Chapter 22: The Boring Social-Media-Lite

Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, I was never much of a social media guy. Yes, I have accounts on all these, but I’m more of a looker than a sharer. It’s safe to say that the vast majority of my peers are addicted to this form of electronic interaction, many wouldn’t know what to do without it, even for a day. To be honest, yes, I can waste as much time as anyone scrolling through, we’re all gossip hounds to some extent or another. I draw a line when it comes to actively participating on social media beyond viewing, it feels awkward sharing aspects of my life in this public manner. I’m the type that would rather just talk to people instead of crafting a story post with pictures.

One time, as a jab aimed at those who feel the need to inform us of every inane little thing they do, like what they’re eating or watching on TV, I announced that I was busily engaged in reorganizing my underwear drawer. I figured that old joke was clear-cut, may garner a few laugh emojis at best, and that would be it. No, within minutes, I was actually receiving sound advice detailing the best ways to lay out a workable arrangement for my unmentionables. It just goes to show that every stupid thing you post can, and will be, scrutinized to various levels of seriousness by those on your friends list. Hence, why I’m considered to be an extremely boring social-media-lite.

Social media channels aside, information has its ways of getting around, sometimes slower than others. This fact was evident this morning when after letting Alex in, my phone multiple-chimed from a barrage of incoming texts. Seems I’m hearing from someone I rarely hear from anymore, and to be fair, someone I haven’t made much effort to contact in a long time either.

Tiffany Hammond texts, “Abigail Sampson???????” then, “Nerdy Abigail Sampson from Biology Class??????” which is followed by, “What is up with that??????” and, “LOL!!!!!! Are you kidding me??????”

As soon as I read these, my phone is immediately pinging again, this time I’m being inundated with a barrage of texts from Abby, “Caroline never came back last night!!!!!!” followed by, “I’m worried sick!!!!!” and, “Is she at your dorm??????”

Talk about some over-use of punctuation from these two. It must be that six question marks or exclamation points do the job six times more effectively than one. How come we never see six periods being used when we really, really, really want to end a sentence? Okay, I’m straying off-subject here.

So, at this early hour in the morning of all times, Tiffany just found out I’m with Abby, Alex just got back saying he spent the night with Caroline, Abby just woke up and is having a meltdown because Caroline hasn’t returned yet, I hardly got any sleep last night because yesterday I took a trip to the wet and wild land of pussy in my face via some weird, possessed mirror, Jack came by later to detail his mirror trips to the land of endless blow-jobs. After all of that, my ever-analyzing brain went into mental overload processing all of this and would not shut up for the life of me so I could get some sleep. All I wanted for today was to sleep in and spend some quality time lazing around with Abby later. Not so, here we are at the ass-crack of dawn and a full plate of issues to deal with.

It’s clear Alex wants to talk, he’s impatiently pacing, waiting for me to finish texting Abby that she should expect to see Caroline any minute now. Tiffany will have to wait, serves her right for sending that bunch of texts at this hour.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM, on the door.

What now?

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

Whoever it is couldn’t just knock, they feel the necessity to execute a full-fisted beat-down on the door as if the building is on fire. Hell, maybe it is, seems logical with how this morning is shaping up so far. Alex flings it open and there’s Nicole, hands on her hips and fire in her eyes, glaring directly into his very being. That plateful of issues I just mentioned, it just overflowed...

Holding her phone out to show a video, she demands, “Care to explain what the fuck this is all about?”

Alex and I peer at the screen. At first, it’s too shaky and we can’t make anything out, all I know is there’s definitely a lot of background noise, people talking and laughing along with loud music, all sounds of a party. As the picture steadies, Alex is sitting on a couch with a black-haired girl straddling his lap, grinding away, and placing his hands on her ass to squeeze. The girl is, of course, Caroline.

Alex cracks a smirk of appreciation that this moment was captured, and, that it’s on Nicole’s phone. Normally my mind doesn’t work so fast on such short notice, and rarely this early in the morning, but today is an exception. Still holding my phone, I cue up a video that was recently sent from Zach. I position my screen alongside hers as it displays the exact same type of close-contact lap-dancing. Only on mine, we see Nicole straddle-grinding some guy’s lap while his hands are roaming freely over her ass. It’s almost like watching two simultaneous camera angles of the same event.

I was going to repeat Nicole’s request, but I left that glory to Alex, which he picks right up on, “Care to explain what the fuck this is all about, Nicole?”

“That’s ... Th-That’s nothing!” she stammers, “That was wayyy before I met you.” Then turning to me, “What are you, some kind of sick pervert? Do you get your jollies taking video of people making out? I should report you to campus security!”

“First of all, this video was taken by a mutual friend last Monday night - four days ago,” I hold up four splayed fingers for emphasis, “When exactly did you start seeing Alex? Seems about two weeks ago to me. Second, what kind of ‘sick pervert’ are you recording Alex ‘making out’? Perhaps you should look into how you get your own ‘jollies’ before ‘reporting’ anyone.”

“Okay, okay...” she backs off, “That guy is a friend of Maria’s, he was feeling really down and I was cheering him up. He was just happy to have my company that night, that’s all, not like that blatant whore, grinding her coochie and putting your hands all over her skanky ass!”

I burst out laughing and was going to say something like, “Who’s the ‘blatant whore’ in my video?” and secondly, here’s Nicole sounding exactly like someone we know who’s been verbally berating this girl since first learning of her. Caroline could not have said, “Blatant whore, grinding her coochie and putting your hands all over her skanky ass,” any better! If there’s one thing that instantly triggers a woman, it’s when another has her coochie even in the slightest vicinity of their man.

“What’s so fucking funny, Kyle?” she snaps at me. “This is my guy we’re talking about here!”

“‘Your guy?’” I repeat and stop myself. My mouth governor is working overtime today as I was gonna continue with, “Your guy, one of how many?” but I let it go. Call it early morning slap-happiness, but this whole thing is putting me even deeper into the laughter, I need to back up and sit down before I pass out. And, to think, Alex once told me the women would be beating down the door for me, not him. After her full-fisted display, I must remind him how literally wrong he was, and this is truly a time he’ll enjoy being wrong.

Alex seems to be fighting back laughter himself but manages to calmly tell her, “Look, Nicole, I’m not buying anymore of your bullshit stories. I think it’s time for you to leave.”

“Fuck! Fine!” she flings her hands in the air, “I guess a girl can’t have any other friends around you, sheesh! Enjoy virginity eternal, fat-ass!”

Ouch! That was harsh...

Leaving the door wide open, she stomps off to wherever, we don’t really care, as long as it’s not here. Alex stays standing there, staring out at the quiet morning hallway. I see his body-frame hitch a few times; he can’t be crying, is he? A second ago I thought he was laughing about this too, but now I’m not so sure. I know he’s an emotional guy, but seriously, he must realize he doesn’t need that toxic bitch in his life. My mind is working, trying to come up with something to ease-

“Hahaha!” he bends over, slapping his legs, “Oh my god, Kyle! I am so glad you witnessed that, there is no way in hell anyone would believe this if I had to explain it.”

“I know, right?”

“I’m so happy you had Zach’s video, played it at the perfect time too, thank you!”

“Absolutely! Glad I remembered it.” Going out on a minor limb, I ask, “Did you tell Nicole you’re a virgin?”

“No, she figured that one out on her own. I must have a bright, neon sign over my head. One that everyone but me can see, flashing, ‘Hopeless Virgin Here,’ or something.”

So ... I ponder to myself. This leads to the next question. Being he was out all night with Caroline and receiving some in-the-lap-action from her at a party (which, that, in itself, leads to even more questions... ), is he still a-

“Yes, I’m still a virgin, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Oh, no, not at all ... That’s your business ... Yup, that’s entirely your-”

“You’re a bad liar, Kyle, but I’m okay with that. Caroline and I had a great time last night, but what you saw in that video was about as racy as anything got.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what did happen last night?”

“It’s like this; before you guys came back, Zach stopped by and said he needed to show me something that’s been bothering him, which is, of course, the video he took a few days ago. Whew, what a doozy it was seeing that, I was beyond livid!”

“I could tell...”

“I don’t remember much at first, all I was seeing was red. After he left, I paced mad circles around this room, anger building till I flew into a hot rage. I needed to get out and punch something, anything. At least I had enough sense not to start taking swings at these cinder-block walls or this hardwood door,” he says as he closes it, “I would’ve broken my knuckles for sure. Figured I’d make my way to the gym, hope it was open and with a free punching bag. That’s where I was going when you guys found me in the Common Room. Once outside, Caroline followed, caught up, and offered me a smoke. I lit-up and chain-smoked several while unloading a good deal of my anger at her, well, not at her- You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know, I get it,” I nod, following along.

“She listened and asked what I was gonna do about it. Said was l looking to punch the shit out of something. She said that sounded fun and asked if she could tag-along to punch the shit out something too, I said sure! So off we went. The gym was open and we found a couple of those big hanging punching bags, the kind that’s about the size of a full-body, they’re also called heavy bags. Several good whacks and some very sore knuckles later, a dude came over and handed us each a pair of boxing gloves telling us that we should be wearing these when working out, he was right.” Alex shows me his red, skinned knuckles as proof.

“After a good round of pretty much making fools of ourselves and getting quite winded, that smoking earlier didn’t help, it was time for a break. We sat in the gym for a while and talked, talked a lot. She told me about home, her screwed-up parents, her cool brother and his bitch of a girlfriend, stuff you probably already knew long ago.” I actually only learned that stuff a couple of days ago myself, but moving on...

“She talked quite a bit about you and Abby; told me not to say anything, but she admires you guys, says you both mean the world to her. I told her I felt the same...” he stops a minute and gazes past me, out the window, “You know, Kyle, even now, it’s still not easy for me. I try not to show it, but I’ll admit, I have a hard time when Abby is around and with you. As Gail, she really was the first girl I thought had an honest chance with ... I truly had my heart set on her...”

“Alex ... I, uh ... you know that was all just a bad coincidence. It wasn’t-”

“I know, Kyle, it’s okay,” he smiles, “I’m not digging up the past, that’s not my point. What I’m getting at is, last night Caroline was the first girl-female-woman that I felt I could be myself with and be open to since the Gail/Abby fiasco. I don’t know why she followed me out last night, but I’m super-glad she did, and god knows, I was far from my best. I know Caroline can be blunt ... brutally blunt, but I think I need that. She doesn’t try to coddle, instead, she pushes me to be true, true to myself. Does that make any sense?”

“Actually, yes! It does.”

“After the gym, we bought more cigarettes at a gas station, walked around and found we had plenty to talk about.” I was unaware that I was making a disapproving, motherly face, but Alex picked up on it and adds, “I know, I know, smoking is bad and I’ll knock it off, I was just having a bad night.”

Holding my hands up, “I didn’t say anything...”

The phone interrupts with a bloop from an Abby text, “Caroline is back, thank god! I was so worried.”

I text back a thumbs-up.

Alex continues, “We must have walked up and down every street in this damn town. When we got to 4th Street, there was a loud-ass party raging in one of those big student houses - big shocker there. Caroline seemed interested, so we wandered in to see what was going on. The crowd didn’t care if we joined the fun, they asked us to stay for a few and soon we both had beer in hand.”

“Ah, okay ... So, that’s why Nicole’s video sounded like a party?”

“Exactly. We were sitting on a couch when all of a sudden Caroline gets up and straddles my lap, gyrating like a stripper in heat.” I’m curious as to how he knows so much about what a ‘stripper in heat’ does, but I’ll let him continue and ask more about that later...

“She grabbed my hands and put them on her ass, saying, ‘Work with me here.’ Over her shoulder, I could see Nicole across the room and instantly understood, the planets of karma had just lined up in that very unexpected moment. I honestly did not know if she saw our little show until this very morning. In a way,” he pauses to snicker, “I’m glad it made such an impact, so much so, that she took a video to shove in my face! Serves that lying bitch right. You know, it’s not like we even dated for any notable length of time, but the whole thing bothers the fuck out me just the same. I feel she was using me and must want multiple boyfriends at once or something, I’m not into that. I’m a one-girl-at-a-time kinda guy. Am I selfish to expect the same?”

“Nope, not at all...”

“After we left the party, we walked around for a couple more hours, the cool air did wonders at sobering us up. Made our way to Main Street, hoping to find a 24-hour restaurant for something to eat. We lucked out and ended up at that little diner across from the Game and Card Shop, The Pickle Jug, or Pickle Keg, or something.”

“The Pickle Bucket?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Man, talk about some weird-ass people that hang out in there at 4:30 in the morning! This one guy was so pale, he looked like he hadn’t seen the natural light of day in months. He was at the lunch counter and had this odd ritual of standing up and genuflecting as if addressing royalty before he took each sip of his coffee. The waitress had enough when he took off one of his shoes and socks and was about to put his stinky bare foot up on the counter. She told him if he did that again, she would have to ask him to leave.”

“Wow ... What a weirdo...” It dawns on me and I cringe to think that I may be treating people just like this in my future profession...

“No kidding, and he wasn’t the only one. Over in a booth over by the window, this other dude was carrying on a complete conversation about his day. Nothing so strange on the surface about that except no one else was there, he was talking to an invisible partner the whole time. And, not on his phone using an ear bud device either. Caroline was fascinated watching these late-night crazies in there.”

“I can certainly see her finding amusement in that...”

“Anyhow, we each downed a pot-worth or two of coffee and enjoyed some big, grilled ham and cheese sandwiches while comparing stories of high school and growing up. Seems she was an outcast as well; I can relate, people always judged me by my weight before anything else. Figuring we should call it a night when we saw the sun rising, we walked back here, and then she went on to Abby’s. And, that brings us up to where we are now.”

I take a moment to digest all this as Alex gets a sly smirk on his face, “Well, something else happened too...”

“Oh? And, what’s that?”

“Before we parted, Caroline kissed me again. She said we should get together over Thanksgiving. So, I might be making a trip to your hometown, or Caroline to mine.”

“That’s awesome, Alex! I’m so happy for you! Is it safe to say you’re taking a liking to her?”

“Yeah,” he nods, “I am ... When I first met her that night at Tony’s, she threw me for loop, I didn’t know what to make of her.”

“She definitely has that effect,” I concur.

“But, you know, under all the black clothes and bluntness, she really is a kind and warm person with a big heart. I don’t think she lets too many in to see that side of her, I feel honored she did with me. I hope that didn’t sound too cheesy.”

“Not at all, my friend.”

“My mom wants me home for Thanksgiving, I’ll see if Caroline wants to join us, or if she would like me to come to Spring Haven the day after.”