I looked on to my surroundings, and saw miles of green. I suppose that's why it's called the Green Mountain State. I was moving to Vermont for college, to the biggest city, Burlington. And despite it being the biggest city there was still only about 32,000 people, plus an additional 10,000 college students. I wasn't going to the state university, but rather the small private college on the hill.
I wasn't all that nervous to be starting college. I was excited to "start over", to get rid of the person I was in high school, the person that I thought wasn't me. I was incredibly shy in high school. It's not like I was necessarily unpopular though, I was mostly just unknown. People didn't talk about me, people only really knew my name, but I was blessed with a pretty nice group of friends. But not much else, I never experienced boys liking me, or even having any sort of date. Which sucked, I'm not going to lie. I wasn't really into drinking (I did occasionally but not often) and I definitely was not into drugs, I refused to even take Tylenol half the time. That was all about to change, drastically.
My college required us to move in three days early to attended orientation, to get used to college and to hopefully meet new friends. I was mostly worried about meeting my roommate. She was from Vermont and we had talked online and she had informed me that she would be going home most weekends to work and spend time with her boyfriend. That worried me. From my impression of college, your roommate was supposed to become your best friend. I thought that since she wasn't going to be around, we weren't going to have a relationship, at all.
I arrived on move-in day at eight AM sharp, as did most people. I was so excited. I got into my room, which was interestingly shaped. I generally thought that all college dorm rooms were just a basic square, but that wasn't the case at Champlain. Most of the dorms, and all the freshman dorms, were old Victorian Mansions. I lived in one of the bigger dorms on campus called Rowell, and it had around 55 people living there, including our two .
When I got to my room, my roommate wasn't there, so I got first pick of everything. I got the bed by the window, dresser close to my bed, desk close to my bed, and the bigger closet. My parents helped me move all my stuff in, and my roommate still wasn't there. I was starting to get worried that she wasn't going to show up at all, because it seemed like most people were there already. While I waited for my roommate to come, I decided to go get my I.D. card and all the stuff that. When I got back, she was finally there. Ashley was a small, blonde girl who had a tall blonde boyfriend and a brunette sister with her. We exchanged awkward introductions and ate an awkward lunch together after she got all her stuff for orientation. I'm not very good at meeting new people, and it didn't really help that she was a shy person also. And that's how orientation basically was: quiet and awkward. I didn't meet any new friends or really talk to any new people, except for one person.
We had to meet with professors from our designated major, and since my school is very career oriented, no one is really undeclared, you have to at least pick a general field you're interested in. I had a major picked out already, Communications. So, I went to my major meeting and this girl asked to sit next to me and I said sure, and then I looked up and saw that she was in my dorm. Her name was Brittany and she was from New Jersey. We got to talking a little during that meeting and I discovered that she reminded me a lot of my friends from home, which I found comforting. We also discovered that we had to take pretty much all the same classes even though she's a Public Relations major. We talked all the way back to the student life center, where we caught up with one of her roommates named Andy, who was also from New Jersey and a Graphic Design major. I was glad that I at least was making a start at making friends, although I was still nervous about making friends. I never realized how hard it was to make friends, because I never realized that I hadn't made a new friend in like three years. It's hard to just put yourself out there, especially at a place where no one knows anything about you.
I spent many nights that first week alone. I would get lunch and stuff with Brittany, but I was still nervous to just go knock on her door and ask her to hang out. Then Friday came, and you could say my life changed from that weekend on. The Friday wasn't the most interesting night however, that night just consisted of Apples to Apples with my roommate, her boyfriend and Brittany. Saturday was interesting. Ashley texts me while she's at working asking if I wanted to get something to drink and I said sure. I thought finally I was going to experience what people always crack up college to be. When Ashley came, she introduced me to this girl down the hall named Becca, who lived in a triple with this girl named Amanda and this other girl named Lauren. Anyway, Becca is a big pothead. The first one that I really met. She suggested that we smoke with this guy named Scott from upstairs. I was officially nervous. I had never been around people who smoked pot before, and I definitely didn't know how you were supposed to smoke pot. But I choked down the rest of my bitter Twisted Tea, and went out to the car with them. They taught me how to take hits from the pipe and I took like 2 or 3 hits. I wasn't high. At the time I thought I was, but I wouldn't realize until later that I wasn't. We went back to the room and I had another Twisted Tea while Becca rolled a blunt. Then Becca's roommate, who we would learn later is a real bitch, came in disgusted that we were drinking in her room, so we finished up and went and smoked that blunt (I still wasn't high, by the way, just a little drunk.). By the time we got back Lauren was warning us that Campus Public Safety was coming around and that they were going to be at our dorm soon. Scott and Becca fucking got really paranoid (weed does that to you kids). Sarah and I decided to go for a walk and we walked a couple of blocks down to the main street and then back to our dorm. When we got back a bunch of people were playing Apples to Apples in our hallways (there is something about college and Apples to Apples). Anyway our R.A , Mike, was in the hall and my roommate decided that she wanted him to call her boyfriend and pretend that she had been written up.
We soon left and went back to our room where we had another Twisted Tea. Then there was a knock on our door, and it was Sam and this guy from our dorm named Rob, and they said that they wanted to hang out. So, we sat around a talked for a while. Then there was another knock on the door. It was my roommate's boyfriend, Zach. He was pissed off and drunk as fuck. Him and my roommate started fighting hardcore, pushing each other and she hit him a lot. Then she went into the bathroom and Zach tried to talk to me and Rob told him to calm the fuck down and he punch Rob in the face. My roommate then came out and hit him again and told him to leave. Zach then set off the door alarm and we all had to go outside. It was quite the interesting first weekend to say the least, and that was only the beginning.
The weeks at college are always boring (unless you decide to get drunk in the middle of the week, more on that later). My classes were relatively easy last semester, so I didn't do a lot at all during the week, not even homework most of the time. So, let's move on to the second weekend of school, because that weekend probably changed who I am more than the first. My friend Brittany was going away the second weekend to her house in southern Vermont, and my roommate was going to be home all weekend, so I was worried. I didn't know who I was going to hang out with. I basically convinced myself that I was sick, and stayed in bed Friday night. Then on Saturday, I was eating dinner and Rob comes up to me and says
"Why are you eating alone?"
"I don't know…"
"You have friends, you don't have to eat alone."
That's when I realized; I had in fact made friends. So, he left me with the information that Sam was over at the library taking pictures. I headed over to the library and I met Sam kind of in the middle and we got talking and we started walking back to the dorm, and we randomly stopped outside and I talked for like an hour in that spot with her and her friend Rosie. We eventually made it back to our dorm and Andy and Rob were complaining that they had nothing to do, and that they were so bored. Andy then called up her friend, and asked him what he was doing and he said to meet him at this other dorm called Lyman. So, the four of us walked down to Lyman. We hung around a bit out front and then I see two guys walking towards us. And little did I know those two guys would be the two guys who have affected me the most this year.
I had seen Derek before, because he had requested me as a friend on Facebook before school had started. I had actually thought that he was really cute when I sifted through his pictures before school started. From my impression of him, he seemed like the kind of guy that I would typically like. He, of course, didn't realize who I was at all. The other guy, who was Andy's friend, I had never seen before, and all I knew about him was that his name was Doug. Derek then said that we should go upstairs, so we followed him. There were a lot of people in Derek's room all drinking 40s and smoking weed off the fire escape. This is when I had my first sip of beer, which I still don't like too much, although it's tolerable now. Anyway, Doug then suggested that we should go find a party. This is when I got pretty nervous, again, because I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and I had seen the way most of the girls get ready to go out. But I went with them anyway. I guess it was lucky that we had actually no luck finding a party. Doug then suggested that we go up to his dorm and smoke some weed and order pizza or something. As we're walking up to his dorm Doug turns to me and says:
"Who are you?"
"I'm Kylie."
"I know, but who are you? Where are you from? What do you like?"
"I'm from Maine."
"Ah, do you smoke weed?"
"I've only done it once"
"Really?!"
He just laughed at this, which I guess is what most people would do. We finally made it back to his dorm (his dorm is far away from my dorm and Lyman). Doug packs the bowl, and we go out back behind his dorm, and he says that he's going to get me really high. So, he holds the bowl for me and tells me to put my mouth on it, and just keeps breathing. I did. I took a really big hit, that leaves me breathless, and when the bowl gets back to me I'm wasn't sure I could take another, but Doug insists I take another. That makes me think to myself "damn, this kid is pushy, I'm not sure I like him." I somehow manage to take a few more hits, amazingly, and I begin to get this weird feeling. It's not something I can really describe, being high for the first time. I guess I can explain it as my whole world getting fuzzier and fuzzier. I'm not even sure how I made it back to Doug's room, but I did. Once I got in the room, I could no longer stand up at all. I sat down and leaned myself up against Doug's dresser to keep myself up, but eventually that didn't even work. I soon found myself on the floor and I could barely keep my eyes open and I hear Andy and Rob asking Doug is I'm going to be alright and he keeps replying that I'm fine. I finally could regain my balance and stand up, and I decided to go back to the dorm and just go to sleep and at that point I wasn't sure if I ever even wanted to smoke pot again. Of course, I ended up smoking a lot more. The following week, I would see Doug everywhere. I saw him in the dining hall mostly and he would wave to me when he saw me. It was a weird but familiar feeling I started to get over the next few weeks of continually hanging out with him on the weekends. I liked him. I really didn't want to. I didn't think he was that attractive, and I thought that it was only because I was fucked up that I wanted to fuck him or whatever.
Then one night happened, when I knew I liked him for real. This was also the night that I witnessed my first cocaine deal (and my last one). Doug had been on his phone all night with an apparent drug dealer, making deals, and rejecting deals. And then later in the night he says that he's going out to smoke a cigarette and I said that I "wanted some fresh air". Once outside Doug sees this guy from his dorm named Casey sitting out on the bench and I introduce myself and take a seat next to him and ask if I can have a hit out of his makeshift Gatorade bottle bong, and he lets me. Then a call pulls up front on the dorm and this big black guy gets out and Doug walks towards him and scores some coke. I had never seen any drug besides pot at this point, so seeing cocaine was just like a huge shocker, I never in my life thought I would see it in person, let alone see someone I know buy it. Then Doug and I went back inside and my friend Rob is sick from drinking too much and keeps throwing up in the trash. So, Doug and Andy kind of situate him on the floor, and then the three of us sit on Doug's bed and talk for a long time about really random stuff, and that's when I realized that I really did like Doug.
The weekend after this, Rob's friends from home came up to visit school and we decided to take them to meet Doug. So, Rob texted Doug asking him if he wanted to "meet people" and he said yes. We headed up to the dorm and Doug, who was apparently tripping on shrooms, greets us. We go into his room where there are atleast four people tripping on acid and a bunch of people who are just drinking and stuff. That's when things got crazy. Doug thought that when we said "meet people" we meant "meat people", so Rob's friends were made out of meat. Then he started taking off his clothes and we decided to leave.
The rest of September and the beginning of October went by to be pretty uneventful. One thing that did happen though was my increasing interest in drugs. I became curious about ecstasy so I asked my roommate what she knew about it. She told me that it was one of the best things ever (this is when I began to see the side of my roommate that she hadn't told me about). I told her that I wanted to get some and she said that she would try and find some. I told my friend Andy about my growing curiosity in e and she told me that she wanted to try it too.
My roommate located some good e and I bought some, as did she, my friend Becca and Andy. Ashley and Becca took theirs first on school night, which I wasn't willing to do, so I just got high instead. Becca later told me that she didn't really feel too, too much she just couldn't really sleep. So, I kind of forgot about it for a little while, because I didn't think that it was very good.
I then went home for Columbus Day weekend. I got a text from Andy saying that she sold her e to this kid we know named Matt, but that she was going to get another hopefully soon. I was a little pissed. She then texted me later saying that she bought another pill, and that Rob and Doug had bought something to candy flip with, but the drugs had been fake. So, Andy had no e, and I was disappoint, for one that she sold it in the first place, and secondly that she had taken it without me anyway.
I quickly got over it, however and saw some of my friends from home. It was weird being home for the first time, because in a short month and half I had experienced things that most of my friends hadn't, and I was really happy to be going back to school.
On my way back to school that Monday, Andy texted me and asked when I was going to be back. I replied that I was almost there. When I got back to school Andy told me that she was going to be tripping on shrooms with Rob and Doug that night, and asked if I wanted to also. I was nervous, because I for one had seen Doug go crazy on shrooms and I had also seen Andy and Rob both have bad trips on salvia. I then remembered that I had some ecstasy, so I decided to take that instead of trip. Around 8 or 9 that night we go up to Doug's dorm and I swallow my little orange pill and they eat their nasty bagels filled with shrooms. We were all just sitting on the floor waiting for our drugs to kick in and after about a half hour – forty-five minutes, mine hits me like a fucking brick wall. All of a sudden I was lying down on the ground, literally rolling around. I was rubbing my body all over the rug, because it just felt so fucking good on my skin. Rob, and Andy were being ridiculous in the bathroom playing with soap, and Doug seemed surprisingly composed compared to the last time he was on shrooms. Doug then suggests that we go outside to smoke and play hacky sack, but Andy and Rob don't want to. Doug then turns to me and says that he'll give me a hug if I go outside. And that was the first time that Doug and I made real physical contact. Outside I just kept getting more, and more hugs and then one of Doug's roommates, Lucas, tells us that Andy is going crazy, so we run back inside. Turns out she was completely fine. I was being really social with everyone that I saw, and I fucking loved it. I was trying to help Doug's roommate, Nick, with the paper he was writing and I told this other kid I really liked his dread and proceeded to touch them, then I cleaned up Doug's floor after Andy shredded paper everywhere. That to this day, is still one of the best nights I've had.