You can tell it's fall again. The wind's blowing enough to almost knock one over, the fans in the dorm windows have stopped blowing, and the ground is covered with dead leaves. When walking around campus, one can't help but notice that, while ditziness remains in full force, the short shorts and skirts are gone, replaced with the atrocious combination of sweatpants and Uggs. People now move a little more quickly from one building to the next to avoid the cold, and the half-naked sunbathers have ceased to gather between Lee and New Res. However, some things never change. On any given Friday or Saturday night, hordes of freshmen still gather in front of the coliseum waiting for the buses at 10PM, only to return four hours later in a drunken stupor, staggering back to their dorm rooms in their drunken revelry.

This is college, a life that some wouldn't trade for the world. Some of us, on the other hand, just shake our heads and just try to adjust. For not all of us enjoy the drunken antics that characterize college life. There are some of us who choose to keep our hair jet black instead of dying it blonde. We also don't bother sitting under a light for hours to tan our skin. I don't really know why I say 'we,' because I seem to be the only one here who thinks that way. I'm that goth chick that nobody wants to hang out with, who nobody cares about, and perhaps, who nobody knows even exists. Yet I still roam around here, hopelessly searching for someone who might actually make me smile.

When I was a freshman here, I tried the whole party scene to see if I could potentially find somebody decent. I had always been told that I'd never find anyone worthwhile there, but I didn't really believe them until I at least tried. Not knowing how to dance can severely hinder one's chances of meeting folks at parties, but not knowing how to dance AND not drinking can really throw a wrench in things. My roommate, who wasn't exactly the blonde bombshell of every frat boy's dreams, but still the kind of girl they'd drool over, invited me to a party one night at a frat house. She said that almost every girl was guaranteed to get in free. Needless to say, I brought money to get in, and I needed it.

After we got in, the first person to say a word to me asked "Are you here to steal our souls?" I couldn't help but laugh at him.

"Why no. I think I'm the only one in here who has a soul to start with."

Well, I suppose it goes without saying that this didn't go over very well, and he never spoke to me again. After about thirty minutes, I just curled up on the couch and watched the folks dancing and drinking and playing beer pong, which appeared to be a bigger sport than football in this town. After a few minutes, my roommate landed right next to me in a rather tired state. "These folks can't dance," she complained. After sitting there complaining about the folks at the party, we got up and walked back to Lee, where we lived. During the walk home, we ran across a couple semi-drunk guys who claimed to be bisexual. I knew something was awry when one of them asked my roommate and I if we were bi as well. She lied and said 'yes.' If she was bisexual, I was George Washington. She then proceeded to invite the two of them over to our room. Could things possibly get any worse? By the time we got back to the dorm, I knew that I had to get out of there. Not wanting to change in front of those three, I went to the bathrooms at the end of the hall to change. After I got some pants on and something decently warm for the rest of me, I went outside and got on my bike. It was time for some late-night cycling. I was out for an hour and change before finally heading back to campus to see if my roommate still had company. There was no way in the world that I wanted to walk in on her, only to be asked by the guy(s) to join. I noticed from outside that the lights weren't on, so I was hoping that they were asleep. When I got to the door, I heard nothing. I finally breathed easily knowing that my roommate had finally gone to bed....well, maybe not. I unlocked and opened the door and the room was dark, but I didn't feel too confident about the situation. I threw my backpack onto my bed and heard a shout. It was one of the two guys my roommate and I met on the way back home. Suffice it to say that I was rather pissed. I turned the lights on and demanded to know what this guy was doing in my bed. My roommate said that since there was only room for two in her bed, that she told the odd guy out to sleep in mine. Well, after dragging our resident advisor out of bed and getting a judicial referral written, I went to sleep and hoped to wake up to a better day. Maybe I expected too much.

The next morning I woke up to notice that my roommate wasn't there, which didn't disappoint me at all. However, on Monday, I got a note from the building's head honcho requesting a meeting. Evidently my roommate thought it was MY fault that some random guy was in my bed. The lady who we talked to thankfully realized what happened, and that it wasn't my fault. Nevertheless, my roommate wanted me to move out. According to the rules though, it was she who had to move. This was fine by me, and this resulted in me getting a roommate who was a sophomore, and seemed to be a bit of a nerd. At least this was better than some future sorostitute. When we first met, she seemed rather skeptical of me, but at least she seemed accepting.

Things had changed since I got a new roommate, mostly in how quiet things were in the evening. I didn't have to hear that annoying, high-pitched, squealy voice of my old roommate inviting her 'friends' to dinner or trying to find some frat party that night. No, this girl was the quiet type. After she had settled in, I noticed that she didn't get back one evening until rather late. I asked her where she went. She said she went to go study since she found it hard to concentrate in her room. While I didn't doubt that she actually did go to study, I wondered whether or not that was all she did. Either way, we got along, so I was happy. As with most roommates, we posted our schedules on our closet doors. This helped us figure out where each other was at most any given time. She almost always had to get up earlier than I did, which was a mixed blessing. She usually was up and gone an hour before I had to get out of bed, which gave me plenty of time to relax alone before I had to get up to go to class. With my old roommate, she seldom went to class, and got quite fussy if I woke up before she did, because she "couldn't sleep."

One Monday morning, I woke up to someone shaking me. "Kirby, wake up! You don't want to miss class, do you?" I rolled over and looked at my alarm clock. It was 10 minutes later than I normally woke up. My new roommate, Jesse, woke me up so I could get to class on time. Needless to say, my old roommate wouldn't have done that for me. From that point onward, I began to realize that Jesse was a much better friend than I originally thought. Even though we never studied together, she was quite eager to have me around in most other circumstances. On Friday and Saturday nights, instead of partying, she often stayed home and watched a movie or just some random tv show. It wasn't exactly the most fun I ever had, but it worked. Once we got too tired to watch tv, we'd go to bed... without having to worry about some random guy being in our beds. One evening, after we turned the lights off, she asked me "Do you know any good single guys around here?"

Quite frankly, I was dumbfounded by this question. As soon as I got over the shock of it, I replied "Well, no. If I did, I'd be dating him. I decided to somewhat give up on guys... and girls." As soon as those last two words escaped my mouth, I realized what I had just said. I could almost see the words traveling across the room. However, what shocked me even more than what she first said was what she told me next.

"Well, I think I'd settle for a nice girl too." At that point, I wanted to jump across the room into the bed with her. It took quite a lot to resist that temptation, but I did. I never even thought about that for a week or so, until one night when it was just the two of us, bored out of our minds. I was just laying in my bed, when she got up and laid down next to me, almost like someone who wanted something. "Do you think I'm a nice girl?"

"Of course," I responded. "You don't bring back random guys, you're quiet, you clean up after yourself, and you actually hang out with me. What more could a roommate want?"

She gave me a strange look and said, "Well, a kiss would be nice." Now I realized that what I had suspected was all too real. She wanted to kiss me! While few things would have made me happier than to give her a long, slow kiss, I knew there was something I had to tell her.

"Jesse, there's something I probably should have told you before."

"What's that?"

"Well, I'm not as much of a girl as you think."

"How so?" she asked, with a puzzled look on her face.

"Well, um, I've got all the girl parts but, well, I somehow wound up with one guy part." At this point, I was horribly nervous. I was shaking, worried that she would freak out. She immediately reached for my crotch. By this time, I had already become rather hard down there. She felt the outside of my skirt briefly, then put her arm around me, moved a little closer, and pressed her lips to mine. I slid my tongue into her mouth as the two rings in my lower lip pressed against her. Surprisingly, she didn't try anything more than just a kiss, but that was fine by me. What was more important was that I realized that I had found someone who may not have necessarily understood me, but who mainly accepted me. Instead of trying to make small talk, I just pulled her closer and drifted off to sleep.

When I woke up, I was pleasantly surprised to see that my roommate was still laying in bed with me, sound asleep. I laid my head back down and slept a little more before the two of us finally woke up. Neither of us wanted to break the silence, but I finally did. "It's kinda odd for me to go to sleep happy."

She grinned a little and responded, "But did you wake up happy?"

"Well... yeah. I've never woken up next to somebody I liked before."

During the course of that conversation, I confessed something to her. I had a small crush on her ever since she moved in. Maybe it was because she looked a little bit boyish, or maybe it was because she was actually nice and not a total ditz like my old roommate. Whenever we went anywhere together, before or after the kiss, no guys ever hit on us, whether or not we were together. Don't get me wrong. Jesse's probably one of the cutest girls I've ever met, but for some reason guys just didn't want to date her. Maybe it was because, at a distance, she could be mistaken for a guy, or maybe it was because she tended to spend more time with a book than a beer bottle. But then again, I like her for those reasons quite well. Evidently she realized this earlier than I thought. Either way, I wasn't going to complain. I had a nice girlfriend and someone to talk to. Even though the two of us liked each other quite a bit and even considered ourselves as dating each other, we were still rather reluctant to display that publicly. As liberal as some said this school was, it was still a technical school, and folks didn't take much of a shine to couples such as us. Another reason for us to not show affection towards each other was the tendency for guys around here to constantly request us to kiss each other. Somehow I never could quite understand why guys thought that watching two girls kiss was so entertaining when they thought it was disgusting to watch two guys do the same thing. But then again, I always thought that watching two guys kiss was rather cute, but then again, so was watching two girls kiss. I suppose it goes without saying, though, that simply watching two people kiss is nowhere near as fun as actually kissing someone.

During the course of that semester, we found ourselves using my bed together quite often, but without anything more than a kiss. Granted, every time our lips touched, I felt a little desire to do more, but never enough to act upon. I was very well content with just laying there, knowing that I had someone who was there for me, physically and emotionally. Going to sleep with her in my arms just felt right, but somehow not quite as right as waking up in the same manner.