I suppose there are worse ways to die. My head feels like the inside of a tunnel with a fifty cal going off. The reverberations are echoing inside my skull with every beat of my pulse, and I'm reasonably certain I'm going to die if I don't get some coffee and a hell of a lot more Motrin than I've currently got in my system. Which, at the moment, is zero.
And as much as I feel like the inside of a bucket of shit, I’ve definitely had worse hangovers in my life.
If I'm honest with myself, I'm really stalling.
I don’t want to go back on campus. I don’t want to risk another episode like the other day.
And I don't want to go to the particular class I’ve got today. Not at f*ck
ing all. I'm not really sure why I need this specific class and I'm half tempted to bring a flask just in case things get a little froggy.
Because I don't need an academic discussion of violence. Not when I've been up close and personal with the real thing.
I tried to argue with my advisor about it, but Professor Blake wasn't really interested in all the perfectly valid reasons why I did not need to take this class.
I manage to make it to the campus coffee shop, appropriately named The Grind, at that magical thirty-second interlude where the line isn't wrapped around the library. A double shot of espresso ought to get me through the morning. At least I hope it will. It’s not as potent as Green Bean from back in Kuwait, but it'll do. I suppose I can always chew some espresso beans if I get really antsy. Caffeine calms me down the way it amps other people up.
Guess I’m kind of strange like that.
I almost grab a donut but decide against it. Everything is too sweet for me. You'd think after being home for as long as I have, I'd be back to normal by now.
Some things are just damn hard to get used to.
I walk through campus toward the anthropology building. I don’t say hi to the people I pass. I’m only a few years older than most of them but there is no common ground between us. No way to meet in the middle.
It’s like that guy from the bar last week. He thinks violence is never the answer.
Our understanding of how the world works is one hundred percent mutually exclusive.
I manage to find my class and spoiler alert, I'm early. And by early I mean on time.
It's a character flaw. I can't not be early to any appointment. Guess it was driven into my DNA during basic training and I've never really bothered to change the habit since I left the Army. Not only did you have to be ten minutes prior to anything, but you also had to be ten minutes prior to the first sergeant's ten minutes prior. I remember being actively shocked when people strolled into my class ten minutes late. It was like a physical reaction.
I imagined my first sergeant going up one side of them and down the other.
And then I remember I’m not in Kansas anymore. There are no first sergeants here. I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that this is their reality. It's not mine and it never will be. I'll never be the guy who rides the bus across campus and flirts with the cute chick in Chemistry.
But my classmates? They never give it another thought and that's not a bad thing. Man, one dude with an AR-15 and a superiority complex could wreck this place.
But it'll never happen here. This isn't the kind of place those things happen. Those things only happen at "other places" where the students aren't all rich kids.
And I try, I really try not to stare in disbelief at the First World problems I'm not used to hearing.
Wouldn't it be a perfect introduction to the class for me to lose my shit on some pretentious ass*ole
for bitching about his parking spot or how Whole Foods was out of his favorite quinoa?
I take another sip of coffee, trying to keep myself amused as I step into the classroom.
It's a super human effort not to stop, stunned and rooted to the spot. Holy shit, it's her.
I cannot look away. Across the distance and the noise, she is a beacon. A center of calm in the frenetic motion of the classroom.
The girl from the bar. Alone, off to one side. Like the rest of the class doesn’t know what to do with her because her skin is darker than theirs. Or maybe Daddy doesn’t have the right pedigree.
If she notices the way her classmates move around her like she’s not there, she’s playing it cool. Texting someone.
I imagine it’s very alienating.
I know all about that.
I swallow and summon up the courage I need to approach her. ’Cause it’s a whole new ball game talking to a girl when I haven’t been drinking.
Especially one as stunning as she is.
“Mind if I join you?”
She looks up sharply, her eyes wide, as though she’s completely surprised by my question. Which I suppose says enough about the quality of interactions on campus.
I have the distinct impression that she sees me, the real me. Not the hunched-over-the-bar-and-one-sad-story-away-from-eating-a-f*ck