Secrets & Lies

Chapter Two

When Gia went to college at the age of eighteen she wasn't sure of herself or what she wanted out of school. In fact she had picked a college purely by its name. Not the best way to pick a college she would later admit, but that was exactly how it happened. When Gia was a pre-teen she was fascinated by the television program "The Love Boat", it played everyday in syndication at four pm. Late enough for her to get home from school, have the majority of her homework done, plus it was over before her parents got home from work. Gia wasn't allowed to watch very much television, her parents were big believers that television was a waste of time and children should be reading or playing outside. So she would only get to watch it when they were not at home. Watching the 'Love Boat' was what she considered her perfect hour. Gia didn't know why she loved it as much as she did but it forged her pre-teen fantasy and lust for all things Ted McGinley. On the show Ted played the ship's photographer. He had an incredible smile and wavy blond hair and beautiful blue eyes. Gia liked to imagine he was smiling at her whenever he smiled. So when picking a college Gia of course chose Adams State, the college from the movie "Revenge of the Nerds". What Gia didn't really think about at the time was that:

A) Ted wouldn't be there

B) It is in Colorado not California

C) The movie was about the nerds, not the hot football player that was played by the exquisite Ted.

But off she went and soon realized it sucked. It was a very small school and the campus was very old. The town was even worse, one main street with a single useless stop light that only ever blinked yellow. The town had a few restaurants, one grocery store and a Wal-Mart, where the entire town gathered for their weekly shopping spree every Sunday. Luckily in the first ten minutes of being stuck in small town hell, those minutes when your parents have left and most of your things are put away and you start to feel home sick, Gia met her best friend Mallory. She was probably the funniest person Gia had ever talked to. She had a thick southern accent and talked of the thirty-six students in her graduating class. This was amazing to Gia because she had thirty-six students or more in most of her high school classes. Besides that little fact Mallory was just pure fun! She was the perfect blend of snarky and perky. She had thin light brown shoulder length hair, the color of dried dirt and small somewhat squinty deep brown eyes. They were the same height but Mallory weighed roughly ten to fifteen pounds more than Gia, but they still wore the same size clothes because their builds were so very different. Mallory's heavier weight had to do with her thick leg muscles from all her years as a gymnast and cheerleader in high school. Mallory's family had recently moved to Colorado from Louisiana and a small school seemed just the right fit for her. She found everything interesting and if something wasn't fun she made it that way. Mallory was a very talented artist, but was going to school to be a teacher. Mallory came from a long line of teachers and Adams State was one of the best schools for educators. Gia didn't know this because she had never read the ridiculous college catalogue before picking it as the school she wanted to attend. Stupid Ted McGinley! Her other good friend Marcy was from a small town north of Denver and had decided to go to Adams as well because she wanted to be a teacher and her parents couldn't afford the tuition at the University of Northern Colorado, so Marcy ended up at the smaller school. Gia was practically the only person at Adams State that didn't want to be a teacher. Marcy was more practical and always had to explain the why in every situation or idea whether it needed said or not. Marcy also had a very dry sense of humor and a way of talking under her breath that if you were listening to her she would make you laugh until you almost peed your pants. Unlike Mallory and Gia, Marcy had platinum blond hair and striking blue eyes. A Marilyn Monroe quality about her in the way she moved and looked. She was taller than the other two girls at 5'10" with a very curvy figure and full pouty lips. People always noticed Marcy because of her incredible resemblance to Marilyn. Gia felt very grateful that she had been able to meet both of them. Through Mallory and Marcy she quickly forgot about her parents abandoning her in this small town hell, and stopped thinking about why, in spite of all her adamant protests and temper tantrums, her mother hadn't stopped her from going to a school with a name from a movie she saw when she was fourteen. 

Eventually Gia got into the college way of life. With her two friends they went everywhere together. Like the three musketeers, they became quite a force. Unfortunately school at Adams State was still not Gia's dream. She wanted something Adams couldn't offer. She just couldn't seem to pinpoint what exactly that was. Gia had gone to an expensive private high school, where Seventy-five percent of her graduating class went on to Ivy League schools, twenty percent going to other colleges leaving five percent heading into the military academies. Gia could have gone anywhere and should have gone elsewhere, but perhaps it was her destiny to come here and meet them, at least that was what she was always telling herself. Gia was raised on the fact that everyone had a destiny and it would lead you to where you needed to go if you just followed your heart.

Each week of school was exactly the same. The girls would go to class do their work, take their exams. Many of the students at Adams State had never been able to pick out their classes or teachers and what time they wanted to attend their classes. There was an entire orientation session on how the process worked. This was very shocking to Gia, because she had been doing it since seventh grade.

On Friday and Saturday nights there was always a house party where the students would gather and get drunk. Usually there was a nominal fee in order to come in and drink, that way the host of the party could recover some of the cost of the keg of beer. People would get drunk, fall all over each other and eventually have sex. Gia had a tendency not to drink at these parties and usually ended up driving her drunken friends' back to the dorm and putting them to bed. It was just simply the way of things at Adams State. For Gia it was just all so very tedious. The only separation in this routine was when vacation time came; a week away for Thanksgiving, a month for Christmas, a week for Easter and three months for summer. Those were the times Gia found herself looking forward to. The time when she got to return to civilization!

On a night a few days before Christmas break was to begin when Gia was supposed to be preparing for her final in Western Civilization, a class Gia had to take as a sophomore in high school, she was searching the internet for scholarships to other schools when she came across a site to apply for a fellowship at Oxford University in England. They were looking for students from other countries who wanted to study English Literature. She quickly printed out the information and read it through carefully. It didn't sound too difficult, just fill out the application, write an essay about what literature has meant to you and send in a nonrefundable 100 English pounds and they would let you know their decision in April. Deadline for the fellowship was December 31st. She still had time to think about it and apply later, just not too much later. She read it over and over again until finally tucking it into her book bag so she could think about it later. Gia was a big believer of the Scarlett O'Hara school of thought, "Tomorrow is another day". Plus, she had a final in the morning on the most boring subject known to man, if only she could focus.

The next night at an end of semester blow out party the girls danced, drank and laughed happy to be young, free, and the semester finally finished. College was moving along at a decent pace, but Gia still didn't feel happy half way through her freshman year. She was restless and wanted a challenge, something she realized she would never find at Adams State no matter how much she searched for it. The school just didn't have anything to offer her.