Gravity's Rainbow

“Dude, what happened to you last night?” Mary asked the next day as I exited my dorm room.

“I, uh, wasn’t feeling too well,” I muttered in response, adjusting the strap of my bag as we made our way down the hallway and outside into the bright light. I had over-compensated on the makeup this morning, hoping to hide any signs that I hadn’t returned to bed until midnight – for some people, that may have been an early night, but for me, well, I may as well have not slept at all.

“That sucks,” scoffed Mary, before waving to another girl who was walking in the opposite direction. “The rest of the party was mad fun, though.”

I forced a smile to my face. “That’s good.” Our walk was silent for a moment, before I added, “I met a guy, though.”

“A guy!” Exclaimed Mary, and she stopped walking and turned towards me suddenly. “What’s his name? What does he look like? Is he cute? How old is he? Was in the fraternity?” I blinked, trying to keep everything that she had just said to me straight.

“Um, his name is Colton,” I began, continuing to walk towards class. “I don’t know what his last name is, though. He’s cute, I suppose.” I blushed fiercely as I murmured, “He’s no Zack, though.”

“Well, we can’t all look like that boy does,” Mary scoffed with a smirk. “Sometimes, you have to settle for people a little more… average looking.”

“I’m not settling for anything,” I reasoned. “I have Zack. And besides, Colton’s just a friend. He’s just a friend that mixes me drinks.” Mary rolled her eyes, though her grin remained plastered to her face.

“Whatever, Chica,” she replied, turning to the right once we had entered the building. “Talk to you later!” I reciprocated her goodbye and turned left, following a group of giggling girls to our public speaking lecture.

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“Mind if I sit here?” I heard someone whisper half an hour into the three and a half hour lecture. My phone, which sat idle on my lap, hadn’t vibrated once, even though I had already texted Zack.

I would have died for some company.

I nodded without looking up, the person who had asked for permission now taking his seat. “Did I miss anything?” He questioned, and I just tilted my head lower.

“No,” I said softly.

“Good,” he whispered back. “I know I’m graduating in a few weeks, but I want to at least pretend like I still care, you know? From me to you, Paisley, that’s my biggest advice. Pretend like you care.” My head snapped up when I heard my name. Was there anyone on campus besides Mary who knew who I was?

Colton.

I could feel a small grin making its way on to my lips when I realized whom I was sitting next to. His cheery disposition was suddenly contagious, and I completely forgot about the lifeless cell phone on my lap. “But what if I can’t even pretend?” I whispered, glancing at our professor. Professor Matthews was an intelligent man, and maybe even saying that was an understatement. But he was old, dull, and his lectures were impossible to pay attention to. I turned slightly towards him, propping my head up on my hand. “What if all my teachers are like him?”

“You’re bound to have one good teacher, Paisley. Everything’s relative.”

“It doesn’t always seem like that,” I muttered, taking out my notebook and beginning to copy the vague notes that had been written on the blackboard.

Colton just shrugged. “That’s just because you’re a freshman. Once your freshman year is over, you’ll realize that college isn’t everything. Test grades, class grades, none of it matters in the end. Your happiness and your schoolwork, they don’t have to be the same thing.”

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“So what’re you planning to do after you graduate?” I asked, taking another spoonful of the ice cream sundae I was sharing with Colton. I had never even heard of the ice cream parlor he had taken me to, even though it wasn’t even a five-minute walk from my dorm room.

“Get a job, an apartment, the usual,” he replied, taking a large bite. He refolded his hands, the long metal spoon sticking out of his mouth. I giggled at the face he made, before pulling the spoon from his lips and sticking it back into the half full sundae.

“You’ll be able to do a lot with your major, when you think about it,” I added, scooping out a bite of pure fudge. “I’m sure there are tons of places that are looking for people with degrees in communications.” Colton just shrugged.

“Maybe I’ll want to do something with it, maybe I won’t.” He paused, and then continued. “My friend does advertising for companies that does archeological expeditions to places like Turkey and Egypt. I’ve been thinking about doing something like that for a while.” My mouth dropped open in surprise.

I had never heard of something like that, and the idea was so radical that I couldn’t help but be attracted to it. Why didn’t he want to get a job? To go into the real world? Wasn’t that the entire point of an education? Wasn’t that the entire point of… adolescence?

“That would be incredible!” I exclaimed, shoving my spoon back into my sundae. “What an experience that would be for you!” I slumped back into my chair and smiled at him, and the goofy grin that he reciprocated made me smile even harder.

“You should do something like that, too, Paisley. Take a year away from school or something. There’s an entire world out there that you’ve never even seen, and you’re only sheltering yourself by spending your time here.”