The New Face of Failure

“You know a lot of people say that college is a time when young men and women expand the way that they look at their world when they open their mind to new ideas and experiences and when they begin that long journey from the innocence of Youth, to the responsibilities of Adulthood... now isn't that a load of horse shit!” - Accepted

The hallway was crowded with students carrying large bins, boxes and suitcases into propped open dorm room doors. Floor lamps were leaning against walls, and parents were barking orders at an alarming rate. Hasty and simple introductions were being made between new roommates, while younger siblings of varying ages talked animatedly to their parents about how exciting it would be when they got to go to college. It was supposed to be the best time of their lives for these incoming students. The first chance at independence and a try at being an adult.

So why was she hiding out in her shared bathroom, sitting on the floor with her knees pulled up to her chest, wishing she was anywhere else in the world at that moment?

“Harper?” she heard her mother shouting from outside of the door. “Your roommate Cassidy finally made it.”

She looked up from her worn, black Converse sneakers at the sound of her mother’s voice, a sense of dread consuming her. She had only ever talked to Cassidy once over the phone and it was so that they could finalize who would bring what to the room. She seemed friendly, but Harper wasn’t ready to make new friends. She had Akemi and she had her little sister, Charley, and frankly she didn’t know why she needed anyone else.

“Coming!” She called out, so her mother wouldn’t worry. Her mother was a worrier. That was probably where Harper got it from. Harper didn’t worry though. She was just scared.

She stood up and looked at herself in the mirror, smoothing out her dark, chocolate brown hair. “It’ll be okay,” she said to her reflection. She took three deep breaths, the last one coming out almost as a sob. Stop it, she reprimanded herself silently. The last thing her roommate needed to see was her crying. She would be instantly branded as a homesick crybaby and no one wanted that in their first college roommate. She brushed her long bangs over behind her right ear, turned and grabbed the knob of the bathroom door. After three more deep breaths, she opened the door and her mother was standing directly in front of it.

“Oh!” she said in surprise. “There you are.” Her worried face eased into an overly friendly smile and she grabbed Harper’s hand. “Come on, let’s go officially meet your roommate!”

Harper was hoping her mother’s excitement would rub off on her, but so far all it did was increase her anxiety. As she dragged her into her room, Harper’s eyes flitted to her side of the room, where her slightly younger sister, Charley was unpacking her clothes for her into her drawers. Harper had to smile when she saw Charley unloading her jeans in the bottom drawer. They had shared a room together at home for three years, and they knew everything about each other, including their organizing habits.

“Hi Harper, it’s great to finally meet you!” Harper’s eyes then turned to her new roommate at the sound of her sickly sweet voice.

Before her stood a very tall girl with bleached blond hair that was curled perfectly with an iron. Her skin was smooth and tan, and the rest of her ensemble looked as if it came right off of one of the girls from The Hills. She stuck her hand out, which had perfectly manicured nails, and shook Harper’s. Harper gawked at her own chewed up counterparts.

She had the largest smile on her face that Harper wondered if she was being sincere. It was hard to tell. Her mother was behind her, taking desk items out of a large clear bin.

“Um, it’s nice to meet you too,” she replied, trying to maintain a smile and sound as happy as possible. It was hard though: Cassidy brought happiness to an entirely new level.

“Hey Harper, where do you want this poster of Frodo?” Her sister called out, holding open a movie theater-sized poster of Elijah Wood dressed in hobbit gear. She felt herself blushing.

“Um, don’t worry about it, Charley, I’ll decorate later.” She started chewing on her lip and glanced at Cassidy who was eyeing the poster with wariness.

Charley just shrugged and let the poster roll back up. Charley had very similar features to Harper, which made it hard to tell them apart some times, except that Charley insisted on streaking her hair with blonde and had brown eyes instead of Harper’s green ones. It also helped that they were only about a year and a half apart.

“So, did you guys bring the fridge?” Cassidy asked her as she walked back out into the hallway to grab another large suitcase.

“Yes, we did!” Harper’s mother said in a sing song voice. “I left it right there next to the bathroom. I figured you girls can decide where you want to put it.”

“That is really great Mrs. Williams, thanks a bunch!” Cassidy replied, her tone matching that of Harper’s mother.

So, if I was more like, Mom, that is what I would have ended up like, Harper thought, grinning to herself. She moved away from the middle of the room and walked over to Charley who was finishing up with putting her clothes away.

“Thanks, lil’ sis,” Harper said appreciatively.

Charley looked at her and smiled, but the edges of her eyes were turned down. “No problem. It’s the least I can do since I’m not getting the entire basement to myself.”

“It’ll make a sweet bachelor pad,” Harper joked.

Charley rolled her eyes. “You think Mom and Dad are going to let Austin anywhere near that basement now? If you’re not there to babysit me, they will pretty much keep him occupied in the living room with cookies or a football game.” Austin was Charley’s boyfriend since she was a sophomore and Harper was a junior. He was on their high school football team and wasn’t the brightest guy in the world, but he was sweet to Charley, and that was what mattered most to Harper. “Hey,” Charley then said, lowering her voice, “Now that you have a wider selection of guys to choose from, maybe you will meet your Prince Charming.” She winked at Harper.

“Oh, God, I haven’t even thought about that,” Harper said with a weak laugh. Truth was that she was terrified of the idea of college boys. She wouldn’t even know what she would do if she met a boy whom she actually found attractive who might have actually liked her back.

“Well, this is the time, Harper. I’m living vicariously through you, so party hard and hook up a couple of times,” Charley laughed. “Whoa, speaking of Prince Charmings…” Harper followed Charley’s eyes, which were focused on the tall and lean boy that stepped into the room carrying two brown boxes. His dark hair hung in curls just below his ears and he wore a pair of faded jeans and bright blue polo shirt.

“Hey babe, where do you want these?” he called out to Cassidy, who was making her bed. She stopped and pointed to her closet.

“Place them right there, sweetie,” she directed. He ambled over and dropped the boxes in Cassidy’s closet. When he stood up he made eye contact with Harper and Charley.

“Oh hey, which one of you are Cassidy’s new roommate?” he walked toward them, his eyes twinkling and his smile widening.

Charley pointed her thumb at Harper. “She is.”

He held his hand out and Harper shook it. He looked like he stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad. She had never seen a boy so well built as him. Even Charley’s boyfriend, Austin, was a bit flabby. “Nice to meet you, Harper, right?” he asked. She nodded. “I’m Derrick, Cassidy’s boyfriend.”

“Derrick is a sophomore here,” Cassidy interrupted, coming over and linking her arm through his. “He lives off campus with a bunch of the rugby guys.”

Of course he plays rugby, Harper though wryly. She smiled back and shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.” His friendly blue eyes bore into hers, making her shy away quickly from him.

“So, Harper, what’s your major going to be?” he asked, flopping down on Cassidy’s bed and leaning back on one elbow.

“Oh, um, English,” she said, glancing away from him and busying herself with unpacking some of her other boxes.

“Oh a poet, huh?” he remarked. “Might come in handy for Cassidy here, she hates writing.”

“It’s true, I do that’s why I’m going into biochemistry,” she said proudly, lightly hitting her boyfriend to insinuate that he needed to get up off her bed and help. He jumped up quickly and she thrusted a box into his hands. “Unpack that.” He grinned at her and started going through it’s contents.

“Wait, don’t scientists write a lot of reports?” Charley pointed out, smirking. Harper kept her eyes on her task, but she couldn’t help but roll them with embarrassment.

“Well, sure, but that’s straightforward writing. I hate that whole analyzing books and poetry crap. Why can’t we just enjoy a good book for the sake of enjoying it?” She gave Charley and then Harper questioning looks.

“Yeah,” Harper just said trying to prevent any arguments from forming. That was her specialty – letting her fear defer her judgment to someone else, even if their judgment wasn’t sound.

“Well, I’m a business major,” Derrick said with a sense of pride. He even puffed out his chest when he said it, which amused Harper. “My dad owns his own business and wants me to take it over one day. Hey what are you going to do with your English degree?”

Ugh. The dreaded question that Harper hated being asked, especially in front of her parents. Luckily, her father wasn’t there (he decided to stay near the car because he was afraid someone would slash their tires), and her mother was preoccupied talking with Cassidy’s mother, chatting about each other’s daughters. “Um, well,”

“Harper is going to be a famous writer one day,” Charley said, looking equally as proud as Derrick had. Harper chewed on her lip nervously.

“Charley,” she hissed under her breath.

“A writer huh?” Derrick’s grin never faded, it just grew. “That’s pretty cool.”

“Do you have to go to college to be a famous writer though? I mean did J.K. Rowling?” Cassidy pointed out.

Harper started to reply, but Charley cut in, “One of Harper’s favorite authors is a teacher here and she wants to learn from the best.”

“Wait, which teacher?” Derrick asked, breaking up the box that he had unloaded.

“Diane Woodall,” Harper said, looking at him timidly. “She wrote the Deviant Machines Chronicles.”

“Wait, isn’t that the weird book series about machines taking over Victorian England and these teens have special powers to fight them?” Cassidy piped up, arching her eyebrow with interest.

Harper nodded, surprised that she had heard about them. “Yeah they are already on the third movie too.” Harper admired Woodall’s ability to create meaningful characters within an absurd setting.

“I don’t get them. I mean, I love those Twilight books, but machines? Seems a little weird,” Cassidy said, her face screwing up in distaste.

“Yeah because hundred year old vampires yearning for a 16 year old isn’t weird at all,” Charley said sarcastically, but it seemed that Cassidy missed the sardonic undertone in her voice.

“Exactly!” Cassidy exclaimed. “Edward is so hot.”

“Yeah, she had him as her iPhone wallpaper forever,” Derrick commented. He seemed so nonchalant about it, but then again, he seemed so nonchalant about everything. Harper wondered how it would feel to just not care enough about any particular thing. That was probably why he seemed so happy all of the time and so open to everyone. Harper wished that she could feel that way.

When all of the bags and boxes were dropped off, Harper went down to the front of their building to say goodbye to her family. Her mother and father really wanted to take her out for a dinner, but she knew that they had meetings with their Resident Assistant and she was supposed to meet up with her friend Akemi a little later on as well, so she convinced them to go home. She had expected her mother to cry and was prepared for that, but when she went to hug Charley, she was surprised to see her crying too. It made Harper get choked up. “Take care of the room for me,” Harper said softly, clutching her younger sister tight.

“Don’t forget about me when you start making all of your big college friends,” Charley retorted.

Harper knew that was impossible. Charley was the only person that Harper could really tell anything too. Even Akemi, who was one of Harper’s only good friends from high school didn’t know everything about her. “Don’t worry, I’ll probably be texting you nonstop about all of the ignorant people I meet.”
Once they were gone, Harper had went back to her dorm room and texted Akemi.

ALL MOVED IN?

She started decorating her side of the room when Cassidy and Derrick walked back into the room. Harper started to wonder if Derrick was part of the roommate package. She was really hoping he wasn’t.

“So, Harper, what are your big plans for your first night on campus?” Derrick asked her. She glanced up from her phone at both of them.

Cassidy looked less than thrilled that Derrick was obviously getting ready to invite her somewhere. “Oh, I don’t know. I am meeting up with my friend, Akemi. She’s stuck over in the Johnson and Hardwick dorms.” Johnson and Hardwick or J&H as the rest of the students called them were the oldest dorms on the campus and supposedly the crappiest. Instead of being coed by room as Harper’s smaller, newer dorm was, they were coed by floor and had three times as many floors as Harper’s dorm. Although they had put each other down as roommate preferences, they didn’t get each other, which stunned Harper. She figured that the university as pretty good about managing those requests.

“Cool deal. Well, if you feel like partying our house right off campus is gonna have a kegger tonight,” he said.

“Oh, okay, that sounds like fun. Maybe we’ll drop by,” Harper replied, trying not to sound too committed. In fact, she preferred what she had in mind, which was hole up with Akemi in her dorm and watch some movies. The further away from parties Harper could be the better.

“Cool, you have Cassidy’s number right?”

“Yeah, she does, babe,” Cassidy said shortly. Harper just smiled at them blandly. “Well, we should probably get going. I’ll see you later, roomie!” with that Cassidy pulled Derrick by the arm out of the room.

“Catch ya later Harper!” he shouted as the door closed behind them.

Harper fell back onto her bed and stared up at the cement block ceiling. Even with her decorations, the room still felt like a warped version of a prison cell. Her phone vibrated and she picked it up.

MOM JUST LEFT. COMIN YOUR WAY.

She texted her room number to Akemi and waited for her to arrive. Harper and Akemi had a lot of similarities. They were both smart, although Harper’s specialty was English and Akemi’s was math. They both enjoyed a good Lord of the Rings film, and they were both stuck trying to live up to some crazy expectation of their parents. But that was where the similarities ended. Akemi was always the more popular one of the two girls. She played almost every sport in their high school, except cheerleading, tutored all of the football players and basketball players in math and went to a lot more parties than Harper did. Sometimes she tried dragging Harper along, but since that required her to keep Harper from hiding out in the bathroom, she mostly went by herself. Just as Charley wanted to live vicariously through Harper, Harper had always lived vicariously through Akemi. Akemi wasn’t afraid, much like Derrick, although she was a lot more high strung than he appeared to be.

“Holy shit, this place is the Palace of Versaille of dorm rooms,” Akemi exclaimed as she walked into Harper’s room.

Harper jumped up and rushed to give her a hug. “Akemi, I am so glad you’re here.”

Akemi patted her back. “Okay, so how bad is she?”

Harper pulled away. “She seems okay. She one of those girls who is absolutely perfect in every way. Her boyfriend plays rugby here and he’s also perfect and I think the two of them are going to get married after college and live in a brownstone in Connecticut and have perfect babies who all will have large trust funds.”

Akemi made a face. “Jeez, then why are there here at Temple?” She surveyed Cassidy’s side of the room. “She likes pink,” she commented, then shrugged. “Could be worse. My roommate is an animal rights activist. She keeps this poster up with pictures of dead animals that were killed in human-made disasters. I am a little grossed out by it.” She looked out Harper’s window, which looked out over a small courtyard were several students had already gathered to meet.

Harper noticed that Akemi looked a little too dressed up to be staying in and watching a movie. She was wearing a pair of heeled sandals, black dress shorts and a slinky halter top. “Um, Akemi, I thought we were going to stay in and watch a movie tonight.”

Akemi turned and looked at Harper her eyes conveying a guilty feeling. “Oh, well, yeah, that was the plan, but then I ran into that girl Tiffany from orientation week, the one that was one of the upperclassmen guides and she was telling me about some party her sorority’s brother frat was having and invited me along.” She looked down at her nails, pretending to be examining them. “I thought it might be fun. Get to know some of the upperclassmen, maybe meet a couple of cute guys…”

Harper could feel herself withdraw instantly. “Um, no that’s okay, why don’t you just go.” She sat down on her bed and grabbed her pillow, hugging it to her tightly.

Akemi sat down next to her and patted her knee. “Come on Harper, this is college now. It’s time to experience new things and get out of old habits. You can’t be scared for the rest of your life.”

Watch me, Harper thought bitterly. “No, really Akemi. I still have a lot of unpacking to do anyway. You go have fun and we will get together tomorrow.”

Akemi sighed. “You're such a buzzkill! Fine, Harper, have it your way. I will get you to a party here, I promise you that!” She stood up, blew Harper a kiss and then walked out of her dorm room.

Harper could feel tears welling up in her eyes. She didn’t really feel too alone until that very moment. She started to text Charley to check in, but decided against it. If her parents knew that she was texting Charley instead of living the college life, they would probably turn the car around and force her out of her room. She looked at her laptop on her desk and thought briefly about writing more of the story she was working on so that she could get it to Charley for her opinion, but just didn’t have the motivation to start it. Instead, she pulled out her collection of DVDs and grabbed the first Lord of the Rings film. She put it in their DVD player and then changed into a pair of sweatpants, rolled up to the knee and a tank top.

She could hear students coming and going throughout the night, but by 11PM, the dorm seemed quiet. She knew then that she was probably the only one, or at least one of the only ones, left in the dorm. She could hear her stomach growling, which was when she realized that she had forgotten to go and grab dinner from the cafeteria. Groaning, she paused the movie and went over to her snack stash in her desk that her parents ensured that she have. She grabbed an un-popped bag of popcorn and walked out of their dorm room to the shared kitchen area where they kept a microwave.

As she was walking down her hallway, she kept her eyes focused on the bag, her mind drifting to a scene in her story…

~ The machine arm quivered and then went still. Ada stared at it in shock, her chest heaving from her sharp breathing. She scurried away from the now inanimate object and…~

*CRASH*

Harper collided with another body, her shoulder feeling a shot of pain as it hit the solid figure in front of her. The person she ran into lost his balance and loose pieces of paper fell all around them as he quickly reached for the wall to steady himself.

“Oh my God, I am so sorry!” she exclaimed, instantly going to her knees to help the stranger compile all of the paper.

“It’s okay,” the boy said, with a small laugh in his voice, as he crouched down to help her. “I wasn’t really watching where I was going.”

She looked up to see who she hit. Looking at her through a pair of thick square black glasses with these grey eyes, was a boy who looked to be about her age. He was wearing his sandy blonde hair short on the sides, but long in the front and on top in a tousled look. He had on a pair of black skinny jeans and a t-shirt with the name of some band that she had never heard of and a backpack on his back. He was smiling at her slightly, almost shyly.

She felt herself blush under his gaze and she quickly looked back down at the papers she gathered. On them were what looked like lines of poetry that was being edited:

I hope this is the last time
‘Cause I’d never say no to you
This conversation’s been
Dead on Arrival

She handed it back to him. “Is that poetry or something?” she asked him. She couldn’t believe she was being so forward with him, but she had never met another person, let alone a boy, who wrote like she did. As they both stood, she noticed that he was only an inch or two taller than she was. Most of the guys she had met before were at least 5’8’’or taller. He may have only been at least 5’4’’. He was slim, but didn’t look like what she imagined Derrick would look like under his clothes. However, there was something attractive about him that made Harper’s heart start to race.

He just grinned at her and said, “or something.” He put all of the pieces of paper in one pile and then pulled his backpack off his back and jammed them in it. “Should’ve been in here in the first place.”
Harper really didn’t know how to respond to that. She just started chewing on her lip nervously, wanting badly for him to just leave and let her get to the microwave.

Instead, he did his own examination of her. “Movie night?” he asked, gesturing to the bag of popcorn that she was holding.

She nodded. “Yeah, got hungry so I wanted a snack.”

He nodded back. “Cool. What are you watching?”

“The Fellowship of the Ring,” she replied. She could have just said Lord of the Rings since most people wouldn’t get it by just the subtitled name of the first movie alone, but she suddenly had it in her head that she wanted to test him.

“Oh, man, that’s awesome. The way Gandalf goes down with the Balrog, so epic,” he said enthusiastically.

She smiled, surprised that he knew exactly which movie she was referring to. “Oh yeah, he’s a hero, that Gandalf.”

“Can’t think of a better way to spend the first night of college,” he said. She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or actually meant it.

“Well, I wasn’t really feeling up to going out, so…” she trailed off and his face screwed up in confusion.
“Oh, you thought… No I really mean it, that is a pretty awesome way to spend the night. I’m not much of a college party guy. There are a ton of other crazy things I would rather do than get drunk and pretend that I’m a good dancer.”

“Like what?” she inquired, her interest surprisingly peaked.

“Oh, you know, snorting cocaine off of strippers, kicking around some midgets, that type of stuff.”He said it so nonchalantly, that it made Harper draw back in shock. He then doubled over in laughter at her reaction. “No!” he cried out through his laughter. “I don’t actually do any of that. I’m really not that lame.”

Harper actually laughed a little then. “Oh, that’s a relief. Because I don’t know if you have the nostrils for it.” It slipped out of her mouth before she even had a chance to stop it. Ugh, verbal diarrhea, she groaned internally. One of the many side effects she got when talking to boys.

He laughed again, clapping his hands together. “Wow, that’s great.” His laughter died down a bit and then there was that awkward silence again.

“Um, so I better make this. My friends are in the room waiting on me, so…” she trailed off, noting the flicker of disappointment in his face, but he quickly hid it with a smile. She didn’t really know why she felt compelled to lie to him – she was completely alone and feeling kind of miserable about it. If she was the heroine of one of her stories, she would have been bold enough to invite him in instead of making up some fake friends.

“Oh, okay, well, we don’t want to leave them hanging. Well, it was nice running into you…” He paused and she realized that they had not exchanged names.

“Harper,” she finished for him.

He held out his hand and she shook it. “Patrick.” Then he winked, snapped his fingers and pointed one at her. “See ya on the flip side.” She watched him continue onto his room, which was about two doors down from where they were previously standing. He gave her another wave before unlocking his door and stepping inside.

She hurriedly walked into the small kitchen area at the end of the hall and threw her bag of popcorn in the microwave. As she waited for the popcorn to completely pop, she tried to let her mind wander back to her story, but it kept wandering to those grey eyes and that open smile. The only guys she had ever found herself day dreaming about were the actors from the Deviant Machine Chronicles or Justin Timberlake. Real guys just never seemed to get under her skin in that way. Except that one.
“Patrick,” she said mostly to herself, a small smile forming on her lips. Suddenly, a crisp stale burning smell hit her nostrils and she gasped. “The popcorn!”