The Last Girl on Campus

Chapter 3

"Okay, I have pasta, the pot, a stirring spoon...that's all I need, right?" I asked myself, trying to read the directions on the box of spaghetti.

It's only pasta. How hard can that be? I put on some more Rayvn music and waited for the pot of water to boil. When it had a lot of bubbles forming at the bottom, I assumed that was good enough and dumped the contents of the box in. A sizzling sound came from the pot. Was that good or bad? I took my spoon and stirred the pasta around a little. Outside the kitchen window, I noticed that the lights for the baseball field were on. No one was there. I thought of the people in their cars, driving past the back of Steinman Hall and seeing everything dark, then this one little light coming from a window on the first floor. Did they think someone forgot to turn their lights off when they left? Were they wondering what someone was still doing here? I stood there, just staring out the window at the empty field, when suddenly there was more, louder sizzling.

I turned, gasped, and ran over to the stove. With a massive cloud of white foam on top, the pot was now overflowing and spilling all over the stove. I grabbed the dial for the burner and turned it all the way off. In a few seconds, the white foam was lowering back down into the pot. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"I have no idea what just happened," I said.

From that moment on, I stood vigilantly over the pot, regulating the burner temperature every time I thought the water was too high. When the pasta looked like it was done, I turned the burner off and strained all the water out, then heated up some sauce and poured it into a plate with my spaghetti. Before cooking, I moved Richard over to the kitchen table so I'd have some company. I set the plate down in front of his bowl.

"I can't believe I actually did it!" I said, pulling out a chair and sitting down.

I took a forkful of pasta and shoved it into my mouth. When I started to chew, that's when I realized that something was definitely not right with this batch of pasta. It was crunchy. I buried my face in my hands. Apparently, cooking something at a higher temperature for less time than directed wasn't affective. Since it was so much work, I decided to just screw it and eat it all anyway. A little undercooked pasta never killed anyone...right?

So after dinner was finished and everything was all cleaned up, I decided to take a walk while listening to some music, just to get out in the fresh air and kill some time. The air was starting to cool down. Everything was quiet, almost like a normal Thursday night when all the kids who didn't have Friday classes were pregaming. It was like being in one of those movies about the end of the world—I was the last of my kind, trying to find my way around what was left of civilization. I'd have to learn to communicate with the campus squirrels and live amongst them.

Since our campus was so small, it took only a few minutes to get to the spot behind the library where I wanted to spend my time. I walked down a small slope to the dock that the rowing team used, which floated above a nasty-looking river. Sadly, it was too dark to spot any dolphins. I kept my balance as I walked on it and took a seat, making sure there were no duck droppings in close proximity.

Downtown Tampa was a bright and beautiful place, even though it only had like, five skyscrapers—nothing like Toronto. My friends and I referred to it as a "mini city." In the park on the other side of the river, they were setting up for yet another local concert. If it was free I'd most likely stop by. Really, what else was I supposed to do tomorrow night? Going to the club alone was unsafe and going to a bar alone was just sad. There was no way that I was going to deal with a bunch of creepy guys coming on to me without the help and/or protection of my friends. But tomorrow was Friday. You can't just do nothing on a Friday.

Well, I mean, most Fridays we'd just watch movies and then go out on Saturday nights because we were tired from class, but even though things really sucked at the moment I had a reason to celebrate. This semester I'd taken all 300 level classes and knew I passed every single one of them. I most likely wasn't going to have the 3.75 to graduate Magna Coum Laude anymore, but that didn't matter at this point. No one cares how well you did in college, just that you finished. After all, Cs get degrees.

A few boats went by on the river. Some were fishing, some were families out with their dogs. I took out my phone and checked social media. Over fifty likes on my paper Christmas tree. A lot of online friends were commenting things like, "Is that your dorm?" or "What are you still doing on campus?" My eyes followed two teenagers who were skateboarding in the park. Friends. Something I currently didn't have with me. I sent a text to Cheyanne, telling her I was bored. My phone vibrated. She was calling me. I answered.

"What?"

"Dude, what are you still doing on campus?" she asked in her southern accent.

"Massive snowstorm and overbooked flights. I'm stuck here for three weeks."

Cheyanne gasped. "No way!"

"I wish I could say the same thing. All the airlines said there's hundreds of people ahead of me."

"Oh my gosh! What are you gonna do?"

"You tell me. I need some innovative ideas here!" I said. "Oh, and did you see the Christmas tree?"

"Yeah, it was great. Now let's see...you should go out."

"What? Not by myself!"

"Oh wait—" I could hear her laughing. "What if you weren't technically alone? What if we were on a video call or something?"

I started giggling. "You know, that would just be stupid enough to work."

"Could you imagine the SnapChat story we'd be able to make out of this?" she said.

"So, where should we go?" I asked.

"How about the new Amp?"

"The new Amp?"

"Yeah! It just reopened on Halloween. I wanna see what it looks like!"

I sighed. "Okay, we might as well."

We talked until it was around nine-thirty, then I walked back to Steinman Hall. I switched over to my tablet so we could video chat. Cheyanne looked the same as always, but was a little different. Even though she was just sitting on her bed in her room at home, she was in shorts and a miniscule hot pink crop top, with her curly blond hair straightened and her makeup totally done.

"What are you doing? Why do you look like that?" I asked.

"We're going out, aren't we?" she said.

I laughed and started getting ready myself, putting on my tight black dress and flattening my already straight auburn hair even more, then doing all of my makeup. When everything was in my purse, I headed out the door, carrying my tablet with Cheyanne on it, and waited for the cab that I called. A breeze blew as I stood behind Steinman Hall in the darkness.

"This place is so creepy with no one around," I said.

"I can imagine," Cheyanne said.

After waiting a half an hour, a cab finally pulled up and I got inside. The man looked back at me. He nodded and said, "Hello. Where are you going, Miss?"

I shut the door. "Take me to Amphitheater please."