Shay Bristol's Story

Coffee in hand, Shay walked into the decorated gym of Flagler College, feeling quite enthused about orientation night. This was the first time she had been on her own in a different state. Leaving her hometown, friends and family had been hard, but she was excited to see more of the country. Unlike most kids, she had never seen Florida. Never been to Disney World or Universal or SeaWorld. Some may say that she didn't have a childhood. That wasn't true, her parents just liked to vacation near home in Santa Monica. There was plenty to do there anyway.

But this was a new year, and Shay was starting at a new college. She hadn't liked her old one much. It was too much of a party school. It was cool sometimes, but she only felt like partying maybe once a week. Her roommates would often show up at four in the morning completely intoxicated, then they'd throw up and pass out. Shay wasn't having any more of that. Hopefully this year, things would be different. Hopefully she'd have a cool roommate that wasn't a drunkard and actually cared about their academics. It would be cool to have someone to study with. A study buddy, Shay mused.

There were info booths galore, but Shay couldn't seem to peel her eyes away from the cute cheerleaders. One girl caught her looking and smiled, coming up to hand her a flyer. Shay smiled back and read the information. Of course it was the same crap that was on every banner, every pamphlet, every booth sign. But Shay didn't care. She was way too pumped about this.

As Shay walked around to the different booths, collecting pamphlets for different clubs, she heard people inquiring about where to find out who their roommate was. That reminded her, she wanted to know as well. As she made her way toward the New Students booth, she wondered who this person would be. Will they be fun? Will we be friends? Will they be bitchy? Shay wouldn't tolerate bitchy. Or messy. A combination of the two, could you imagine? Ugh.

Approaching the booth that held all the secrets, she noticed the girl with the bright red hair. Bright hair. Shay wondered if it was the girl's natural color. A woman at the booth gave Shay her attention. "Welcome to Flagler College, how may I help you?" Shay felt as if she was about to put in an order at McDonald's.

"Hi, I was just wondering," Shay smiled, "is this where we inquire about roommates?"

"Sure is," the woman replied cheerily. "What's your name, dear?"

"Shay Bristol," she replied as the woman began looking through the information packets.

"Ah, Shay Bristol," she announced, pulling one from the stack. "Your roommate's name is Harlow Oleander."

Harlie finished his doughnut and strawberry milkshake and quickly discarded his trash before deciding to go find out who his room mate could possibly be. he walked over to the lady again and asked her a few questions before he told her his name. She smiled at him. " Oh she was just here only a moment ago! Shay Bristol." she looked around behind him before pointing out a blonde girl. She looked like someone could get along with. he nodded and thanked the woman before making his way to Shay and lightly tapping her shoulder.

"Hello, Shay Bristol?" He asked and smiled kindly. " Im Harlow Oleander, the lady over there said you were going to be my room mate. Nice to meet you!" He said in a cheery voice waving at her.

David was walking around aimlessly. He was supposed to be going to college, and he would, but at the moment he was exploring. There was a beach, and it looked pretty, like it was in one of those vacation brochures. So that was cool. But besides that it looked like a pretty normal place. which was a bit of a let down, since he was hoping it would be one of those places with a "dark history" and maybe some ghost stories. Nope.

At least the college seemed good though. From what he'd heard. Thinking about it, he decided he probably shout go for orientation before it was too late. It would be just wonderful to get kicked out before he was even there. He decided to walk there, and then regretted it. He was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, and it was hot outside. Even though the walk wasn't all that bad, he felt like he was dying by the time he got there. Or his throat was.

Finding the college, he went to where he supposed he had to "sign in", or whatever. About to step inside, he saw a girl at the desk and decided to wait a minute for her to finish up. He always found waiting behind someone to be more or less awkward. When it looked like she was finishing up, he finally stepped into the room. The woman behind the desk smiled at him, but it looked too practiced. Still, he smiled back and waved enthusiastically, hoping to get on every adults good sides to start with so when he got in trouble later the blow wouldn't be so bad.

Shay heard her name being said and turned around to face the person. "I'm Harlow Oleander, the lady over there said you were going to be my roommate. Nice to meet you!"

Shay squealed in delight. "Hey, Harlow," she greeted her roomie ecstatically. Now she was only ten times more excited. Only ten. "It's so good to meet you too. Um, this may sound awkward, and stop me if I'm being offensive, but..." Shay stalled, not knowing whether to ask this question. "Do I detect a hint of masculinity in your voice? Just a hint, like no big deal or anything. Not even noticeable, I just pay attention to detail. Way to much attention to detail."

Shay tended to ramble whenever she felt that a situation was becoming awkward. She hated awkward silences, so she preferred to fill them with her voice. Sometime's she'd even giggle uncontrollably when she was nervous. They were two habits she wanted to rid herself of.

Harlie giggled and nodded. " yeah... this might be weird or even gross to you so I'll just say it point blank. Im a guy, and I dress in female clothing. " He shrugged it off as nothing. " It you wanna I can ask to get a different room mate, but Im like, full on batting for your team." He smirks. " Ya know, Yay for wieners!" He raises his hand like he was a cheerleader cheering for the winning team. " So I won't do anything weird to ya~." he smiles and flicks his bangs from his face.

He hoped a bit that he hadn't offended her with his comments. That was just his humor, all his friends at home had labeled him as the inappropriate one of the group. He couldn't help he found things that can be dirty to be funny. He looked back up for Shay waiting for her response.

Shay stared blankly at Harlow for a split second, than burst out laughing in relief at his explanation. "Dude, I'm totally fine with it," she assured him, smiling. "I've just never met a guy more feminine than myself, you feel me? But yeah...yay for wieners, I agree." She couldn't help but laugh again, recalling the way he had said it.

Shay high-fived a passing student on a skateboard, he looked on top of the world. "Get it, boy!" she hollered, encouraging him to liven this orientation up a bit. It was getting real boring real fast, and her coffee was about gone. Plus, she was getting hungry. It was about time for a meal.

"Hey Harlow, are you hungry?" Shay asked her new roomie. "You wanna grab a bite somewhere?"

Harlie laughs along with her and smiles glad she was okay with the whole situation. " Yeah it tends to throw people for a loop when they find out." He shrugs as if he isn't really bothered by the fact. He smiles and watches her high-five some random guy who passed by on a skate-board and then yelled back at him as he rode off into the crowd.

Harlie looked back at Shay and nods rubbing his stomach. " Yeah, I can always go for some food!" He smiled and laughed, then tilts his head curiously. " Do you know any good places around here? Today is my first day here so I'm not sure where the good places to eat are." He said looking around thinking maybe they could ask one of the upperclassmen or something.

"I'm pretty new here too, actually," Shay frowned, trying to think back on when she drove around to see the sights. "I don't know any of the places around here." Come to think of it, she only knew where the local Starbucks was and had gone there too many times for coffee and baked things. Otherwise she'd been living for the past few days on the tons of snacks she had packed with her. She hadn't even noticed her terrible junk food habit showing up again until now. She mentally scolded herself. That's what college life does to you, I guess, Shay thought. And it's not even the first day yet.

"Do you mind if we go to a real sit-down restaurant?" Shay asked Harlow. "I just haven't been watching my crappy intake of junk food since I've been in Florida. We could ask the information desk what's around, maybe."

Harlow listened and then smiled. "Yeah, it completely fine. I kinda need a real meal any way. Airplane peanuts don't count in that category." He says and looks around the gym and spots a box on one of the booths with a map of the town and all the best places to eat and hangout in a small key at the bottom. He runs over and grabs one saying a quick thank you to the people at the booth. " Hey I got the answers to all of our problems food wise!" He said and walks back over to her smiling.

"Hmm now we just have to choose" He said opening it and showing the map to Shay so she could see it also.

Shay looked at the map that Harlow had spread out in front of them. She usually didn't have a preference when it came to restaurants because any given place would have multiple choices. But when she saw the Cheesecake Factory listed on the map, she nearly melted.

"Omigod," Shay gasped dramatically. "The Cheesecake Factory is five minutes south of here. Do you mind if we go there?"

As common as the restaurant was across America, the closest one back home was almost an hour away from where Shay lived. She didn't get to eat there very often and when she did, her stomach always made her stop before she got in everything she wanted. Having a Cheesecake Factory so close to Flagler might prove to be quite dangerous for her.