First

2. Godiva's Hymn

To my astonishment I arrived at the right lecture hall before the doors were even open. I mostly just followed the noise to where a freshmen mob was mashed into the hallway.

Some of my peers were groggy and bleary eyed like me. Others were still intoxicated from the night before. I flinched as one poor soul leaned over and puked into a garbage can mid-conversation with another boy.

"... and then Brian was like, 'man, if you're going to cheat you just can't get caught', right?" his friend continued, like this was normal as Sunday tea.

Puking Boy tried to laugh in agreement as he retched.

Shouts rang through the hallway from some sort of scuffle. Cautiously, holding tightly to the straps of my Hello Kitty backpack, I edged through the crowd to see what was happening. I'm tall, for a girl, but most of my classmates were boys and about a foot taller. They shifted like reluctant molasses as I moved through them.

When I could finally see what was happening, my heart hammered with shock and fury.

"Leave him alone!" I shouted.

I'm not sure where that came from. I'm not usually very outspoken. In fact, I consider myself something of a coward. I wasn't even wearing a bra, for heaven's sake. What a terrible day to be brave.

But a grown man, 18 years old, giving a classmate a wedgie in the middle of a school hallway was idiotic. Why had no one else told him so?

The youth released his captive in shock, staring at scrawny little me. I scowled right back into his fat-cheeked face, feeling my face pounding with terror now as well as anger.

He had a full, blond beard, a shaved head, and a very strong looking set of biceps. His piggy little eyes looked me up and down, and a nasty smile sprouted at the corner of his thin lips.

Run away! Coward-Sarah urged.

A clang and squeak of door hinges announced that the lecture hall was now open. Like cattle, the freshmen rushed at the door, blocking the very large youth from my sight.

Thank you, Jesus, I thought weakly. I hadn't exactly had a follow-up plan.

His victim, however, emerged through the stream of people. He shoved his Spiderman underwear back into his pants and angrily re-buckled his belt. He was tiny, even skinnier than me, and about a head shorter.

"I don't need your help," he snapped rudely, brushing aside the hand I had held out to introduce myself.

My eyebrows nearly jumped off of my face.

Alright then.

I let him enter the flood of people flowing into the theater well ahead of me. There was a risk of me slapping him if he stayed within reach for too much longer.

Boys are stupid. Stupid boys. Stupid, stupid boys, I thought furiously.

There was an empty row at the back. I made my way to the middle and sat down, trying to hide the fact that I was shaking. Before long I was joined by a dozen latecomers.

Laughter and conversations grew around me. I took a deep breath and tried to disappear into the buzz and clamor of excited students around me. Slowly, very slowly, my heart settled down.

"Good morning," our professor said finally. "This is Introduction to Chemistry for Engineers. If you're in the wrong class, now is the time to leave."

The boy that had sat beside me got up to leave. His friend, a thin boy wearing suspenders and immaculate black shoes, grinned and pulled him back into his seat.