Ch. 1: Alexis

Chapter One— Alexis

MyFriendJack

Alexis from Texas

This isn’t how I’d pictured my life when I was younger; when I was innocent, naive to the atrocities of the world. I was promised I could be anything I wanted to be. Dreams of Prince Charming coming to sweep me off my feet. I believed in the power of love and thought divorce was something that only happened in books and movies. I even thought I was going to have my older sister with me throughout my life, but that was taken away too.

All of these childish beliefs ended up being nonsense, mere lies to make this world seem magical. Why would you tell your kid all these nice things when really you’re setting them up for failure? Maybe it was just me. Other people seemed to have this ‘life’ thing down. I felt robbed.

I’m the only one I know who thinks this way. I wish I didn’t because everyone else thinks I’m a headcase. However I do have one friend who accepts me for being mentally strange. It’s not my therapist, either.

In class on our first day in college, I was joking with Jess, my only friend, but I think it came out way too loud—

“I’d like to thank Google, Wikipedia, Red Bull, Vodka, and whoever invented copy and paste, for if it weren’t for them, I’d never have passed high school and wouldn’t be where I am now,” I exclaimed.

All four people in class looked at me like I was a nut-job. The last syllable had made its rounds bouncing from wall to wall in the giant auditorium classroom until it faded away leaving nothing but a dead silence. A sort of dreaded silence one would be haunted by after a deafening gunshot.

Luckily, one person laughed. Oh yes, of course it was Jessica. The five of us were the only students who came to the Creative Writing 101 class. Apparently, we didn’t get the memo that all the freshmen were meeting somewhere off campus at this time. Off fraternizing, while we, nerds, stayed here. Not even our teacher was present after handing out a syllabus and going over what she expected of us.

I was already starting off as a loser this year, but that was merely the cherry on my cake today.

“I don’t get it. Everyone says college is the best time of your life. So far it’s been the most stressful thing ever. And it’s only the first day!” I said in a mild yell to not disrupt the other students who looked like they had this whole college thing down, filling out paperwork and reading textbooks. I wanted to slap them.

“Oh don’t be so dramatic Alexis. If you just do what I do you’ll be fine,” Jessica said in her narcissistic tone. I had been waiting all day for her question, then it came, the inevitable, “Are you going to that thing tonight?”

I knew what she was talking about and there was no way in hell I was going. I can’t stand any type of social situation. My anxiety always gets the best of me and I start to lose my shit. It was all from Nick. After we had broken up, my social skills had run away and joined a circus, while my anxiety grew to a ravenous beast. A monstrous werewolf with whaling teeth, and making matters worse, every night being a full-moon.

“That lame excuse for a party for freshmen? I don’t think so,” I replied. She was referring to the freshman Meet & Greet Party the school held so some freshmen don’t feel alone. It was a party made for people like me and probably the others in my near vicinity.

However, I was content on being alone.

I have felt alone most of my life.

Ever since…

“—Oh come on Alexis, you realize nobody is going to know talk to you this year, let alone, know who you are if you don’t participate in these things.”

She was right. She was always right—according to her. Plus I had told myself I was going to try to do things differently this year. I wasn’t going to be the huge nerd I was in high school. No way was I going back to that—I would sometimes go days without saying a word to anybody then come home crying because nobody had talked to me.

No, not again. So, if that meant going to nerdy meet ‘n’ greets, so be it. I gave Jess a “maybe,” so she left my desk with a snarl that unknowingly had shown her snaggletooth she was insecure about. I sunk in my chair and laughed in silence behind the frustrated frown I’d had all day. She then gave me the ‘you better go’ look once class was over.

I mimicked her voice like a child without a well-developed enough brain to come up with a witty comeback. That was fine with me. I planned on making friends one way or another way this year—with or without a lame school-run party. How? I wasn’t sure yet. Get back to me on that.

Jessica had been my best friend since our freshman year of high school, even though we were sort of in a rough patch right now. We had both gotten full-rides to the school of our dreams. In high school, we were both new to the school of Lake Travis, which on the outside looked more like a 4-Star hotel. We had both joined the swim team and became friends after a tiny mishap between us.

The high school was swarming with rich kids with nothing better to do than drive their brand-new Range Rovers or Cadillac SUVs. All of them complete with massive, shiny rims and unnecessarily loud sound systems—courtesy of their loving parents. Well, mostly my dad. My parents were in the middle of a separation back then. They’re divorced now. I turned eighteen just in time so I didn’t have to choose a parent to stay with.

I’m not saying my family and I weren’t rich or dirt poor back then. Far from it. I mean, we did have a nice house and lived in a gorgeous neighborhood. Plus I was enrolled at a mansion they had called a high school. I guess you could say, I had fit right in with these kids, except I didn’t get a nice, expensive car on my sweet sixteen.

On my eighteenth birthday I had received a used pick-up truck. It was a tad-bit beaten up but I believed it had given it personality. Still, it had a maroon paint job and everything had worked fine. After the eight weeks it had taken me to learn to drive a stick, I loved it.

I know eight weeks is a long time to learn how to drive a stick. I just wasn’t able to figure it out. I mean, I could drive it once it was in gear, but getting it there from idle was like battling a dragon solely with a stick. However, the day had come when I had done it: It shifted into first and I got so excited I forgot to keep shifting, so I had to pull the truck over for the thousandth time. It was dumb, I know, but my dad and I were super excited I had done it finally after so many tries. I’m a great driver now.

Now that I had a truck I drove it everywhere, including a few miles to downtown Austin, TX from my hometown of Lakeway. Austin is home to the University of Texas, my dream school, where I had received a scholarship for a two-year ride from swimming. I am an excellent swimmer. I always have been ever since I was four and first stepped foot in a pool.

Well, my uncle, Todd, had accidentally knocked me in when my sister and I stayed at him and my auntie’s house. That was the year everything had changed…