We arrived on campus and Beck and André helped me to move my stuff into my dorm. I was the first to arrive so I had a little time to get my room and the communal area looking the way I wanted it to. I thanked the guys and they left while I went to register and to do all the admin stuff that was needed. While there I got talking to a couple of people in the lines and, once we were done with all the official stuff, we went as a small group to explore some of the campus and get ourselves orientated.
By the time I returned to my dorm, my roommate had arrived, his name was Tom, a Bostonian who was pre-med. He had been his High School's Quarterback but wasn't interested (or by his own admission good enough) to seriously pursue a sporting career, though he did say he'd love to continue playing for fun if the opportunity arose. He told me I looked familiar (I expected it – iCarly had been hugely popular – but it was in the past, and I wanted to keep it that way, I decided I'd confirm that I was Freddie from iCarly but I wouldn't volunteer the information). The other guys in our dorm showed up and we spent a pleasant, quiet evening just getting to know one another a little, talking about our home towns, majors, interests, expectations of college life, stuff like that.
The next day was the first day of classes and for me it turned out to be an absolute DISASTER. I walked into my first class fairly early and took a seat in the middle of the room. A small group walked in shortly after and one of them looked at me.
"No way, Freddie Benson!" he said, though he looked rather displeased to see me.
"Seriously?" said another. "The nub who killed iCarly is HERE?" shooting me a look of pure hate.
By this time a few more people were arriving, all looking in my direction, disdain etched on every face. There was a rush to sit as far from me as possible and nobody said another to word to me all day, not even my partner when we were assigned one along with a project – all I got from him was a look of disgust when he Professor refused his request for a different partner.
At the end of the day I trudged back to my room, switched on my laptop and, for the first time in months, went to . In the middle of the screen, pride of place, was a video of Carly and Sam, dated February 5th, the day after the last live show. I clicked on it and sat through what can only be described as a total character assassination. The two girls were merciless in their criticism of me and of everything about me. All the while Sam held two blown-up photographs of me, one aged about 13, the other from about the time the video was made. In both of them, in huge red letters, she had written the word "nub" over my forehead. The girls' rant ended with Carly saying
"That's Freddie Benson"
"The nub who killed iCarly" Sam added.
"That's Freddie Benson"
"The nub who killed iCarly", over and over for at least two minutes. My hopes of a fresh start, of starting over, had gone. I was still haunted by my past.
Tom walked in at that moment and saw the look on my face. He asked what was up and I told him about the whole thing. The penny dropped from him, he HAD recognised me from iCarly, but he listened to, and accepted, my side of the story and he told me that my classmates would come round in time. I thanked him for his support, but I'm not sure that I actually believed him. He told me of a start-of-term party that one of his classmates was throwing that night and asked if I wanted to go along, meet a few more people. I figured I may as well.
We had a couple of hours before it started so I looked on iChat. Tori was online and interestingly, given the day I'd had, so was Carly. I got an invite from Tori and, to my surprise, found myself talking not just to her but to Carly and Sam as well.
"Hi gorgeous," Tori began, earning a look of revulsion from Sam, "How was your first day as a college boy?"
"Honestly? It was horrendous." I answered.
"How come?" asked Carly and Tori simultaneously.
"Everyone in my class hates my guts."
"Dude" said Sam, eyes suddenly shining, "one day and they ALREADY hate you? They really ARE smart at your school!"
"SAM!" admonished Carly before turning back to the webcam. "Why do they hate you Freddie?" she asked softly.
"Because I'm famous for being 'the nub who killed iCarly'" I said, not even trying to keep the hurt, or anger, out of my voice.
Carly's face fell as she and Sam looked at each other. Even Sam looked almost horrified. Tori just looked furious.
"What did you put on the website?" she growled at the girls.
"Oh Freddie, I'm so, so sorry." Carly was close to tears. "It was months ago, and we were angry and venting and…" she trailed off looking hopelessly at Sam.
"You blamed EVERYTHING on Freddie?" Tori spat.
"Worse" I said. "It was a 15 minute character assassination."
"I can't believe this." Tori said. "I was just starting to hope that we could get on – to make life easier for Freddie with his girlfriends and his oldest friends getting on together, and now I find out you did THAT to him! I can't talk to you anymore. I need to calm down. Freddie, I'll talk to you a bit later." And with that she logged off, leaving me looking at two very apprehensive-looking girls.
"Freddie…" Carly began, but I cut her off.
"I can't talk about this right now. I need to process. What you did wasn't just unpleasant – it was cruel, it was vindictive, it was EVIL." I spat the last word at them. "I need time to think about this" and with that I ended the videochat.
I texted Tori to let her know my plans for the evening and that I'd speak to her tomorrow. Looking at my watch I still had about an hour and a half before we were heading to the party so I pulled out the details of the class project we had to do and made a start on it, figuring that the best way of trying to start winning my classmates around was to start with Andy, my project partner – he at least HAD to talk to me, so I could try and make a good impression on him and undo the damage Carly and Sam had done. Thankfully quite a lot of the stuff in the project I could do in my sleep so I was able to produce some pretty decent and detailed designs ready to discuss with him.
The party itself was fine; it was a good way to spend the evening. I got a few comments, both positive and negative, from former iCarly viewers, and managed to present a few of them with my side of the story, which convinced a few of my detractors. For the most part though I hung out with Tom and the others from my dorm, chatted with people, got a surprising amount of interest from the girls at the party (declining phone numbers because it would upset my gorgeous singer/actress girlfriend – words can't describe how good it felt to be able to use that sentence). Going to bed that night I felt the day had finished far better than I could have hoped, I felt more confident that I would be able to build a relationship with my classmates in time, but I wondered whether there was any future for me and the girls I'd left behind in Seattle.