Angst Read online

  Just then the skinny male faculty member strides in, his tie askew, his thinning hair windblown and messy, launching his briefcase on to the table up front with a clatter and scrawling his name across the white board. Here comes the spiel.

  Mr. Beckwith, Creative Writing 101. I fidget in my seat trying to listen to the professor’s droning first day speech about expectations, class rules about writing, sharing work, and more. He asks everyone to introduce themselves and say what town we live in and why we’re here in his class. When it’s finally my turn I look around the room, attempting to suppress my jiggling leg under the table and the fire that’s creeping into my cheeks, smiling.

  “Hi, my name’s Victoria Sawyer. I live in the nearby town of Stratham and I’m here because I have always been someone who enjoys writing,” I say with a tiny wave to the other students, leaning back in my seat, relief washing over me that it’s out of the way, yet sarcastically mocking my own performance. I’m so amazingly cool and original.

  I purposefully listen with interest as everyone else around the circle gives their names and why they’re here because my stomach is flip flopping like a dying fish and I’m determined that I’m not going to run out of this classroom. I’m not, seriously, I need to pay attention. After introductions are over the teacher hands out the syllabus for the semester and I pour over it, the paper still warm from the copy machine, the ink smeared just a little.

  College is going to be a lot of work. Ugggg. I run my finger over the long list of assignments again, groaning inside. Damn, how much does it suck that my entire semester is already planned out for me on this little piece of smudged white paper? And this is only class number one out of four. Just before class is over the professor announces our first assignment of the semester. Already I’m in the shit.

  “I’d like everyone in class to keep a journal of your thoughts and feelings. You will not be required to turn it in to me, but I will check them at the beginning of every class to see what kind of progress you have made. This will be your place to start writing, to let out things that are bothering you, to find material from things that have happened. Let it be free flowing, don’t worry about complete sentences. I have often found that journaling is an excellent way to start writing, especially if you’re not sure what to write about. I have kept all my journals over the years and they are an invaluable resource. Oh, and one other thing, your first assignment is to tell me why you write, why it is important to you,” he says as students begin packing up their bags for the flight out of class.

  I jump up from my seat as the bell chimes the hour from T-Hall, glad that my first test of wills is over, pushing my syllabus into a new red folder. I’m excited ‘cause for once I’m already doing an assignment that’s required for class. Writing in my journal is a daily exercise anyway and now I can actually get credit for it. Luckily no one will be reading it, I smirk, because some of my entries are not meant for public consumption. I thread my way around the maze of empty desks and follow the crowd of students from class into the sunshine.

  Once outside, I stroll down a shady brick path, pulling out my schedule to see when and where my next class is being held. I’ve still got an hour, what the hell am I gonna do till then? I scan the nearby area, watching students walk by, people laughing and talking with one another, two guys throwing a football to each other. The sloping lawn in front of the library and T-Hall looks inviting and is already sparsely populated with students sunning themselves. It seems like a good bet. I find a sunlit spot, the light filtering from above through long tree branches and decide to people watch for a few minutes.

  Campus is crowded right now, students are everywhere. Girls in tank-tops, short skirts, high heels and other cleavage and long, tanned leg-baring outfits are strutting from building to building, and several girls are lounging on towels outside a dorm building across the street in bikinis, looking bronze and appealing to every guy walking by. Sluts! Seriously!

  The guys on campus are intriguing to watch, too, their eyes darting left and right as they walk down paths that meander through grassy lawns and stands of trees. Apparently there are simply too many interesting girls for them to feast their eyes on and they just can’t help themselves. I laugh, watching one guy almost stumble over his own feet as he gazes at a bikini-clad girl. Horny bastards. Then again, I wish they were looking at me.

  Just as I pull my well-worn journal out of my brand new backpack to begin writing about my first day, my phone rings. As I scramble to answer it, I smile, it’s my cousin Amanda. We’ve been friends for years and years and have kept our friendship alive through laughter and common interests even though we live in different towns and went to different high schools. Amanda is my one of my besties and someone I really trust, but I’ve never told her about my crazy problem. Even those closest to me still don’t know my secret. I’m so damn good at hiding the dirty, ugly truth.

  “Hello, Amanda, my dahling! Welcome back!” I say, accepting the call on my cell phone with a huge grin, drawing my knees up to my chest. Amanda spent her summer vacation in Ireland with relatives and I haven’t spoken to her in several weeks.

  “Helloooo, Queen Victoria, how ahh you?” Amanda replies, using her best British accent, while trying to suppress a laugh.

  “Top notch, mah wee bonnie lassie,” I growl, in a heavily exaggerated Irish accent.

  Amanda laughs. “We did always love doing accents, Vic. So…How’s college life?”

  “Good, if you like spending all your savings on books and knowing ahead of time every assignment you will have to complete for an entire 3 and a half month period. Oh oh, I have some stories for you!” I breathe into the phone with excitement.

  “I’m sure you do Mz. Slutty-pants, but I’ve got class in five. Do you wanna grab lunch this afternoon?”

  “With my favorite beotch? Damn straight! I can meet you at HoCo at 12:30?”

  “Done! See you in a bit!”

  #######################

  My next class is over and I’m meeting Amanda outside the dining hall. Thank God, my nerves are a bit more under control now that I’ve been to a couple classes and am slowly getting used to my new routine. They could be upset in an instant, but luckily Amanda always seems to get my mind off…well...my mind. I spot her walking toward me in a long white linen skirt, large silver earring shaped like leaves, her dirty blonde hair pulled away from her face with clips.

  “Hey ya, Babe!” she says, giving me a huge hug.

  “Hey, doll!” I say, grinning, holding her at arm’s length, to check out her new tan, which only emphasizes the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She wrinkles her nose, smiling a toothy white grin.

  “You’re making me uncomfortable, Victoria, staring at my damn freckles!” she says with a laugh, shaking her finger back and forth in front of my face like a librarian to a student caught talking loudly, simultaneously pulling me toward the doors to the dining hall.

  We walk into Holloway and swipe our student IDs. There are lots of choices for lunch and we wander around the food stations with our trays for a while deciding on what to eat. At last, after making our selections, we thread our way through the colorful, noisy crowd of students, maneuvering our trays in between elbows, backs and arms, to the sea of tables in the dining area. After some searching we finally find seats, squeezing in amongst other underclassmen.

  “So,” says Amanda, ignoring her food and the loud chatter of students around us, leaning across the table, her eyes avid, “I know you must have some gossip to share about your summer and you know I want to hear every single steamy detail.”

  “Indeed I do,” I say with a quirked grin. “You know I always have gossip for you, my little gossip queen.”

  “Yeah so stop talking about it and spill it,” she says, flipping her long hair over her shoulder. I don’t even bother arguing with her and launch into a story.

  “So...you remember that guy from high school who flirted with me constantly freshman year and I thought
he was interested but he ended up dating someone else?”

  “Uhhhh…yeah, Brad something or other right?” she says, picking at her salad.

  “Yeah, Brad Winter to be exact. I met up with him this summer and guess what? Big surprise? He treated me like shit again! You are gonna love this flipping story.” Amanda smiles, her food forgotten again in her never ending quest for good gossip.

  “So…stop dragging your feet and tell me, dammit!”

  “Brad came in to the store while I was working and at first he didn’t recognize me, but eventually he did and it was so awkward! You have no idea how uncomfortable I am around him since he destroyed my feelings all those years ago. Anyway, we started to spend some time together and we ended up fooling around. Thing is, he wanted to have sex and I wasn’t ready. He got all pissy that I wouldn’t put out. I mean seriously, why do guys assume that every girl will sleep with them right away? The bastard actually said and I quote, ‘I’m going to have sex with you at least once.'”

  “What the hell does that mean?!”

  “I have no idea, but isn’t it kind of creepy and weird? It really made me feel like he was using me and maybe it’s because he’s always wanted to sleep with me, like a conquest or something, or to settle an old score.”

  “God, what a freakin creep! So…what exactly happened to end it all?”

  “Ah yeah…mother-fucker invited me to a party on campus, telling me to call when I arrived and he’d let me know where he was and when I showed up and tried to call him, he never called me back! And then he just never called me again. Plus I found out he had been seeing several other girls at the same time. Jerk!”

  “Um yeah…I’m glad that prick never called you. Good Goddamned riddance!”

  “Yeah you’re right. I swear guys are always ditching me because I don’t immediately put out. But I’m scared. I mean, it’s a big deal and why do they deserve it at a snap of their fingers?!”

  “They don’t deserve it, Vicky!” Amanda replies with vehemence, always my staunch supporter in the destruction of what she terms “asshole mother-fuckers.”

  “Listen, Vic, don’t do it like I did with some random jerk-off. You don’t want that. It’s weird and awkward and totally not worth it. You remember Asshole Mo-fo-Ronnie? He totally used me for what he could get and it really hurt because having sex is so personal. At least to girls it is.” Amanda starts playing with the bendy straw in her water glass, her brown eyes suddenly serious instead of laughing. She looks up, her expression thoughtful and a little wry. “Guys seem to be able to remove their feelings from the experience when they want to, but I wasn’t able to,” now her eyes spark, brow lowered. “Victoria, guys are so f-in insensitive!”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I say, leaning my head on the palm of my hand, feeling depressed. I play with the paper wrapper from my straw, rolling it into a ball. “I wish I could find someone who respected me and was nice.”

  “You will eventually…. Hey, wait a minute, I know there are other things that happened over the summer that you haven’t told me yet!” shey says, her mouth curved into a fake pout, trying to get me out of my black mood. I laugh.

  “Yeah actually there are lots of things I have to tell you,” I reply with a sly grin.

  “Oh my God, what did you do?!” Amanda squeals, reading the look I’m sending her.

  “Well there were a few ‘situations’ from work this summer, a couple different guys.”

  “You little slutty whore, you’d better tell me everything that happened!” she says leaning in eagerly, ready to hear the juicy parts.

  “Ok, ok, Miss Bossy!” I say in fake annoyance. “You’re totally right, I am such a hussy!! Well, there were three guys who liked me this summer at work. Are you sure you want to hear this long, long, boring story?”

  “Stop it!” Amanda replies, her eyes huge and insistent, “Stop teasing me, give it up, slut! NOW!”

  “Haha…fine, but you are just as bad as those guys who try to pressure me into giving it up! Ok, so first there was this guy Nick who works in the produce department. He is so hot. He’s not super tall, but taller than me with baby blue eyes and a muscular body to die for! You know how I like the bigger guys with the muscles, and he was all of that and more. Well, to be honest he was kind of a meat-head and full of himself, but I didn’t know that at first. Don’t ask me how I didn’t know. Just don’t.

  “Anyway, I thought he’d never be interested in me and I’d never talked to him before but one day I was working in the booth with Chrissy and she’s friends with him. He called her on the in-store phone and was telling Chrissy how much he wanted to fuck me and what kinds of things he wanted to do to me. Apparently he had a crush on me except I had no idea. Can you believe that shit?!”

  “Holy shit! Who does that?! Are you kidding me?! So…what happened??? Tell me!” Now Amanda’s mouth is hanging open in anticipation. She pokes me in the hand, trying to hurry me along, “This guy sounds like trouble!”

  “Well I was pretty intimidated and thrown off guard when I first heard the things he was saying to Chrissy. But eventually the idea started to turn me on. I mean this sexy guy wanted to do all these scandalous things to me and it was kinda hot. It was like the bad boy scenario and I was interested but also kinda nervous and scared because I figured he was probably a lot more knowledgeable about sex than I am.

  “So, we ended up dating for a little while. There was lots of dry humping in his car, my car, his parent’s house, and everything else but sex. You know Ms. Prude over here, the loser bitch who never gives it up,” I say, pointing to myself. “Anyway, I went away on vacation with my loving family for a week over the summer, you know, camping at the lake like we do every year. I tried to get out of it so I could hang out with Nick all week, but my parents were not having it. So I went. While I was gone, ASSHOLE, decides to sleep with another chick!”

  “No way! Seriously?”

  “I know, men, right? Anyway, I got back home and found out he cheated and that was it. Over. Nothing more. I was pissed! But I’m over it now. I mean he’s a male whore and will sleep with anything. The girl he slept with was fricken nasty too. So gross!”

  “So wait, how did you find out that he cheated?”

  “The girls in the courtesy booth at work told me as soon as I walked through the door the day after I got back. I hadn’t been able to get in touch with him the night before and then it all made sense why he wasn’t answering his phone, the jerk.”

  “Good riddance, where do you find these jerk-offs? God, Victoria, you are such a slutty piece. I can’t stand it,” Amanda says smiling slyly, trying to hold back laughter.

  “Yeah thanks a lot, Nun Amanda the Pure. Anyway, that was guy one. The others aren’t as shocking. There’s this other cute guy at work, Will. He’s ridiculously nice and good looking and he drives a nice car and has a motorcycle and he likes me. I mean he flirts with me all the fricken time, but for some unknown reason I can’t like him. It’s so weird. He’s all the things that I normally like, but the spark just isn’t there. I really tried, too. We kissed and went on a motorcycle ride together, but I just couldn’t like him. He even said to me, ‘Victoria, I have a nice body, I think I’m decent looking, I drive a nice car, I’m a nice guy, what is wrong with me?’ I had no answer for him. It was pathetic.”

  “Ok, ok, I can see that. There are guys that should be good for you, but you just can’t feel it. I’ve felt that way before with a couple guys who liked me. Ok, so that’s two, are there others? You said THREE and I need to hear the nasty stuff!”

  “Well, actually I lied…there might be four,” I say, attempting to hold back the grin that is threatening at the corner of my mouth as Amanda laughs. Amanda is certainly good at cheering me up, enjoying our silly banter, but suddenly I’m reminded of my latest asshole, Brad. Before I can think any more about him and his recent second defection, Amanda is starting in on me again.

  “Skanky, whorish, slutty, bee-otch!” she says covering her
mouth with her hands, her eyes wide as if she’s surprised and shocked.

  “Shut up! Hrmph, you are soooo mean to me! Ok, so number three was just this guy that liked me. He’s nice and so not attractive. I felt bad that I couldn’t like him. But he was a nice guy.”

  “You shut up, that does not count and I don’t want to hear it,” says Amanda covering her ears, her mouth turned down into a fake overstated frown. “I only want to hear about how you slutted around, that’s it. That’s all I’m capable of hearing.”

  “Fine. Fine, is that all you care about?” I ask, feigning anger, my brows lowered, eyes glaring as I try to hold back the huge grin that is hiding under my play acting. “God, I thought we were friends Amanda you gossip-monger.”

  “Just tell me, Tits McGee!”

  “Fine you win. The last one is the worst. This friend of mine from work, Anne, told me about a party out in the woods with a few of her friends. So I went and I got really drunk and I fooled around with this guy simply because he was decent looking and he had on leopard print boxers and I had on a leopard print thong. I know it’s pathetic. Don’t judge me. It was right after asshole Nick cheated.”

  “God, I can’t believe you,” says Amanda, shaking her head, smiling like the devil. “Now tell me the details.”

  #######################

  I like to joke around with my friends, talking about scandal and sex, but sometimes I feel so fake. I feel like I can never express to anyone how I really felt in that moment because no one knows about my problem. I feel so alone. I feel like no one really understands me or knows me. The only people who understand or know are my parents and brother. None of my friends know the truth. They know the fake me, the laughing, joking, sarcastic person who pokes fun at herself and not the person who has a major mental flaw and tries desperately to find someone who understands. I feel like I’m searching for my best friend and a person I can love, the person who can accept me for who I am, so I can finally feel comfortable and let my guard down. I want that so badly. I want acceptance, love, understanding. I want to feel like I am good enough. I’ve had such low self-esteem for so long. I feel ugly, unattractive, different, weird, crazy. I want to feel attractive, sexy, normal, interesting. I guess I’m asking for someone else to make me okay.