A late disclaimer that I own nothing in this story except the plot.
Updated 3/31/16

Chapter Four

if i do time then who would really write me?

Go, Go Power Rangers. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

Freddie and Ethan were still living the high of meeting Tommy Oliver. The roommates were in day three of a Netflix binge. Even now they loudly sang the theme song with each episode. Ethan was wearing his dino morpher – vowing not to take it off until the watched every episode of the show. Freddie laughed at his roommate's dedication to the series. Benson had left his entire collection back home, though a teensy part of him wished he had brought something along with him. Maybe a few power coins?

"Shit!" Ethan suddenly exclaimed. "It's ten of!"

"What?" Freddie ripped his phone from his pocket to check the time. Ethan was right. They were both going to be late for class.

Rushing around the dorm like maniacs, they hastily put on their shoes and grabbed their bags. Running down the hall, then down the stairs and through the lobby they raced each other across the campus. Dodging students and various other obstacles they separated as Ethan crossed the street to get his literature class where Freddie went left to get to math.

Freddie was panting hard when he got to the building. The glass door felt as though it weighed a thousand pounds. I really have to get in shape. Freddie thought as he hung on the railing, preparing to race up the two flights of stairs. Heart pounding and legs aching he managed the first half at a jog but had to walk the second half.

Class had already begun when Freddie (still used to high school) attempted to sneak into the room. Warily looking around, he realized that no one was even looking. This was college. No one cared if he showed up to class.

Well, no one except Maddie.

He didn't exactly see her looking at him but caught the motion of her hair as she lowered her head, pretending to look at something in her textbook - even though everyone else was looking at the white board in front of the room. Seeing her made Freddie feel like a jerk for his actions on Friday night, not that meeting Tommy Oliver wasn't worth every moment of guilt, but Maddie seemed like a nice girl – the kind of girl that didn't deserve to be treated like that.

He sat down in an empty seat and took out his notepad and mechanical pencils. In hindsight he probably should have told her the truth instead of lying. But which was worse – being considered an asshole or a nerd? In Freddie's opinion nerd was worse. It was a label that he was trying really hard to lose. Being an asshole was different – it was something you could apologize for and be forgiven.

After class he would talk to Maddie and get this straightened out. No need to lose a decent study partner over this.

Study partner….

Study….

Fuck! Freddie cursed as he watched the professor begin handing out the tests. He completely forgot about the exam today. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! He spent the last two and a half days watching fucking Power Rangers instead of studying. NO! NO! NO! Freddie began to panic. He could not fail this test – he just couldn't.

He sent a helpless look Maddie's way, only to find that she was clearing off her workspace in preparation for the test. Benson buried his face in his palms as he cursed at himself one more time.

The test was three problems but you only had to do two, which was good because one of the problems Freddie had no idea where to begin. He finished the first problem with ease. It was something he and Maddie had gone over several times. The second problem was a variation of something they worked on in class but Freddie wasn't entirely confident in solving it. He second guessed a few times, erasing the answer and then re-writing it.

Time was up and he was one of the last ones left, which only drove home the fact that he probably bombed. Defeatedly he got up from his seat and placed his paper in the pile on the professor's desk without a word.

Out in the hall he slung his bag over his shoulder and began the academic walk of shame back to his dorm. Feeling like crap, the last person he wanted to run into was Valerie but somehow she managed to find him.

"I finally got my phone fixed," she told him. Freddie mumbled something like, "that's nice." But to be honest he didn't really care. She rambled on a bit with way too many details about the whole thing, Freddie wondered how the hell he got stuck with someone like her.

"Look, I kinda got some stuff to do, so I'll text you later," Freddie told her, hoping she'd go the fuck away. But she didn't.

"Me too." She grabbed his arm and rising on her tip toes confessed into his ear. "But I've been thinking about your dick all day."

"Awesome," Freddie responded, not even close to being in the mood.

"My roomie's in class right now." Freddie felt the tug on his arm, pulling him in the wrong direction.

"Maybe later," Freddie pushed forward toward his dorm. "I'll text you."

"Okay," Valerie released his arm but jumped in front of him. "What's going on with you?"

"Nothing," Freddie replied. At least nothing he wanted to talk about with her.

"Then what's up?" She countered Freddie's evasive action and stayed in his path.

"I'm tired."

"Oh! I have something for that." From her bag she produced a baggie of pills.

"Put those away!" Freddie hissed at her, looking around to see if anyone had been paying attention. The last thing he needed was to get busted for drugs. His mother would execute him herself.

"OMG!" Valerie burst out laughing. "Paranoid much?"

Benson gave her a glowering glare.

"They're caffeine pills," she chuckled. "One hundred percent legal and FDA approved."

"I'm not interested," he told her walking away.

"Benson!" she called after him.

Freddie looked over his shoulder ever so briefly to yell a reply when he felt himself collide with someone. Quickly focusing his attention forward, he was shocked to find that he'd bumped into none other than Carly, from the cheerleading squad. She'd been carrying a cup of coffee or something, which had spilled all over her teammate, Gibby.

"What the hell?" Gibby yelled looking down at his wet shirt.

"Gibby!" Carly snapped. "It was an accident."

But Gibby was already stripping on the spot.

"Wash it," he threw his shirt right at Carly's face. "And I want it back tomorrow." Then noticing how much attention he was getting, he flexed his pectoral muscles and with a grin sent a sly, "Hey ladies," in the direction of a group of girls.

"You wash it," Carly threw the shirt at Freddie, who let it rebound off his chest and fall to the ground.

"It was your coffee." Freddie kicked the shirt back toward her as he watched Gibby give out his number to a cute brunette.

"You really are a dick," Carly snapped back as she bent down to pick up the fallen shirt.

Behind him Freddie could hear Valerie call his name again and she was much closer this time. He turned his head toward her and was about to say something when he felt wetness seeping into his left shoe.

"What the…?" Freddie looked down at his feet, realizing that Carly had poured the remainder of her beverage into his shoes. The liquid seeped into the woven Flymesh. After his sock soaked up a bit he felt it sink into the triple density foam at the core of his sneaker.

"Bitch!" Freddie cursed at her. His 4 week old Nike Air Zoom Structures were now practically ruined as he stared down at the brown stain which was quite pronounced against the bright Green Strike color which had been his favorite of all the color options.

"What happened?" Valerie asked cluelessly as she finally joined them. "Someone needs to put a shirt on Peter Griffin over there. EW!" She made a face at Gibby and turned her attention back to Freddie.

Beyond angry, Freddie stormed off in the direction of his dorm with Valerie trailing behind him, begging for him to slow down. But Benson had used up all his patience and left her in his wake as the squish squish in his sneaker sent him into a fury.

Going directly to the dorm's shared bathroom at the end of his hall, Freddie slipped off his shoe without untying it. Waving his hand under the motion sensor he started the faucet and attempted to wash off the coffee before the stain set. With the other hand he was frantically calling his mom to see if there was anything else he should do to save his precious Nikes. Aside from what he was already doing and treating the stain with detergent his mom didn't have any other useful information.

As she rambled on about the aqua aerobics class she started taking, Freddie went selectively deaf. He only paid enough attention to grunt one word replies during the appropriate pauses in conversation. Eventually they said their goodbyes and Freddie went back to his dorm. Rummaging through his laundry he used a dirty towel to blot his shoe dry with the hopes that it would be good as new.

In the meantime, Freddie decided it was Morphin Time as he cued up the episode he and Ethan had been watching earlier.

Thank you for reading. I assure you that no Nike Air Zoom Structures were harmed in this chapter. It was a pair of DCs...