We walked shoulder to shoulder through the crowed. 'Damn, man,'� he said, 'I was starting to worry about you.'�

'About me? Why?'� I asked.

'Didn't you get my messages?'�

I did get his messages along with Marcus' and JT's and Danny's. They started calling me Friday morning, each one with news of a different party and I new girl they wanted me to meet or who wanted to meet me. Being a starting running back at any school in East Texas, no matter the size or prestige of the school, is like having a golden ticket, a none stop pass to the land of free food, expensive beer, and cheap women. I had my ticket, I understood the rules, I just wasn't all that interested in riding anymore. But I rode along anyway, mostly because I am expected to, but also because it makes being Will Chanson, star athlete and honor student a lot easier if I don't have to explain why I'm not at the big party or why I turned down the hot girl after the game on Saturday. It's either ride or spend all my time fighting off rumors and defending my sanity, my health, or my orientation. Like I said, it's easier to just ride.

This weekend was different. I just wanted to be left alone. I have been feeling that way more and more these past few weeks. Mary calls every now and then to ask how I am. 'I'm fine'� I'll say, but it didn't used to be a lie. I never have been that great at lying to her so I get off the phone as quickly as I can, usually saying something like, 'I've just got a lot of studying to do before finals.'� I'd also use that excuse to explain why I hadn't been at any of the parties lately. In fact, I will probably use it now. Doug will buy it, of course, but it never works on Mary, not even on the phone. No matter what I say, she always comes back with how well she knows me and how I have never needed to study for a class in my life, 'not really,'� she would say. But at least Doug will buy it.

'This from the only 4.0 in our class!'�

He and the rest of the guys from the team never missed an opportunity to make fun of my GPA. I had done a pretty good job of hiding it in the past, but every since I received my Associates Degree two years ago, and it was printed in the school paper that I was the only student to graduate with a 4.0 in over 14 years, I haven't heard of anything else.

Mary sees me just as I hit the first step on my way to class. She smiles. She waves. I smile, or try to. And then I hear Doug from behind me ' he had no intention of going up those stairs or to class ' 'So, you hittin' that yet or you two still playin' the friend game?'�

When I turn to look at him he's wearing that smart-ass grin on his face, the one that made me want to rub it off with sandpaper every time I saw it. 'Enough, Doug.
Alright?'� Mary is the one thing in my life that I'm not ashamed of or disgusted by. The last thing I want is for someone to turn what I have with her into something sorted and dishonest.

'I'm just sayin' that you two lovebirds aught to stop fluttering around the nest and lay some eggs already . . . And don't look now but here comes Kristi soon-to-be-Mrs.-Ratliff now; three-o-clock and headin' this way!'�

Doug, despite his over abundance of confidence, wasn't exactly known for his success with the ladies at the U. I think class clown would better describe his role, regardless of how much he thought of himself as the designated ladies man on campus. In his mind, he was the one guy at the U who could get any girl he wanted. Still, even though the common notion among the world's less blessed in the beauty and brawn side of life is that 'Confidence and charm put the lady on your arm,'� all the confidence in Doug's body ' and there was plenty there to go around ' couldn't help him bag Kristi Hegel, the German International Student with looks that would make the world rethink the validity of the supremacy of the Aryan Race. At 5'11'� and weighing in at just over 270lbs. with his acne, pale Irish skin, and drastically receding hairline, Doug was usually happy if a girl let him hold her drink while she danced with someone else.

Doug, brushing his stringy, overgrown red hair out of his face, steps out ahead of me to meet Kristi. While Doug is not much more to me than an acquaintance, the human being in me could not stand idly by and watch him get crushed by a girl who is known for her blunt attitude and who is so obviously out of his league. Baring this in mind, I turn away and do my best to put as many loud bodies as I can between me and the fallout. In no real hurry to get to the class that I am now nearly twenty minutes late for, I fix my eyes on Mary. She sees me coming and turns to greet me with that smile, but before I can get within ten-feet of her, I feel a hand latch onto my shoulder and Kristi, soon-to-be-Mrs.-Ratliff steps out in front of me.

'You're Will Chanson. Is this right?'�

I nod. I'm not interested.

'I am Kristi, Kristi Hegel,'� she added with a smile, a flip of her hair, and what always looks to me like a modern curtsy. Put the three together and you've got the equivalent of an invitation that reads, 'Legs open, come on in,'� but that isn't the point. The point is that after three years and too many Kristi Hegel's to count, I'd gotten bored; it, the whole redundant dance, had gotten old. Don't get me wrong, the sex is great, most of the time, at least. I just fell an inch or two on the empty side.

My guess would be that it all goes back to my recently adopted attitude of general indifference. Everything, not just the thought of meaningless sex with another enigmatic eighteen year old, but everything had lost its flavor. I was given a questionnaire for the school web-site's tribute to the Graduating Class ' but I couldn't fill it out. It was full of questions about my favorite foods and my favorite bands and my favorite movies, TV shows, style of dress, my favorite play to run in the games, my favorite moments on the field and with the team. My favorite'� My favorite'� My'� I didn't have a favorite; I didn't know how to answer those questions. In fact, the only question that I could answer was the name of my favorite classmate; of course I knew the answer to that one.

She's gone. She must have walked off while I was trying to look like I was listening to Kristi. I'd better look her in the eye. Is she still talking, after all this time? I take a few minutes for me to focus in on her, and then I have to remind myself that her eyes are above her breasts. Suddenly she stops talking and just looks at me for about five seconds (which seemed like ten minutes). I would love to be able to respond to her, but I honestly don't have any idea what she has just said.

'She was wrong?'� she continued. I don't have any idea if she was wrong. Who is she? 'You do not work at the school library?'�

Excited just to have a subject to work with, I answer, 'Oh, yeah. I do work there. I'll be there this afternoon, in fact.'�My insides give a great big inner sigh of relief until I realize that I just set myself up for a date.

'Great!'� she said. 'I will see you there, maybe.'�

Maybe?

'Perhaps I will need a book'�'� she leans in, placing her hand on my chest and kissing me on the cheek, then leaning in closer to my ear she whispers, ''�or perhaps I will need something else.'�

Something else'I know what that means. It means that, as she walks away, I am going to hear a voice from behind me cry out'�

'I can't believe it!'� Doug had been eavesdropping on our'� well, her conversation. Truth be told, he probably knows more of what was said than I do. 'How is it that I spit my most sacred lines at the honey and get nowhere, but you stand there ignoring everything she says, lookin' likes an ape on dope, and you get the trim? How does that happen?'�

I don't know what to tell him that won't hurt his feelings, so I fake ignorance ' something I am getting good at ' and make an unrelated remark, 'Doug, stop trying to talk black. You're no good at it.'�

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