Distract and Sedate | Hemlock Grove |

Chapter 2 | Call Me |

Philadelphia

Emma had been in communication with her roommate over the summer. Jules' was from Indiana and, like Emma, was a scholarship kid. Of course, Jules had a real scholarship and Emma's was really just money Roman funneled to her under the guise of a scholarship. No one had to know that, though.

The dorms on campus were all pretty old and didn't have a standard layout. Neither of the girls had really prepared any decorations and it all looked a little sad upon arrival. Jules' parents were there and everyone said their hello's and goodbyes. Orientation was a drag filled with walking back and forth from building to building and registering for classes.

She had snagged a pretty sweet schedule. Nothing too early and only one night class. There wasn't much freedom in what to take. With her major already figured out, she had required classes and her general education and it only left room for one elective. She felt a little silly registering for it, but how could she turn down an anthropology class titled: Gods, Witches, and Monsters.

It probably was a waste of a credit hour, but she couldn't help herself.

Once classes start Emma thinks about how nice a year at home would have been. She could never quite escape exhaustion. It was a permanent fixture in her life that caffeine and some snagged Adderall could sedate only a little.

It's lonely. That's the first big realization Emma had about being at school. It seemed like everyone else was having an easy time adjusting, but she felt stalled. Maybe it was that living in a small town made it hard for her to meet new people, but it seemed unlikely. Jules, on the other hand, turned out to be a social butterfly. She was joining a sorority and already had made friends in the building. She seemed like the kind of girl that could juggle a million things at once and never drop them. Emma's not so graceful. She's thankful, however, for her roommates social skills and kindness to introduce her to people.

The first week after orientation she had made her way to all sorts of "ice breaker" events to meet people. The second week she chooses to avoid any more attempts at forced socialization. Classes where already overwhelming enough, she didn't need any more pressure on her. It was only the first week and she already had 60 pages of reading due for her history class.

She sits through her gen-eds with as much interest as possible. There's something that changed in her last year that has lingered on to know. It's possible that Roman was wrong, maybe she wouldn't have gotten in even if things had been different. She feels rather inadequate sitting through her chemistry lecture. But she's trying. Trying really fucking hard.

Unlike what movies and TV shows had convinced her, fakes IDs were hard to find. Even harder were bars that didn't ID. The only place to go on a Friday night was a frat house or Maggie Patton's dorm on the 4th floor. She was the only one of them with a fake.

The girls were pretty quiet, sipping straight from either beer or vodka bottles. They're all on their phones, either texting ex's or looking for someone to text on Tinder. Of everything listed above, Emma was the latter. Every couple of swipes she would ask one of the other girls "Is he cute or am I drunk?"

"You're drunk," Maggie's roommate, Hope, laughs. "Where did you say you were from again? Is this what the boys look like there?"

"Hemlock Grove."

"Never heard of it," Hope says after scanning her brain.

"Oh, I have," Maggie peeps in. "Dalton was telling me the other day about the new lab they're building. The company is there. It's the... the..."

"Godfrey," Emma tells her.

"Yeah, that's it!" Maggie looks relieved. "The dude that runs it is like our age or something. Dalton is fucking in love with him, I swear. Did you know him?"