Welcome to College

Welcome to college. I think I heard that sentence about 50 times within the first hour after I arrived on the campus in Chapel Hill. Everywhere I turned, there was yet another person with a fake smile plastered across their face, telling me where to go, what classes to take and what activities to sign up for. Not that a little guidance isn't appreciated, but I was so sick of people with their advice telling me how to live my life; I had enough of that back home with my mother keeping me on a tight leash in order to prevent me from becoming just like my older sister Taylor. So, as random people I'd never met before were giving me advice from their personal experiences, I became determined to do exactly the opposite of most of it; I was going to experience what I wanted, good or bad.

Moving into my dorm was an experience in itself considering I was all by myself; my parents decided that they were too busy making and spending money to even come usher me into the real world. As I watched my roommate's family, her parents and her siblings, unpack all of her things to her yelling at them for doing it wrong, I suddenly resented the girl in front of me for not realizing how absolutely lucky she was to even have them there. So, as soon as I was unpacked enough, I quietly left the chaos to walk around campus, which turned out to be a useful thing. I felt silly walking around with my color-coded map trying to find my classes until I ran into, and I mean literally ran into, a petite girl doing the exact same thing I was doing.

Her name was Haley and we quickly learned that we had the same freshman week class and she was living just two floors above me. She was so sweet and genuine that I felt lucky to have met her so early on in my college career. We spent the rest of the afternoon learning campus, buying our books and just getting to know each other. Finally, around dinner time, we decided to head back to our dorm where she introduced me to a girl from her floor that was in our class too. Peyton Sawyer was her name and I could tell instantly that she was unlike any other person I'd ever met before in my life. Haley also introduced me to the pair of guys that lived across the hall from her, Tim Smith and Lucas Roe, who happened to be in my art class. The five of us became inseparable immediately, with Lucas and I such close friends that people often speculated that we were secretly dating, which was definitely not the case. Sure, we talked about it a few times, but we both realized that we were better as just good friends.

As the months passed by, we continued our close friendships. Tim was the clown, always good for a laugh when you needed cheering up. Haley was the golden girl, always succeeding in all she did, but never believing it was good enough. Peyton was the wild card of our group; she was open, honest and never took anybody's crap. She was also the most promiscuous of our little group, randomly hooking up to avoid the fact that she couldn't handle another relationship like the disaster that was her last. Then there was Lucas, our confidante, the one we all went to with our problems and he was always willing to listen and hand out advice, no matter how insane it sounded to the rest of us. And me you ask; well, I was the quiet one. I was reserved and vague, never letting anyone know what was really going on inside my head. However, despite my reservations, I let my guard down slowly and began to open up to my closest friends. And not to sound conceited, but I was sort of the glue that held our group together. You see, around October, Peyton and Haley had a falling out and didn't actually speak to each other again until after Christmas break. And due to proximity, Lucas and Tim sided with Haley and basically stopped speaking to Peyton for a short time as well. This part isn't really important yet, because there were a lot of events that occurred before the fighting began and a few issues that lead to the short demise of their friendships. But don't worry; you'll soon learn the events that took place, the issues that arose and how the group was restored, as well as the first of my many regrets.