Super College Clash

Students choosing colleges in their junior or senior year of high school usually fall into one of two categories; those who actually want to do something productive with their education, and those who would rather spend those four precious years partying, drinking, and getting laid. Those that choose the former are normally the less popular kids, studying rather than socializing, taking Honors courses, and trying to learn as much as they can about the subject they wish to study. Those that choose the latter are usually the complete opposite; top of the social pyramid, stylish yet uncaring, and more concerned with that new top at the mall or game day tickets than studying for a history exam. Sometimes there is even a third group that flip-flops between studying and slacking, and that is where making a decision gets difficult. Colleges look for high scores, and those who study get into the top schools without breaking a sweat. Those who think that school is a joke might just take 2 years of community college and then see what comes next. But there is that special breed of teenager who does well in school, yet arrives at college and completely flips their behavior. Those are the type of people that I cannot stand.

Now that all of the assumptions and accusations have been laid upon the table, let me tell you about myself. My name is Evelyn Mendelson, and I attend Redford College in Amboy, Illinois. I was pretty popular in high school – not enough to become Mean Girls material or enough to be surrounded by a posse of loyal followers – but I was able to make friends easily and was always one of the first people to form a partnership when a class called for it. And before you jump to conclusions, I am not one of those air-headed slackers, the ones who are too concerned with a social life to study for their exams; I actually got into college on my grades alone, since I barely participated in any clubs or organizations after school. Although I snuck by with B’s in all my classes, my SAT’s were pretty stellar, and the combination of both scores secured me a spot in a good quality college. I had done extensive research on Mayfield University, my first choice, imagining taking my communication courses in the beautiful but modern buildings and talking with all my friends who had already been accepted. However, since they required a paper about all the community service I had done over all my high school years, and I had done no community service, I was denied. I was pretty distraught, but I wasn’t going to let that get me down. There had to be some other option.

Redford was a school that was talked about in those parent groups that moms join, all the women gabbing about how their son/daughter loved it there and how they came out of the college with a job and a bright future. After doing a fair amount of research on their website, I found out that they had a really good communications program and a wide variety of internships, which I knew would impress my parents. I was accepted almost right away; they liked my good grades and personal essay, which I was actual pretty proud of. My mom and I bought everything we had to for my half of the dorm – I had been assigned a roommate named Candice – and I even helped her pack everything into the car on move-in day.

Hours before I stuffed myself into the back seat, I took one more look at my disheveled room, with its scattered magazines, messy shelves and dresser, half-opened closet empty of clothes, and various blankets and stuffed animals strewn about the floor. I had been living here for 19 years of my life, cried on the sheets of my bed, wrapped myself in those spread out blankets on cold nights, and read all of those books and magazines several times over until my eyes stung. I was going to miss this place so much, but the prospect of making my own space away from my parents excited me enough to cut through my fog of nostalgia. Tossing the duffel bag on my arm up into the air, I shut off the light and closed the door gently, the metal knob feeling cold on my palm.

The campus that we approached looked very old and historic, with reddish brick walls standing against the light blue horizon and trees just starting to turn yellowish from the chill in the air. The silver-tone plaques on the class buildings were engraved with the different subjects that they held inside or the name of a particular building, which generally corresponded to a founder or funder, past or present. But the most interesting thing to me was the dorm set up. After I had gotten my key/ID combo and heard the generic “welcome to our college” spiel from the upperclassman at the table, I was allowed to go back to my dorm and finally unpack everything that was burdening my parents’ arms, legs, and backs.

The four residence halls were arranged in a kind of big semi-circle, the plaques reading Frengle, Pronter, Readfern, and Winklin from left to right and not looking uniform in the slightest. I was assigned to Frengle, Room 205, and that residence hall looked stout and short, like a man who liked food a little too much for his own good. Pronter was long and skinny like a gentleman, Readfern had a small hallway between its two medium height parts, and Winklin was completely ordinary and reminded me of nothing but a rectangle. Long story short, my roommate was already in there, we said hi, became very quick friends, and in a week’s time, I was starting classes in a new environment that promised excellence. But there was one crucial part to Redford that was missing from their website; it was a party school.

Remember earlier when I mentioned those students who completely changed their behavior when they entered college? Well, Redford seemed to hold a majority of them, and they were relentless. These weren’t just the “let’s-have-fun-and-get-to-know-each-other” parties organized by the faculty or a club on campus, where only light refreshments were provided and generic pop songs were played through broken speakers on the wall. These were the drunken parties that made colleges famous, the ones that caused car accidents, accidental pregnancies, and general destruction of property on occasion. It wasn’t something that an academic board wanted to post on their school’s website: “Come here for lots of wild parties, and we’ll make sure that you feel crappy in the morning!” The strangest, and probably worst, part of all of this is that the parties were never caught by police officers, teachers, or student snitchers. They were either held in a remote area of campus so that the sound couldn’t be heard for a good, long distance, or they were held on the weekends when all the teachers had left for their nice warm houses and decent morning coffee.

I thankfully did not give into this raucous culture, having never been much of a party person despite my popularity and the numerous invites in high school, but my roommate unfortunately did when a mutual friend invited her to a party in the basement of Winklin within the first week of school. She became hooked on the alcohol and meeting new people, usually coming home drunk most nights or with a boy that she “felt was the one.” The couch in the residence hall common room probably has a me-shaped indent in its cushions because I have slept there so many nights while Candice did…who knows what in our dorm room. Her GPA crashed into the ground, her mood switched between ecstatically happy, depressingly sad, or fumingly angry, and contact with her parents started to deteriorate, along with her mental health. Seeing her behave this way only made me reject the ideas of college parties further; I had a 3.7 GPA and my teachers liked me, so I was not going to jeopardize that for one night of “fun.”

Then what am I doing sitting here on this stained, ripped couch in the basement of Pronter, flanked on each side by a vigorously smooching couple, eating each other’s faces while in various stages of undress?

Candice’s incessant pleas to come with her, her insistence that it would be fun and good for me, and her offers to take care of my entire look echo in my head, which is impressive since the music around me thudded like I was in a giant heart. “You’re no fun, Ev! You’re, like, gonna love it there, and everyone is super friendly!” I can hear her squeak as she dances around the room in a short blue cocktail dress and white sandals with a 3 inch heel. Her hair is in perfect ringlets, her eyes are thickly lined in my Maybelline Master Precise eyeliner, her cheeks and eye lids are the same color of magenta, and her lips are the color of a ripe cherry. She looks like- and I don’t mean to sound rude – a whore. She had been grilling me for 3 hours now, including over dinner and while she was getting dressed. Finally after holding out for so long, I finally sighed and gave in; she had worn me down and I couldn’t take another hour of her voice telling me that I was “a lame, grumpy stick-in-the-mud.” The sound that came out of her mouth was far from human as she dragged me off my bed, almost breaking my wrist, and stood me in front of her so that she can assess my condition.

Now, I buy a lot of stuff from Hot Topic, Spencers, and Macy’s, but I put them together to create my own style. I love Gothic prints, flowy fabrics, leather, and anything in darker shades, though I do have a few lighter pieces to balance my closet. At that point, I was wearing a one shoulder black skull t-shirt with ripped sky blue jeans and blue flats with a leather jacket, casual but stylish and comfortable to boot. But Candice would have none of it and stripped me of those garments within minutes, shoving me into a strapless amethyst dress with a black cinch and detailing that was slightly longer than her own dress. She grabbed my black heels and slipped them on me as her hands reached for her hair care stuff. I held out the fabric and sighed; the only good thing about this outfit was the color. Dresses aren’t really appealing to me and neither were bust cinches, but I didn’t have time to dwell on that notion because Candice dragged me over to her and sat me in front of the mirror.

Candice pulled back my wavy hair, which had crimson dye up to my ears and my natural blond on top, and brandished her straightener, giggling to herself as she plugged in the tool and waited for it to heat up. Coughing a few times into my arm, I closed my eyes and tried to stay still as she got dangerously close to my scalp with the iron, passing over each section with precision and speed. She really wanted to get going. After my hair was straight and my face was covered in equally whorish makeup, she dragged me out the door and locked it, jumping and skipping down the hall like she had won the lottery. I followed her cold, unsure, and slightly pissed, mostly because she still had my wrist in the vice-like grip of her fingernails. I looked at my wrist and saw the red scarred marks that lay on the skin, sighing and shaking my head.

The room I am in currently can only be described as “brash.” As mentioned before, the music is shaking the walls and my eardrums, wanting me to fall off the couch from its vibration. It isn’t even good music; it’s a bunch of offensive rap tracks promoting twerking and grinding on girl’s fronts and rears, which a majority of the partygoers are already doing. The speed of the colored lighting could kill an epileptic, and the colors themselves look like a 5 year old threw their paint set into the projection system and waited to see what happened. Blues and oranges, pinks and greens, and yellows and violets are all blending together into a soupy mess staining the dance floor and walls. All of these pitiful pieces are controlled by one guy at the DJ booth, his black hair over one brown eye and his red headphones hanging around his neck loosely. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was being controlled by a puppeteer because his movements are spazzy and over exaggerated, like he’s trying too hard to be energetic and happy. Even if he isn’t happy himself, the cheers from the crowd and the chorus of off-key singing certainly tell me that the guests are having the time of their lives.

I take a look at my glass, swirling the last of my Shirley Temple around the bottom, and try to ignore the overpowering stench of alcohol in the air. Thank God they served non-alcoholic drinks and that I kept my cup with me the entire night; I have heard of too many rapes on college campuses caused by beverage-soluble drugs, and I am not going to be one of those many. However, it is getting very hard for me to concentrate on staying calm when the couple on my right is pushing me into the couple on my left, the girls’ dresses almost off completely since without the sleeve the guys can just push them down. The sound of their kissing isn’t too pleasant either. Eventually, I can’t take it anymore, so I push them away, stand up, and walk out of the room, glancing back to see that both couples are lying on top of each other without care, pressing their intoxicated lips together in blissful ignorance.

The contrast between the party below and the steps leading to the first floor hallway is staggering. Here, there is barely any noise at all besides the reverb of the music behind me and the muffled sound of the air conditioner above me. But other than that, there is complete and utter silence. It is like I am in one of those sensory deprivation chambers that people go into to clear their minds from stress, except it is a much larger area and I can move around freely. In a moment of wonder, I place my hands against the wall and rub my hands downwards, the paper not pounding against my fingers like it was in the basement, and I can clearly hear myself think. Looking down at my dress with a hand still against the wall, I silently curse myself for agreeing to come here, the whistles from the drunken and sober guys alike echoing in my head. Oh, did I mention that the boys were whistling in my direction? I shake my head and sigh exasperated.

“Well, well, well…looks like Ev finally got dragged to a college party,” a voice sounds behind me, my heart jumping out of my chest as I straighten up. I knew that voice anywhere. “Now her straight-edge life can be sprinkled with a little fun.” I whip around to see a tall, slightly tanned young man in a navy blue checkered shirt and dark wash jeans, his sun-touched brown hair combed to one side and the toe of his black Converses gleaming dully in the light of the first floor.

“You’re an asshole, you know that, Jace?” I roll my eyes and chuckle, punching him in the arm forcefully and then tucking a bit of hair behind my ear.

“Yeah, but you should expect that after so long,” he laughs back and punches me back, placing one hand in his pocket and smirking.

It was true; I should expect that. Jace McGovin, arguably the most honest boy this side of campus and the cockiest freshman around. We met in Calculus I, when the teacher made the class participate in one of those idiotic icebreakers so that she could learn our names and something about us. Jace’s turn was a little after mine, and he stated that he could put both feet behind his head and lift himself on his hands at the same time. Naturally, most students thought he was bluffing, and they were thoroughly amazed when he actually was able to do it. We talked after class, me calling him a freak for his ability and him calling me a weirdo for the collection of beer bottles I created from my dad’s many trips to the liquor store. Although I have amassed over 120 bottles, my dad is not an alcoholic; he just enjoys “tasting what the world has to offer”, as he would say whenever I asked. Over the first semester, Jace and I grew to be the best of friends, sharing each other’s jokes and complaining about schoolwork and teachers. The second semester started, and he had a different class schedule than I did, but they ended at the same time, so we could talk between and after classes. I was tolerant of his faults and he was tolerant of mine. In short, he was a fantastic and infuriating person to be around.

“I’m assuming this is all Candice’s fault?” he extends his hand to the side with a knowing gaze, only nodding his head as I nod mine. “Figured. She would be the only one to own a dress in that style.” He looks at me with a chuckle and a sigh, sitting down against the wall as I sit against the opposite wall and gaze at my feet.

“I don’t get it. Why were her pleas so effective this time? I’ve been able to hold her off before, but it’s like she was aiming a battering ram at my head.” I make a fist and pound it into my other palm several times, each hit accompanied by a verbal bam.

“Maybe you wanted to go to this…” he looked at the door and laughed, “eloquent soiree.”

“Pfft, and you came to the party to meet the Queen of France.”

“Who says I didn’t? The queen is a party animal when she gets the chance to be.”

“What would she be doing here at the college anyway?”

“Probably checking up on the dean to make sure he doesn’t screw up. I mean, after what happened a few days ago…”

“Wait, what happened?” I say eagerly, getting on my hands and knees and crawling over to him.

“I don’t know if I should tell you Ev,” he teases, punching me in the arm, “I don’t want to ruin your innocence with the terrible, unsavory events of the head of our school.”

“Really, Jace?” I simply raise an eyebrow and smirk, which causes him to immediately break out into laughter and lean back against the wall. It is a loud, harsh, high-pitched cackle, and I can’t help but join him. Hey, even ugly laughs can be contagious.

“O-OK fine, I’ll tell,” he manages to get out through sporadic breaths as he puts a hand over his chest. He calms down and then lowers his voice as I lean closer. “So I was walking by the dean’s office when I heard a drawer closing inside. Naturally I wanted to take a look, so I placed my body against the wall, poking my head out so that I could look through the window. The dean was looking from side to side, taking something out of his pocket and sitting down at his desk. I couldn’t read what was on it, but I’m pretty sure that it was a Playboy magazine or some other magazine like that.” With another laugh, he added, “I even took pictures so that I could have proof. The girl on the cover was really pretty…and totally naked! Wowza!”

“You would think that was cool,” I roll my eyes and place my hands in my lap. “But seriously, the dean was reading porn? We better not let anyone else know that, or else he’ll get fired for sure.”

“I don’t plan to tell anyone…that is, unless I have to blackmail him for a higher grade or something.”

“You’d really do that to him: blackmail? That is low, even for you.” I shake my head and face-palm, imagining Jace walking up to the dean’s office with the pictures, a smirk on his face as he demands that his history grade be raised from a C to a B. He just doesn’t have a head for people or dates; the numbers and names always get jumbled in his head, and I have to help him study often.

“Hey, a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do,” he shrugs nonchalantly and looks up at the ceiling, admiring the patterns in the tiles as I admire the patterns in the carpet on the floor.

“So, why are you really here, queenly reasons aside?” I ask, sitting up straighter and adjusting my dress over my legs. The air-conditioning was starting to get to me, my skin forming goose-bumps as I tried to rub my arms for warmth.

“Well, Alpha Beta Delta came here…” Jace started.

“The fraternity that you have been pining to get into?” I question, moving a bit closer to him so I wasn’t directly in front of the air conditioning vent that was conveniently positioned across from me on the other wall.

“Yeah, that one,” he said as he let out a sigh and looked towards the door. “Well, it turns out that initiation includes doing a keg stand and jumping off the top of the building, and I do not want to be a part of that. More than 20 initiates are in there right now, hanging upside down with tubes in their mouth or preparing to jump off the 4^th story balcony.”

“Oh god, really?! That is ridiculous!” I say concerned, “Nobody should have to go through that to secure a spot in Greek life.”

“I know, right? No part of my glorious figure is going to be messed up tonight. I worked too hard on my hair and my clothing style.”

“Oh, thank goodness. I thought you actually had morals.” I laugh snidely and jump back as the door slams against the wall and a drunken girl, one shoe off and her bra showing, stumbles a few steps before passing out on the rough carpet. I poke her with my foot gently, her body not moving, and turn my head quickly towards Jace.

“Is she OK? Should we help her?” My voice cracks a little as the sound of my heartbeat fills my head. I turn my attention towards the girl again and see her chest moving up and down very slowly. At least it was moving.

“Yeah, we should probably get her inside. After all, we wouldn’t want these boozehounds to have their party ruined, now would we?” Jace asked, his words playful but his eyes hiding a sort of genuine concern for the girl. “Is there even an empty area in there where she can rest?”

“The couch that I was sitting on should be clear by now. We can lay her there. And remember, on her side, not her face or back.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know what to do.”

I nod with an eye roll, hearing the nasally student advisor go over why drinking and drugs are bad for the “general health of all students, faculty, and accompanying guests” in my head. I agreed with their policies, but after the second time of hearing the same lecture, it had become boring. It didn’t help change the student’s perspectives either, as evident by the party inside the lounge still going strong.

Crawling over to the girl, I take her heart rate and slip my arm under her head, making sure to support it so that it wouldn’t loll to the side. Jace crawls over a few moments later and slips his arms under her shoulder blades and back. Standing up slowly so that my heels didn’t twist the wrong way and break, I help steady the girl’s limp body and carefully walk with Jace into the dark, loud, seizure-inducing storm.

Luckily, my instincts are correct and the couch is empty, the two couples nowhere to be seen. We lay the girl on the stained cushions – a soft area away from most of the noise was better than a clean dangerous area - and watch her arm drape over the front, the placid features of her face smudged with makeup.

“I think both of us should just leave!” I yell over the music, cupping a hand to my mouth. “Maybe play some video games after we change!”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea!” Jace yells back, “Since I didn’t get accepted into the frat, I just have my normal housing!”

“That’s good! I’ll meet you there! Do you have the new Super Smash Brothers?”

“Hell yeah! I have only played a little bit of it, so you finally have a small chance to beat me!”

“Ha! I will destroy you!”

“In your dreams!”

I punch him in the arm, and he punches me back, both of us laughing for a little bit before he waves goodbye, turns around and leaves. Nothing that we had said would ever matter to the people grinding on each other, but to me, it meant that I could have fun for the first time in a while. I turn towards the door and start to make my way out as well when a cold hand grabs my wrist, the nails digging into the red scars harshly.

“Let me go, Candice!” I yell loudly, not even having to turn around to know that my roommate is standing right behind me, a half-empty bottle of tequila in her free hand and a torn skirt that showed the right side of her underwear. I yank my arm away, but her daggers made sure that I wouldn’t leave without crimson casualties.

“Nuuu, stay wif *hic* meeeeee…!” Candice slurs as she spins me around, and I can see that her hair is a tangle of knots, her face looking more like a Jackson Pollok painting than a makeup application. “U gogssta have funi stuff…herrr *hic* drunk thish tahap yuuu r *hic* relasss and shuuttt!” She swings her arm over to me, offering me the tequila bottle, and I push it away politely. She swings it more violently at me, and again I refuse, backing up a little. The bottle is thrown directly at me the third time, causing me to duck so that it doesn’t take my head clean off, and I hear the familiar shatter of glass on carpet.

“What is going on, babe?!” an unfamiliar male voice yells over the music as a pair of arms wraps around Candice’s waist, and the head of a young man with amber eyes and greyish black hair appears on her shoulder.

“I was just about to leave actu-” I start before Candice places a cold hand against my lips and looks up at the mystery boy, whimpering a little bit.

“Seh dosnt wanna have f *hic* fun wiffus…she wansa be a spolsprot an leaf! Shesa maen *hic* maenie…!” Candice then leans over and vomits on the carpet, the smell of stomach acid hitting my nostrils with such a force that I have to cover my face and turn away.

“If you stay *hic* around for a little bish, you’ll see that isht’s pretty *hic* fun here,” the boy holding her explains, no doubt intoxicated as well but holding his liquor better than a majority of the partying students. “Come on, jusht take a little drink, and then *hic* you can feel what isht’s truly like to lose your stress and worries!” He holds out his drink, a golden brown Sam Adams that looks like it has barely been touched, and smiles at me, the heavy stench of alcohol on his breath as he leans in closer. Candice is pulled along with him, a combination of gastric juices and drool dripping from her lips.

“No, really,” I insist in a firm tone, “I want to leave! I hate parties like this, and I feel uncomfortable. I am fine if you want to stay here, but do not force me to stay.”

My comment is received with a hard slap to the face, my right cheek burning intensely as I cover it with my palm. It felt warm and wet, and I panic a little as I glare at a growling, shivering Candice.

“Yuuu runnin evrythin fro meeee! Evrtime I wansa do somefing f *hic* fun, yuuu gossa bae a stack inthe muss! Yer a bissssssss *hic* a bitssssssh, and I hat yuuu summush!” The ever growing red of her face is accompanied by a string of profanities and insults, eventually ending in a kick to the shins and a swig of his beer. She staggers off on the arm of the mystery boy, his eyes glaring angrily into my soul as I stand there, the warmth dripping between the spaces of my fingers and down my opposite wrist.

My ears ring as I rush upstairs, down the hall and out the door, my lanyard and ID lightly thudding against my chest as my heart pounds. The cold air hits me like a ton of bricks, and I let out an exasperated breath as I look up at the starless night. The warmth is still dripping out of me, so there is no time to waste. I walk quickly to Frengle, swipe my ID, and rush inside, shivering as I sit against the wall. It is quiet, almost too quiet, and the only sounds that can be heard are muffled moans and the static of the TV in the common room. My hand-muffled breaths join them soon enough.

I don’t know what kind of finishing product Candice sealed my makeup with, but trying to wash off in the bathroom is a nightmare; I have to use three cleansing towels to remove it from my face, and even then the eyeliner still slightly stains my water line. The blood that had been trickling down my arms - I had discovered that Candice had given my cheek four deep scars in addition to the scars she left on my wrist– comes off easily enough in the shower, but the actual injuries are a pain to bandage. In the end, my wrist feels mummified and my cheek looks like I had been the victim of an animal attack, since I cleaned but never covered it. At least I am now dressed in more casual clothes, which equates to a pair of red plaid pants, a loose cobalt top, and a pair of plain black flats with red insoles. My gradient hair now sits in a ponytail, wavy and smooth like it should be, and the black half jacket that hugs my upper arms feels natural. I sigh deeply in relief, grab my phone and ID/key, and head out the door, locking it behind me.

“Whoa, what the hell happened to you?!” Jace exclaims as he opens the dorm building door and takes a good look at me, “Did you slice yourself with your razor or something? I knew you were clumsy, but I didn’t know you were that bad!” He laughs and lets me inside, closing the door behind me as I sigh and glare at him.

“No. Candice gave these to me,” I roll my eyes and sigh again. “Apparently, she thinks that physically injuring me is a surefire way to make me stay with her at the party.” He stares at me for a few moments, and I swear I can see a tongue of angry fire lick his blue eyes.

“Does this happen often?”

“She always keeps her nails filed to points, so yes I have gotten several bruises and lacerations from her over the months. I mostly get them when I try to wake her up for class and she is hungover.”

Jace takes my wrist in his palm, his eyes darkening for a few seconds before they return to normal and a smirk appears on his face. “Well, a couple rounds of crushing defeat in Smash Brothers will fix you up!” He laughs and drags me to his dorm room, I following with an equally energetic laugh.

His room is messy and cluttered, but I’d be more appalled if it suddenly became clean and neat; Jace didn’t like straightening up his room, and with no roommate to berate him about it, it could get as disheveled as he wanted. The TV sitting on the small table against the wall already has the title screen of the game playing on its screen, slightly obscured by a pair of light wash jeans, hopefully clean. I eye Jace and grab the blue controller, as per usual, flipping it in my hand before I press the “A” button to advance to the game select screen. He grabs the black controller and sits beside me on the bed, bouncing a few times to get comfortable before he smirks.

“Are you ready to play, Ms. Mendelson?”

“Bring it on, Mr. McGovin.”

I select Zelda and watch the box under the character list light up in my color. Jace chooses Snake, watching his color appear as well. We both don’t know who to pick for the computer characters, so we set it on random and the game selected Luigi and Ness, the sounds of completion ringing around the room as we both laugh and stick our tongues out. Once the battle started, however, it is all business; I pull off as many combos as I can, knocking Luigi out of the running as quickly as I can with a few good kicks and a Power Move. Jace takes care of Ness, though it requires a little more effort, and soon it is just the two of us facing each other. Hits and misses are exchanged over a period of time, my teeth pressing into my tongue so hard that I think that it might just start spurting blood. Snake wins, pulling off a pose as I fall over onto the bed, my effort exhausting me as I breathe sporadically.

“I told you that I’d crush you!” Jace grins as he looks at me, pushing the hair that fell out of my ponytail out of my face. However, it almost seems like he is doing it…deliberately, with more care than normal. I raise my eyebrow in confusion, but another round starts and we are back into the fray. We keep the same characters, knowing how they work now, and battle it out until there is just the two of us again. This time I am able to finish him off with a series of kicks and Power Moves, he throwing down his controller and letting out a cry of anguish.

“Aaaugh, how could you defeat me? Hacks, I call hacks!” he exclaimed in mock anger as his yelling turned into laughter.

“Maybe you’re just losing your touch…” I coo with a grin as he stares at me with determination.

“No! Impossible! I can’t let that happen. We must go one last time, to break the tie and see who the better player between us is!”

“You are on!” I exclaim and select Zelda, waiting for Solid Snake’s box to light up as well, but after a few minutes, it was still not selected. I turn my head to face Jace and see him staring at me with a strange expression. He seemed to be looking at my cheek scars, no expression on his face as he bit his lip.

“Yo, earth to Jace!” I wave my hand in front of his face, and he instantly snapped out of his stare, shaking his head and looking at his controller.

“Sorry, Ev. I was just staring into space for a moment. I thought I had already selected.” He almost sounds embarrassed, which is unlike him, but I don’t really tease him for it. After all, if anyone was caught staring into space, they would get pretty flustered too.

“Well, pick Snake and let’s finish this! I want to show you that I can whoop your ass at a game for once.”

His determination seems to come back as he smirks, selects Snake, growls under his breath, and presses Start. The stage is set, the characters are in place, and the battle of the century is about to commence between a solider and a princess, with early deaths from a green plumber and little boy.

The latter two characters are knocked out pretty quickly, each of us picking a specific character to tackle so that neither one of us would be knocked out before the other. Then it is down to two, and I look at Jace with determination, and he looks at me with the same expression. The sound of mashing plastic buttons fills the air as we ruthlessly battle, me landing a few good blows on him and he countering with a few good hits of his own.

We are both low on lives, about to perform our final moves and see which one of us prevails, when the game pauses. I click my pause button, trying to restart it but finding that I can’t, which means that I didn’t stop the match. I turn my head to face Jace, and he is sitting there with his controller in his lap, just looking at the TV and then at the controller.

“C’mon, you just gotta press the pause button again and the match can continue,” I explain, reaching over to the remote but instead having my hand grabbed by his tightly. I look up and find that he is staring directly at me, his blue eyes wide open and his mouth straight. With his other hand, he pushes down the hand that is holding my remote, my fingers releasing it slowly. His free hand grabs that hand as well, his fingers rubbing gently along the back of it as his face grows closer to mine. And then he kisses me.

My heart starts to flutter as his warm lips meet mine, tasting of Sprite and raspberries, and I kiss back passionately, closing my eyes. It feels amazing, and I lean closer in the hopes that I won’t be rejected. I’m not, and he lets go of one of my hands so that it can travel to my back and pull me closer to him. I place my hand on his back as well, running it down his spine as I smile. His face starts to get warm against mine as I can sense that he is smiling too. Eventually the kiss ends and we both sit back, me nervously giggling and he nervously laughing as we stare at each other.

“H-have you had those feelings for a while?” I ask, my body trembling a little bit.

“Y-yeah, I have,” he responds just as shakily, “and you kissed back, so that means that you feel the same way about me.”

I nod gently, placing my hands on the bed and letting out another nervous giggle.

“So, do you wanna…?” I start

“Nah, I don’t really feel like playing anymore,” Jace responded, looking at the controller. “Do you want to watch a movie instead?”

“Can I chill here for the night as well? I don’t want to deal with my roommate tonight.”

“Please stay.”

I nod and look at him, blinking my hazel eyes and seeing him blink his blue ones. There is only one thought on my mind, and I can tell that it is on his too.

“Abstinence?”

“Agreed. Just cuddles and kisses.”

“Thank you,” I smile and give him a light kiss on the lips as I blush, and I see him flush too.

“So, who wins?” I ask casually, looking at the screen and then at him.

Through his blush, he manages to say, “I think in this situation, we both do.”