The New Face of Failure

Alan: You guys are losers and you always will be!
Neal: Then how come you're the one riding home with no friends. – Freaks and Geeks

The last thing he wanted to do was end up in a dorm room with a bunch of other co-eds, whose only main concern was to get drunk, party and sleep with the first available person. Come on, give them a break, they’d say, they have a lot of growing up to do now that they are all adults, theoretically speaking of course. But those were the last things on Patrick’s mind. All he wanted to do was write music and help his band make a name for themselves. They had had gigs all over the tri-state area, and were recording a demo, but so far that was the furthest they were able to come. Which was why he was now sitting in a dorm room while all of his other co-eds were out partying, getting drunk and sleeping with the first available person.

That wasn’t good enough for Patrick’s mom who had seen firsthand how music could ruin a person’s life. She was determined to make sure that Patrick took a different path; and that path meant going to college. Luckily, he had Joe with him, one of his good friends and band mate. He too was forced to come to college against his own wishes and dreams. His parents wanted him to be a lawyer and work in his father’s firm after he finished law school. At least Patrick’s mother didn’t push him into those unrealistic expectations.

As he was dragging himself back to his dorm room after a late night writing session with his other band mate and best friend, Pete, he had a run-in that started to make him reconsider the idea of being in college. As he shut the door behind him, he glanced around the small common area that connected him and Joe’s room and their suitemates’, Chad and Avery, room. Their door was shut and there was no light shining from the small opening at the bottom, so Patrick assumed that they were still out, enjoying their first night of college as most of the dorm was. The door to his room was slightly ajar and he could hear Metallica playing from inside it. He slipped inside the door and found Joe laying on his own bed, jamming out, his head of massively outgrown brown curls thrashing about.

“Am I interrupting something?” Patrick called out, making Joe jump up in surprise.

“Dude, you’re back!” Joe exclaimed, jumping off his bed to greet Patrick with a fist bump and half hug. “How’d the writing go!”

Patrick winced at how loud he was being. “Great, we got a few more lyrics down and I have a few chords in mind,” he said as loud as he could to be heard over the music. “Um, Joe, could we…” He gestured toward Joe’s laptop, where the music was playing.

Joe grinned. “OH yeah, right.” He jogged over to it and hit the pause button. The sudden silence shocked Patrick’s senses. “So when will Andy and I be able to see them to add our parts?”

Patrick slung his backpack on his bed. “Soon. A few more days. I’m thinking by Thursday practice.”

“Works for me,” Joe replied. “I’m guessing Abercrombie & Fitch haven’t returned from their rendezvous yet.”

Patrick laughed at Joe’s nickname for their two roommates. They were completely different from Joe and Patrick in every way. They both were business majors, were apparently legacies of some fraternity on campus, meaning they have dads with money and power, and they were complete douche bags. While Patrick and Joe had covered their dorm wall with posters of bands and Star Wars movies, these guys plastered theirs with pictures of girls kissing girls, Bob Marley (though neither Patrick or Joe thought it was because they appreciated who Bob Marley was) and beer pong tables.

“Nope, they are still MIA,” Patrick replied. He opened up his backpack and pulled out the sheets of paper. They were a little crumpled from when Harper knocked them out of his hands. He smiled at the recent memory. He wished he had the courage to talk to her more and to try and get her number. He just wasn’t that smooth when it came to talking to girls, and she didn’t seem completely interested in talking to him either. He handed the papers to Joe. “Here’s what we have so far.”

Joe looked them over, nodding his head to the rhythms that were written. “Sounds badass. Can’t wait to see what Hurley does with these.”

Patrick nodded. “Yeah, I think they will sound great when we put all of us together.” Joe handed the papers back to him. “So what were you doing before I got in here?”

“Oh just being emo, wishing I was playing my guitar instead of sitting in this dorm room.”

“Then you’d be listening to Pierce the Veil not “Enter Sandman”,” Patrick noted. He stood up and started changing out of his jeans and t-shirt and into a pair of Star Wars pajama pants with a matching t-shirt. “So what are you in the mood to do now?”

Joe shrugged. “I have downloaded copies of Game of Thrones season three on my laptop. I could hook it up to the TV.”

Patrick pulled his covers off his bed and jumped in it, propping his own laptop in his lap. “Sounds like a plan, man.”

Joe went ahead and got everything set up as Patrick opened up his ProTools and started dabbling with some of the music that they had already finished.

“So…” Patrick started slowly. “Have you met any of our other fellow dorm mates yet?” He wondered if Joe had bumped into Harper at all and could give him some more insight into who she was. Patrick didn’t remember her when they had moved in, which meant that she must have moved into an odd room number since all of the even room numbers in the dorm had moved in the day before with Patrick and Joe.

Joe shrugged, his eyes not leaving the TV as he started the first episode. “Nope, just been hanging out in the room all day while you played songwriter.”

Patrick looked at Joe with a disappointed face. He was hoping that he would have been able to give him something. He couldn’t get the girl’s startling green eyes and consistent blush out of his mind. It was starting to bother him because he usually didn’t really find himself obsessing over girls. That was how the other guys were, not him. He obsessed over their music, perfecting it in every way possible.
“Wait,” Joe turned his attention to Patrick and eyed him. “Why do you care?”

Patrick felt himself getting flushed and he looked back down at his computer. “No reason, just curious.”

Joe’s face broke out into a grin. “Holy shit. Patrick, did you meet a girl?” He sat up and rested his chin on his hands. “Please, tell me more.”

Patrick shook his head. “Nothing to tell. I may have run into someone before coming to our room…”

“Okay, hold up. I need details. What did you say? What did she say? Did you make out with her?”

“What? No, Jesus, Joe, I don’t go making out with people I just meet for the first time.”

“You’re right, you’re not Pete. Okay, come on, spill.”

Patrick gave him a puzzled look. “Why do you care so much?”

“Because I’ve known you for a whole year and you never once have talked about girls. The only girl that I have seen you with was Allie, that girl who offered to have sex with you at one of Pete’s parties.”

Patrick stuck out his tongue. “Yeah, I was kinda uncomfortable with that. A little weird. I’m pretty sure she’s not clean.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it. But, beyond that, I’m pretty sure you’re still a virgin.”

“Oh come on…” Joe raised an eyebrow and tilted his head toward Patrick skeptically. Patrick sighed. “Okay, you’re right.” Joe gave him a satisfied smile. “Fine. So, I kinda ran into this girl named Harper. She’s kinda nerdy like us.”

“Why would you say that, besides the fact that she’s here in the dorms while everyone else is out there doing keg stands at TKO.”

“Well, she’s here in the dorms watching Lord of the Rings.”

Joe whistled. “Yep, she’s a nerd. Awesome. But is she sexy?”

Patrick’s mind flashed back to the way her tank top hugged her curves and the way her sweatpants hung just a bit too low to show off some of the skin of her lower stomach. He grinned. “Yeah, she pretty sexy. She’s like Olivia Munn, sexy nerd, but not tall.”

“Good for you,” Joe said, giving his fist a pound. “So why are you here in our room right now, instead of in hers?”

Patrick felt flustered by his comment. “Joe, I am not just going to invite myself over to her room when the only words we exchanged had to do with Gandalf and cocaine,” Joe smirked, “Don’t ask, I made a stupid joke.”

“Sounds like you. So did you at least get her number.” Patrick shook his head. “Oh come on, man, do you even know what room she’s in?”

Patrick sighed, realizing that he failed in properly flirting with this girl. “Okay, I am really not good at this.”

“You can say that again, Sparky.” Then, when Joe saw Patrick’s deflated look, he said, “Okay, well, look. She’s obviously in our hallway right? So maybe we will see her at the RA meeting tomorrow.”

Patrick smiled. “Yeah, we probably will.”

“Okay, keep it in your pants buddy. We have a GoT marathon to get through tonight,” Joe said, pressing play and settling himself back into his bed.

The next day, the guys decided to head back home to Pete and Andy’s house so that they could get in some practice time before Joe and Patrick’s classes started. Pete and Andy were lucky to not have parents who forced them to waste their time with English and math classes, and Patrick was envious that they were able to focus so much of their time on music. When his mom first told him that he was going to have to go to college, he was worried that Pete was going to kick him out of the band. He thought they’d think he was just some punk kid who wasn’t really serious about this whole band thing and that he would bail on them. But he underestimated Pete’s thinking, and that was probably why Pete and him became so close. Although Pete had five years on him, their minds were in sync from the first time they met. He had never met someone who shared his passion for writing good music before and it was liberating. Quickly, they developed a pattern where Pete would write lyrics and Patrick would come in behind him with edits and compose the music for them.

“So, any college hotties?” Andy asked them as they were all tuning their instruments in the Andy and Pete’s garage. Andy was about a year younger than Pete and the most straight edged person that Patrick had ever met that was in a band. He was surprised when he first met this kid with a couple of facial piercings and this long reddish brown frizzy hair and tattoos and discovered that he was into saving animals, not eating them and drinking the kool-aid at parties sans alcohol. Although he eventually got rid of long hair because he thought that Joe really was the one who needed the hair to jam out like Slash, he was pretty strong in his convictions and Patrick appreciated that about him.

“Patrick met a hot nerdy girl,” Joe piped up.

“Wow, way to throw me under the bus there,” Patrick commented, adjusting his guitar strap on his shoulder.

Andy and Pete exchanged amused glances. “Patrick, have you finally noticed a nice pair of tits?” Pete jested, smiling wide, his chocolate brown eyes twinkling with delight.

Since day one, all of them, except Pete, had come to a mutual decision that Pete was going to be their heartthrob in the group. He was just too pretty for a male specimen with his tan skin, thick dark hair always messed up in the perfect model-ish way and his washboard abs that he loved to show off for the ladies because he had those “sex lines,” the ones that cut right from his hips and led downward into the top of his jeans, inviting girls to imagine the possibilities of what lay underneath the denim fabric.
“I have noticed plenty of nice… women parts, thank you very much,” Patrick retorted, his cheeks reddening.

“Really? Could have fooled us,” Andy said, grinning.

Pete walked over to him and ruffled the shock of hair on top of his head. “It’s true Patrick. You are our little virgin of the group.”

Patrick ducked away from him. “Okay, stop, you’re all dicks,” he said. Embarrassed, he took his guitar off and started packing it up. “I’ll come back when you guys grow up.”

The three other boys started protesting loudly and Pete went over and stopped him. “Okay, we’re sorry for making fun. It’s just cute to see our Patrick finally noticing the opposite sex.”

Patrick looked at him deadpanned. “Just because I haven’t had sex yet doesn’t mean that I don’t look at girls… or want to date them… or have sex with them. I just, you know, want to wait until….” He trailed off realizing that no matter what he said, he was going to sound like he was loaded with progesterone.

“We KNOW that and we respect that you have such HIGH morals,” Pete said, a sarcastic, yet loving tone to his voice. “Come on, tell me and Andy about this wonderful girl you met last night. We promise we won’t make fun, right Andy?”

“Scout’s honor,” Andy said enthusiastically.

“Yeah right, like the boy scouts would let you in,” Joe muttered, nudging Andy’s arm with his elbow in jest.

Patrick stared at Pete a few minutes, wondering if he should give in to Pete’s pseudo apology or if he should continue walking out the door. Pete’s eyes bore into his as if to say, ‘Dude, you know me. I love you like a brother.’ Patrick sighed. “All right, where do you want me to start?”

“Obviously, if she’s more bootylicious or boobilicious,” Pete replied, resting his should against one of the tall metal tool cabinets that lay just outside of the guys practice space.

“Ugh worst words ever,” Patrick mumbled. “Okay, um… average on top I guess. I did get to watch her walk away though and that was pretty nice.”

Pete nodded approvingly. “Yeah, that’s where it is at, my friend, have you seen Beyonce?” he high-fived Joe in a camaraderie spirit.

“Okay besides her body, what else?” Andy asked him. “I mean please tell me she’s not some Kappa Kappa Eww pledge or something.”

“Dude, she was hanging out in the dorm rooms just like us, do you think she’s pledging to some sorority?” Joe exclaimed exasperatedly.

“I don’t know what those sorority girls do,” Andy said with a shrug.

“No, I don’t think she’s the type. She was making popcorn to watch a Tolkien film,” Patrick said.

“So a nerd huh? I can get behind that,” Pete replied, grinning. “Is she an attractive nerd?” Patrick nodded. “Okay, so what happened?”

Patrick shrugged. “Um, nothing much, we ran into each other in the hallway, talked a little bit and then I went into my room.”

Andy and Pete exchanged mutual glances of disbelief. “That’s it?” Andy said.

“Yeah, I know, not very Don Juan of me,” Patrick said sullenly. “She just seemed like she didn’t want to be bothered too much.”

“Well, you did make a joke about cocaine and midgets,” Joe pointed out.

“You did what!?” Pete exclaimed. “Whoa, Patrick, what were you thinking??”

“Hey she joked back with me,” Patrick defended, puffing his chest up a bit. “Look, you guys know I’m no good at flirting.”

“Maybe she’s not into guys who wear skinny jeans,” Andy suggested.

“No, no that’s impossible. Most famous guys today wear skinny jeans and girls fall all over their feet. Look at that awful Justin Bieber character.”

“Well, he sags his,” Pete replied.

“Okay, then Patrick sag them jeans, boy,” Joe said, grabbing the waist of his jeans and pulling.

“What the hell!?” Patrick jumped back, pushing Joe away from him. “Dude, not sagging my jeans. Get off me.”

Pete shook his head. “Patrick, you’re like my best friend. We need to help you talk to girls better.”

“I can talk to them just fine,” Patrick retorted. “Look, we have an RA meeting tonight and she will probably be there because she’s in our hall. I’ll just talk to her then.”

“I’ll help you out,” Joe added. “I’ll distract her friends with a sweep of my luscious curls.” To demonstrate, he flicked his hair to the side, mocking many a Disney prince.

“Um, no, yep, no that’s okay,” Patrick replied quickly. He put his guitar strap back on. “Okay, guys can we just practice for a little and stop obsessing over my love life?”

“You actually have to have dated someone to have a love life, bro,” Joe pointed out

Pete patted him on the back. “Okay, man, we’ll leave you alone. Talk to her tonight and give us an update later, okay?”

Patrick nodded, but inside he was feeling even more nervous than he was before. The guys had made such a big deal about it. He was always shy when it came to girls and always seemed to end up being their really good guy friend and not their boyfriend. Was he really ready to date someone?

He got his answer later that evening when all of the freshmen in their hall congregated in the central study room on their side of the dorm for a meeting with their RA.

The meeting was just about to start when Joe and Patrick had sneaked into the room. They saw their suitemates, Chad and Avery, both in almost identical basketball shorts and Nike shirts covered in sweat. He assumed that they had probably just got done working out. He wondered if he and Joe should go stand by them, but then his eyes caught the stare of a pair of bright green ones. He turned his head and smiled as he looked in Harper’s direction. She looked different in a pair of jean shorts and a loose-fitting t-shirt with the phrase “Bowties are Cool” on it. Her dark brown hair was down now and she kept running her hand through it, messing it up in such a way that it made Patrick’s body electrify. When she had met his eyes, she quickly smiled and looked down at her feet, which he noticed were covered in a pair of worn chucks.

“That must be her,” Joe whispered to him, his head gesturing toward her.

“How can you tell?” Patrick murmured back.

“Because she’s the only person here wearing a Doctor Who inspired shirt. Does that, or does that not scream Nerd?”

He had a point. Suddenly, Joe grabbed his hand and started pushing around some of the other kids toward her. “What the hell Joe, stop it!” Patrick hissed.

“Um have you two found a comfortable place to settle in, or do we have to wait another minute for you?” They both froze and turned toward the perky girl with a blond bob in the center of the circle the kids formed. She was definitely taller than Patrick, but not taller than Joe, and she may have been the size of one of Patrick’s arms around the middle. She had her arms crossed over her chest and her Old Navy flip flop covered foot tapping against the floor angrily.

“There’s a draft by the door and my friend, Patrick, here gets colds easily,” Joe replied, rather curtly, and Patrick could hear a few of the other kids snickering and he could feel his face getting hot. He glanced over at Harper to see if she was laughing. She didn’t even look like she was paying attention at all. Thank God for that, he thought.

The girl curled her lip in disgust. “Well, I am so glad that you’re so concerned about your BOYFRIEND’S condition, but I have a meeting to run here, so next time, be early and you won’t have to worry about it, kay?” The snickers grew and Patrick wanted nothing more than to disappear. Joe seemed ready to lash back, but Patrick grabbed his arm, stopping him.

When the girl realized she won that battle, she continued. “Anyway, now that you are ALL here, let me introduce myself. My name is Mitzi and I am your Resident Assistant for the year!” Her sour tone instantly transformed into an excellent portrayal of a cheerleader from Bring it On. “I am a Junior here at Temple and I am studying Elementary Education. Any education peeps in here??” A few girls raised their hands. “Excellent! If you guys need any help at all, let me know. Okay! so let’s talk about some rules and stuff!”

Patrick barely paid attention after that. His mind kept wandering to Harper, trying to make eye contact with her, but she seemed to be focusing her attention on her shoes. So since he couldn’t see her face, his eyes started drifting down to her legs. They were smooth and tan, but he could tell it was a natural tan from the summertime. They looked strong and lean and he suddenly wondered what it would be like to… No, stop it, you’re in a room full of people! His mind screamed at him in alert. He looked away from her, realizing that staring at her too long would create yet another embarrassing situation for him.
“Okay, everyone, now we are going to play a game before we go, a kind of get to know your neighbor type thing! Everyone take one shoe off and put it in the center of our circle!”

A few kids groaned, but one evil glare from Mitzi and they quickly took a shoe off and threw it into the center.

“Awesome! Okay, so what we’re going to do is someone is going to pick up another person’s shoe… Not your own guys!... and then the person whose shoe it is will tell us their name, where they are from originally, what their major is, and one interesting fact about themselves.” She pointed at one of their suitemates, Chad. “You go first.”

He lazily walked into the center of the circle and picked up a wedged sandal made of cork. “Who’s is this?” he asked.

“Ooh, that’s mine!” The girl next to Harper exclaimed excitedly. He handed her the shoe and went back to his spot next to Avery. “Okay, my name is Cassidy Summerfield and I am originally from Allentown. My major is biochemistry and one interesting fact about me is that I was my school’s Big 33 cheerleader last year!”

A few people clapped and Joe leaned over to Patrick, “we’re supposed to clap for that crap? That’s not interesting, I could have guessed that…”

It was then her turn to pick a shoe and then the game begun. Eventually someone picked up Joe’s worn out boot. “Hey everyone, Joe here from Bensalem. Um, parents kind of forced me into political science. Interesting fact about me is that I am in a band.”

“Like the marching band?” Mitzi asked him.

Joe laughed. “Uh, no. Like a real band, a rock band, dude.”

She just rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine, pick another shoe.”

Joe walked up and picked up Harper’s Converse sneaker. Patrick silently groaned, wishing he could have been picked. “Wow, this is kind of long,” he commented. Patrick stared at him in astonishment. “Who’s shoe is this?”

Harper timidly walked up to him and grabbed it from his hand. He just smirked. “Oh. Yours.” She quickly walked back to her spot in the circle and Joe looked at Patrick and winked. He just shook his head.
She finally looked up and addressed the room. “Hi, my name is Harper Williams and I am from Harrisburg. I am an English major and, um, an interesting fact about me is that… I met George Lucas once.”

“Who’s that?” Mitzi asked.

Now Patrick wanted to slap her in the face. He just stared at Harper in awe. Joe nudged him. “Okay, yeah, if you don’t try and date her, I will.”

Harper glanced around the room. “He’s the creator of all of the Star Wars movies.”

Mitzi shrugged. “Oh, I think my little brother watches those. Okay! go ahead and pick up a shoe.”

She slipped hers back on and silently walked over to the diminished pile. Patrick watched as she grabbed his black Saucony sneaker. He could feel himself already tumbling over his words. What made it even worse was that she looked right at him. Holy smokes, she knew that was my shoe! He did a little happy dance in his head, but he was still a ball of nerves.

“Oh, yeah, that’s mine.” He grabbed it from her, his fingers slightly grazing hers. He met her eyes and she smiled shyly before walking back to her spot. Now everyone’s attention was on him. “Hello, everyone. My name is Patrick and I am from Bensalem. I’m majoring in Music Composition and my interesting fact, I guess is the same as Joe’s. I’m also in a band.”

Mitzi looked at them with an awestruck stare. “Oh I get it, you’re both in the same band!”

Patrick glanced at Joe who was just smirking, his hands stuffed in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels. He knew that he so badly wanted to make a snarky comment. “Yep, we are,” Patrick said.

“Pretty weird right?” Joe piped up, and Patrick just rolled his eyes.

Mitzi shot him a deathly glare, and it became very obvious to everyone that she did not like Joe. “Okay, Nickelback, pick up a shoe,” she said.

“Ouch, that’s harsh,” Joe whispered. Patrick just walked over to the pile and picked up a girl’s tennis shoe.

Once the game was over, Mitzi told everyone they could go. The room then erupted into chatter as roommates, suitemates and people who wanted to get to know each other started talking about last night. Patrick could overhear a lot of conversations about a party at AEPi the Jewish fraternity on campus as well as a few house parties around the campus, hosted by older students. He could care less about any of that, though. He wanted to talk to Harper again.

“Okay, loverboy, let’s get you over there.” Joe grabbed his hand and pushed through some of the other kids to get to Harper and the blonde girl she was standing with. Patrick started to get cold feet and tried to pull Joe back, but soon they were face-to-face with the girls.

“Can we help you?” the blonde girl named Cassidy said, giving them both a look of loathing as if they were wasting her time and it was annoying her.

“It’s okay, Cassidy, I know him,” Harper said quickly, the corners of her mouth turning up slightly. “Hey Patrick.”

“Hey,” he said softly, then he felt himself clam up. What the heck? Yesterday you had no problem talking to her? But then he remembered that yesterday it was just them and he didn’t realize yet that he actually thought he might like her. “So, um, this is my friend Joe.”

Joe stuck his hand out. “Nice to meet ya.”

She shook it and pointed to Cassidy. “This is my roommate Cassidy.” Joe tried to shake her hand, but she just looked at it.

“No thank you,” she said chilly.

“Whoa, ice queen,” Joe muttered to Patrick.

Oh my God this is not going at all how I pictured it going, Patrick thought, and he felt like he needed to say something quickly before…

“Come on Harper, let’s go. Derrick is downstairs waiting on us to go to the store.” Cassidy grabbed Harper by the elbow and Patrick watched helplessly as she stumbled behind the slightly taller girl.

She spun her head around and called out, “Bye!” Patrick waved after her.

“Well, that went well,” Joe said glumly.

Patrick turned and looked at him. “I am a complete loser aren’t I?”

Joe shrugged and slung his arm around Patrick’s shoulder. “Well, lucky for you, there’s always a second chance… or third… or fourth… or hell, even fifth…”

“Yeah, okay, wow, got your point.” He sighed and they walked out of the study room and headed back to their dorm room. Classes started tomorrow and he wasn’t sure if he could even handle those now that he knew he couldn’t handle flirting with a girl he actually liked.