It's finals week at the U again. The campus grounds are filled with throngs of eager upperclassmen and anxiety-ridden freshmen, all grouping together in a desperate final effort to either salvage a passing grade or save their ear perfect GPA's from the one class that threatens them. For me, finals week means only that I must fight my way through the clustered masses each morning to get to my classes on time. My momma was right about one thing this morning: I am going to be late. But it doesn't matter much today. In any given class on my schedule, the professor is in complete review mode, which, at least for me, means complete boredom. If they've already taught it and I've already read it, then I already know it; there's no reason to relive it. Still, I suppose I understand the need most students have for constant repetition; I'm just not one of them.

My philosophy on my classes and on the U in general, is probably derived directly from my motivation for being here at the U in the first place, in that it has nothing to do with my class or the U. Not too many great minds come out of the small town I grew up in, which was only about an hour from the U. The 38% of my graduating class that actually went to college goes here. Discounting the fact that it is close to home, it's also relatively inexpensive and holds very modest academic standers for its very mediocre entry level students, making it the ideal college of choice for the lower-middle class, C average population of my home town'but this was not my motivation for choosing to go to the U. With the third highest GPA in the state and an SAT score of over 1400, I had my choice of just about any school in the country, but I was never going anywhere but here. And while it is true that, on some level, it's nice to know so many of the students, it only took one student for me to decide on staying around here: Mary Freedmen.

I've used many excuses for staying around this one-engine town for so long: it's where I grew up; it's all I can afford; or my personal favorite, how easy it is to win football games in this substandard system; and then, there is, of course, my mother. But the truth is that I would've left in a heartbeat the instant I got the chance if it hadn't been for her, for Mary. It's not that I'm in love with her ' I'm not. It's more that she is the one thing in my life that I have never had to wonder about. No matter the disaster that destroyed my world, no matter the crisis that crippled me, she was always there ' not to cry on ' but to laugh with. I feel as though I have grown indifferent toward almost every other thing in my life ' school; work; football; even my mother ' but Mary is the one thing in my life that is still able to make me feel something'anything besides sadness and fear. I care for her more than I do about anyone or anything else. And, even though we're not nor have we ever been anything more than friends 'I love her. She's my best'� my only friend.

Weaving my way through and around the student bodies that have clustered on or near the main entrance steps, I see her: Mary. She stands coyly just outside a group of math geeks listening for anything that might give her a leg up on her upcoming calculus final, not that she needs it. If there's anything she's good at, it's mathematics. We paired up pretty nicely in high school: she was them math wiz and I was the history and social science buff. These differences brought us together around test time all through our high school years.

'What color are they?'� It's Doug Ratliff, my fullback and about the closest thing to a real friend that I have on that team.

What color are they? I don't know what he means, as usual, but knowing Doug, it's either dirty, degrading, or devious'or possibly all three.

'Well?'� he prods. Still completely clueless, I ask him what exactly he's talking about and he explains, 'By how hard y're lookin', I fig'r you'd done burned a hole right through her skirt. So'�?'�

The look of distain that was steadily stretching across my face must have bore some resemblance to the look of ignorance I wore when this conversations started, because he continued by repeating, 'What color are they,'� in an obnoxious tone as though I still had not understood him.
Looking back at Mary, I considered whether or not to take offense at Doug's erogenous remark. But, knowing Mary as I do, it makes little sense to get upset. If she were in earshot, her reaction would simply be to turn toward Doug with that sexy grin of hers and say, with a flare, 'Blue with black lace.'� So I turned back toward Doug and said, 'Blue with black lace.'�

He laughed.

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