How About No

Chapter 3: How bad could it be?

Meryl^^

Carolyn's next class was Nutrition. It was immediately after Calc with Jin and her new friend (not), Cassandra Deke. She wouldn't forget her name anymore and maybe she wouldn't drop Jin's class after all. 

Carolyn got to Nutrition ten minutes early so she could get a good seat and what did she find but that boy Reese sitting in a desk against the wall reading Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Forgetting their argument that morning, Carolyn sat down right next to the boy and got out her notebook to take notes for nutrition.

"Why are you sitting next to me?" Reese asked her without looking up from his book.

 "Because you're the only person I know other than Cassandra Deke." She replied with a shrug. 

"But you're not my friend, only my friends sit by me." As Reese said this a girl with dark hair loose around her shoulders and a boy with a ginger mullet sauntered into the classroom and over to them. The girl looked at Carolyn with disgust, "You're kidding me, right? Reese who is this?" 

Reese looked up for the first time since Carolyn came in, "Just a nuisance. Meryl, this is Amalie Peters. Amalie, this is Meryl Jenkins and Ron Pratt." Meryl and Ron just stared at the blonde as she felt compelled to point out that her name is actually Carolyn.

"Well look Carolyn, if you're not Reese's friend, then you can't sit with him. It's as easy as that," Meryl stated.

 Carolyn thought that was a ridiculous thing to say and told Meryl Jenkins exactly that. By the time they had exchanged a few insults, more freshman drizzled in and not long after came the professor. Carolyn promptly stood up and moved a few rows over while Meryl took her seat and Ron squeezed his rather large body into the desk in front of Reese. Carolyn huffed as she sat in her new seat right behind a boy with slicked back blonde hair and a yellow muscle shirt on. Hey! she thought, look on the bright side...at least I don't have to sit up front! and there's no Cassandra to bother me. Maybe Nutrition can be my relax class. Each year in high school Carolyn had appointed a relax class in her schedule which excluded Study Hall or Cheer. A relax class was the 50 minutes of her day when she could totally zone out and get notes from a nerd who had a crush on her and still have an A both semesters. Freshman year she had Biology as her relax class. Sophomore year it was Geometry. Junior year she had two: Anatomy and AP English. Senior year she had five. She literally slept through senior year and still graduated in the top half of her class. Back to college...

The professor was a short, buff man who looked about 35 and had his blonde hair in a man bun on the back of his head. He wore a black suit and instead of a tie he had reading glasses hooked in his shirt. 

"Let's get started!" he drawled on lazily and then introduced himself as Professor Abrams and never took roll. 

 About halfway through his lecture on fatty acids, Professor Abrams instructed the students to get into groups of four. Carolyn looked around the room to find people to group up with. She saw Reese, Meryl, and Ron start chatting together and wondered if she could join their group; they looked pretty smart after all. As she began to make her way through the maze of tightly packed desks, someone grabbed her arm. Surprised, Carolyn turned to find herself face to face with a beautiful prince like boy with dark hair, like waves, flowing down to his shoulders and dark brooding eyes.

"Wanna join our group Princess?" the dark prince asked. Carolyn was mesmerized as she assumed something would finally go her way today. His hand was still on her arm when a gorgeous caramel haired girl interrupted their trance, "Ryder, come on, the Professor is already handing out the assignments. Sit down."

 Carolyn stumbled out a reply, "Um, Yeah, Sure." and sat back down in her seat. 

Evidently, Ryder was seated behind her and him and that girl pulled up a desks to hers. Another boy quickly pulled up a desk and introduced himself as Ben. As soon as he opened his mouth, Carolyn was smitten. Ben was everything she wanted in a man: tall, deep voiced, intelligent, blue eyes (she didn't know why she loved guys with blue eyes) and athletic. The only thing else she hoped for in a man was for him to be older than her and she had her fingers crossed. The rest of class was spent beginning the report on fatty acids but Carolyn hardly paid attention for out of the four boys her age that she met that day, half were absolutely gorgeous and she hoped on her 90 year old great-grandmother that they were single. Poor Great-Grandma Lucretia because she found out that Ryder was dating the caramel haired girl who looked like a model and that the model's name was Haydn.

As her last class of her first day of college ended, Carolyn felt a little better about herself and of course hopeful that Ben was single. She began to gather her things and then planned on heading back to her dorm to binge watch "The Mindy Project" and FaceTime her gay cousin when Ben came up to her, "Hey, Carolyn, uh, me, Ryder, and Haydn are going to this cool on campus Mexican place for dinner and then Haydn's brother said we could come to their Back to school frat party so we were gonna drop by after we ate. Do you wanna come with us?" 

Carolyn thought about her cousin Craig who would probably just spend the evening binge watching Mindy by himself or having a four way phone call with the mean girls at his high school just like in "Mean Girls." He was Regina George of course. She thought he'd be okay and flashed a smile that cost her parents thousands and cost her two years in braces to create and answered dreamy Ben, "I would love to. What's your phone number? So you can text me all the details." 

Hope you enjoy! <3

~Pip