Chapter Text
“Damnit” Ashlyn muttered to herself as she ripped the skin off of her fingernail. She quickly put her finger in her mouth before drops of blood could start forming where she just picked at the skin. She looked ahead at her computer screen. A blank email in front of her eyes. Frustrated she closed the computer and walked across her room to her bed. Ashlyn laid on her back, took her finger out of her mouth and continued to pick at the skin surrounding her nail. Tomorrow was her last free day before everything became hectic in her life all over again. The rush of classes, the flow of students everywhere, and the piles of homework. She was typically busy. All the time, constantly having one thing on her plate on top of another. Typically even though she was always this busy, she was bored. Constantly waiting for something exciting or even something horrible to happen to her, just something that would catch her attention. She had made a drastic decision by recently transferring schools and moving across the country, but she was afraid she would still be bored. She put her finger back in her mouth and chewed on her ring fingernail while she stared up at her ceiling. Something about the blank, drab, gray concrete soothed her. Her mind started racing as she looked at the lines in the ceiling. She thought about her parents, she thought about being in a new place, and the more she thought the more anxious she was, and the more anxious she was the more she chewed on her fingernail. She started tasting blood and decided to open up her computer again. Pulling her nail out of her mouth she constructed a short email to her parents:
Hey Mom and Dad,
I’m finally all moved in! The campus is just as beautiful and you said it would be, I can’t wait to see how it looks later in the fall, there are so many trees everywhere! It’s a nice place to clear my head. I think I’m going to like it here. I haven’t met any of my suite-mates yet, I think they move in tomorrow. I heard that they are all juniors too, last time I checked. I am all registered for classes and tomorrow I’m going to walk around and look for a job I think! I’ll keep you updated.
I love you and miss you very much!
Ashlyn
She sighed now that she had that weight lifted off of her shoulders, she knew her parents would be worried if she didn’t contact them soon, they were always harping on her, weather out of love or nagging. Either way it drove her crazy and made her even more anxious.
Her parents were skeptical about her transferring schools right before her junior year, but something about her old college just did not make her feel comfortable. She always felt like the odd one out, and always felt like she should be doing something else, or something more with her life, but she didn’t know what it was. On a whim she decided to put in a few transfer applications to schools that she wanted to apply to when she was first looking for colleges. She lived at home with her parents before, and just went to the community college down the street. But she knew this time she needed to get away and be her own person, and stop being bored with life and try to find something that she could fit in with.
Ashlyn spent the rest of the night thinking about what she wanted to do and who she wanted to be, and just thinking made her anxious. She was sick of anxiety and sick of not knowing. She wanted to be as confident as people saw her. She used to always receive compliments of being very confident and sure of herself, but she couldn’t help but feeling like she was just winging it, and just trying to keep her head above water. Eventually she drifted off to a dreamless sleep with her room still half unpacked and still not an idea with what she wanted to do.
All the transfer students were encouraged to go to a new student orientation with the incoming freshman. Ashlyn knew that encouraged was just a nice word for forced, and that part of the reason why they were here was to stay out of the returner students hair while they move in. She spent the morning listening to the perks of joining greek life, (which she scoffed at, knowing that wasn’t her niche), to the dangers of underage drinking (not something she had to worry about, she was 21), and on campus jobs. She perked up at this, knowing that a job might be something to get her out of her head for a little while. When they were dismissed she walked over to a bulletin board and saw fliers for new student mixers, clubs to join and job advertisements. She wrote down a few phone numbers to call for jobs in the campus book store and at the campus coffee shop. Her eyes ran over the list of clubs to join and rolled her eyes at most of them. She didn’t want to join an anime club, or a comic book readers club, or student government association.
She was walking away when a weird headline caught her eye:
“SOCCER FOR DUMMIES” read the headline. She took a step closer to the ad and read carefully. “Are you really bad at sports but willing to make friends? So are we! Join or club soccer team! Practices are flexible and fun! Come to our info session Tuesday at 6 pm at the student center! There will be food!”
Ashlyn couldn’t help but smile at the advertisement. She wasn’t ever good at sports, but she was always up for making new friends, and she was trying to find a place on campus, and tonight being Tuesday, she figured she would give it a shot.
The orientation was only half a day, so Ashlyn spent the rest of the afternoon walking around campus and venturing about a mile off campus to a small shopping strip to find more places looking to hire students. She walked into a few boutiques and grabbed a few applications, but nothing really caught her eye. She started sweating on her walk back to campus. She wasn’t out of shape at the least, but she wasn’t used to the heat all around her. She was from Florida, where even though it was hot, there was wind and oceans to cool you off. Here in Texas it was dry and flat. She wasn’t used to it, and wasn’t sure if she liked it.
She made her way back to her room, the shirt she was wearing, soaked with sweat. As she walked in she noticed boxes all around her suite and many unfamiliar faces that were red with perspiration and work. She was first noticed by a girl with long brown hair.
“Hi!” The girl squealed as she walked over to Ashlyn, extending her hand and grabbing Ashlyn’s. As Ashlyn went into a handshake the girl pulled her into a hug. Ashlyn was almost taken aback by the sudden friendliness that greeted her.
“My name is Alex!” Said the girl, who had a large smile plastered on her face. “You must be Ashlyn! Kelley, Tobin! Come meet Ashlyn!”
Ashlyn was suddenly swooped into hugs and introductions by her suite-mates, who all appeared to be very friendly and very attractive she noticed. They all smiled and introduced themselves and were very eager to get to know Ashlyn. Ashlyn mumbled off the basic introductions as to who she was, where she was from, how she transferred, before leaving them to unpack.
Ashlyn wanted to make new friends, but just meeting a lot of very excited new people at once made her a little anxious. She hated that she was already starting off this new year, in a new and different place anxious, she wanted it to be different and she was feeling her same cycles coming back to her. She heard music come on from the common room of her suite, and decided to finish unpacking while her suite-mates were unpacking themselves. She hung up a few posters that she had acquired over the years as joke gifts from her parents and friends, like her Twilight poster and Harry Potter movie posters. Things she wasn’t interested in, but reminded her of home. She found her bag with her picture frames and photographs in it. She sat on her bed and laid out all of the pictures in front of her.
She smiled as she traced her finger of the images of her friends from home and couldn’t help but let her glance linger on the smiling faces in the pictures. She had so many pictures of them growing up, at the beach, in Ashlyn’s bedroom and in various classrooms throughout the years. She felt homesick looking at the pictures. She stumbled across one of her and her older brother and the homesickness became stronger and she felt a knot forming in her stomach. She forced herself to stop looking at the pictures and organized them in frames all around the room.
She was in the process of organizing all the books on her bookshelf in the order of how much she liked them, when she heard a small knock on her door.
“Come in!” Ashlyn said, sitting up off of the floor and moving a pile of books out of her way. The face of Kelley popped in through the crack in her door, smiling and looking around Ashlyn’s room.
“Hey Ashlyn! We all just realized that we are running short on school supplies and still need to pick up our books for classes tomorrow, and wondered if you wanted to come out shopping with us? And maybe for dinner afterwards? But if you want to finish unpacking that’s totally okay too!” Kelley said remaining perfectly friendly.
To be truthful, Ashlyn didn’t necessarily want to go. She was feeling anxious again. But she knew to herself that it was her time to change, be more social and different. She she put on a smile and agreed to go with her suitemates to the store.
She rode in the back with Alex while Kelley drove to the store and Tobin rode shot gun. One of the first impressions Ashlyn made of the group, was they were rambunctious, but in a good way. She knew they all had several inside jokes and caught on quickly that these girls have been friends for a very long time. But they were also trying to fill Ashlyn in and make her feel comfortable with them. Kelley put on silly pop music and started dancing around while she was driving and Alex and Tobin danced right along with her. Ashlyn wasn’t that comfortable with them just yet, but was enjoying the group. She learned that all three of them liked to talk, a lot. There were such a chatty and energetic bunch that Ashlyn couldn’t help but feel comfortable around them.
They walked into Wal-Mart so they could purchase the necessities that they all needed for class. Ashlyn picked out notebooks and pens and then wandered around and found her way to the sports aisle. She was looking at different soccer balls and feeling the textures of them. On a whim she decided to add a funky tie-dye soccer ball to her cart. As she turned down the asile she almost bumped into Tobin.
“Sorry!” Tobin said as she caught in eye on Ashlyn’s basket.
“No way! You play too?” She asked as she picked the soccer ball out of Ashlyn’s cart.
“Uhm, not really. But I was thinking about joining the club soccer team that the school has? I’ve never played before, but I’m just looking for new things to do.” Ashlyn stammered as she watched Tobin throw the ball in the air and start bouncing it on her knees.
“You should do that! Alex, Kelley and I all play for the school team. The team isn’t much better than the club team to be honest, but we all love to play soccer! We all played in high-school together and decided to play in college together. You know if you ever want any pointers, we’d love to kick the ball around with you!”
Ashlyn smiled, almost out of relief. “That sounds great” she said as she turned her basket towards the checkout.
The rest of the evening was spent emptying bank accounts on text books and moving furniture around the room. After a dinner of take out chinese, Ashlyn looked at the time and saw it was almost 5:45.
“Hey guys, I’m going to a club meeting, but I’ll be back later tonight.” Ashlyn said, wiping her face with a napkin and standing up. She slipped on her shoes and waved goodbye to her suite-mates and headed over to the student center.
There were a handful of girls there, maybe 20 of various shapes and sizes. Ashlyn grabbed a water bottle and sat down on a couch in the center waiting for the meeting to start. She looked at the swollen skin around her finger nail and started picking at it. The smell of strong shampoo caught her attention, and she looked up into a large pair of brown eyes.
“Hey! Is someone sitting there?” The pair of eyes with good smelling hair asked. Ashlyn was mesmerized. She caught a better look at the girl and saw long wavy hair tumbling down her tan athletic shoulders. She looked up and saw the girl had a mesmerizing smile.
“Uhm.. No.” Ashlyn stammered, unable to get out a better answer.
“Okay, I am now!” Said the girl, as she sat next to Ashlyn.
“Hi, I’m Ali!” She said as she held out her hand to Ashlyn.
“Ashlyn” she said, quickly shaking the hand, and the going back to picking at her fingernail.
“I’m so nervous, I’ve never played soccer before! Only volleyball, but this school doesn’t have a volleyball team, so I’m just looking to try something new!” The girl blurted to Ashlyn, who just smiled and nodded. “What about you, do you play?” Ali asked Ashlyn, who just shook her head. “Do you talk though?” Ali asked laughing. The corner of Ashlyn’s mouth went up into a smile and she looked over at Ali.
“Not when someone else does all the talking for me” She said with a smirk. Ali caught the smirk and felt a blush come over her face. Ashlyn smiled more fully and continued, “I’m new here, I’m a transfer and I’m just looking to get involved”. Ali nodded and smiled.
“I’m a transfer too...” before she could continue with the story the meeting started, and Ashly soon learned that the flyer wasn’t kidding. This was a club for people who couldn’t play soccer. But since she had never played before, she wouldn’t hate them for it. She learned that practices were about an hour to an hour and a half three times a week. And you weren’t penalized for missing practices because it was just a club. Ashlyn took all the notes she needed and went and introduced herself to the girls in charge of the club team, who appeared to be really nice.
Ashlyn turned to leave but felt someone grab her elbow. She turned and saw Ali smiling at her.
“I can’t wait to get to know you better Ashlyn, or to kick your butt on this team, which ever you prefer” Ali said. Ashlyn couldn’t help but smile and respond “You make it sound like doing either one of those would be easy” Ali squinted her eyes but continued to smile at Ashlyn.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at practice” Ashlyn said with a half smile as she turned around and walked back to her dorm, wondering why for the first time she didn’t feel like she was faking confidence.