend of mine.

“Come on, it’s going to be a great night.” Of course she could always sense my nervousness. We got into her truck, she hated riding in my car as it was a bit cramped, and she drove us… somewhere nearby the campus. Honestly I’ve always had trouble navigating. Thankfully we have navigation apps these days. Clarissa didn’t need one though and we quickly pulled up to a large house with too many people in it. I know my standards may not be normal but come on, there had to be more than 100 people in that house, and more in the yards.

Clarissa got out and came around to my side, opening my door for me. I wasn’t expecting that, but realized I hadn’t made any move to get out myself. So of course she came to help me. I blushed hard with embarrassment, but I’m pretty sure my makeup kept my secret safe. She held out a hand to help me down from her truck, which I accepted with a whispered “thanks.”

I held her hand the whole walk to the house, something that she had thankfully suggested herself in the past since she could tell that I wasn’t very confident in heels, despite often insisting on wearing them. But now I needed the support not just for balance, but also for the stares of strangers as we walked by throngs of partygoers.

Clarissa lead me inside where loud pop songs interlaced with occasional rock and country songs played constantly. She occasionally greeted people she knew from around campus. In theory I knew many of the same people from class, but in practice I had no idea who any of them were. Clarissa eventually politely disengaged from conversation and led me to a couch to sit and pry my strained grip from her arm. I could see scratch marks on her arm where I hadn’t realized my nails were digging into her.

“Calm down girl, it’s ok. Do you need a drink? I’m sure they have something nonalcoholic here.”

“I’m sorry.” I muttered under my breath, trying not to cry.

“It’s okay. You wait here. I’ll get you a drink. The kitchen is right over there, I should be mostly visible through the crowd the whole time, okay?”

“Okay…” I muttered, both miserable that there were this many loud noises and people around me, and that all the confidence I had been mustering up had vanished like smoke the moment I actually arrived at a party. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, changing one’s whole personality can’t be so easily pulled off just by pouring teenage angst into repeated mascara applications over the course of a single summer.

“Hey babe, what’s your name? I’m Josh.”

My eyes snapped to the man identified as Josh. He looked nice enough. His opening line was clumsy and presumptuous, but clearly he meant it in an unserious goofball manner, something his messy brown hair and easy grin helped sell. Nothing about him seemed dangerous at all, and he looked like he was a little concerned for me. I realized I had curled my legs up on the couch and was hugging them, so his concern was not surprising. I needed to protect my cool goth girl image, before it was forever tarnished. So naturally I hugged my legs tighter, closed my eyes tightly, and said “I’m fine” at a volume I couldn’t even hear over the music.

“Are you okay? Do you need me to call a cab for you? Do you have a friend here with you?” I began to suspect Josh was the host of the party, and a responsible one at that. Which really made me feel bad that I just tightened my already closed eyes and shook my head.

“…no to which one?” Josh quite reasonably asked.

“Hey I’m back. Hope you like Pepsi.” Clarissa arrived and very pointedly sat between me and Josh.

“Hey, is your friend alright? The party is still pretty early but she may need to call it quits. I can call a cab if you’ve already been drinking.” If Josh wasn’t the host then he better be getting paid by the host because he was hosting the shit out of this party.

Opening it in front of me and handing me a can of Pepsi, Clarissa turned to Josh. “I’m the designated driver, so we’ve got it covered, thanks. We’ll be leaving shortly though, thanks.”

Both times she said thanks it very much sounded like “fuck off and die,” which was surprising. Clarissa was always so sweet and understanding. Josh took that as his cue to leave, but I suspected his hosting skills would lead him to keep on eye on me till I left.

“Are you okay? He didn’t hit on you did he? This was a mistake. I’ll take you home. Are you ready?” I took a long swig of Pepsi to calm my nerves, then put it down and nodded my head. I reached out to grab her arm to steady myself as I stood up, but then hesitated. This wasn’t just my first college party, I was ruining this for Clarissa too. Before I could really work through this new thought Clarissa reached down and fully picked me up in a princess carry.

All thoughts left my head as Clarissa carried me out of the party to her truck. She opened the door without putting me down and then placed me directly in the passenger seat. She then closed my door and went around and entered the drivers seat. Still flustered by the dramatic rescue, I just sat there and stared at her. She eventually reached over and buckled my seatbelt for me, which flustered me even more as I really should have calmed down enough by now to realize I needed to do that before she could drive anywhere. We sat in silence for a bit as she drove us back to campus.