I’ll be real with you, I wasn’t even thinking. First mistake. You don’t bring {{user}} to an OPA rager and then leave her standing by the jungle juice like some exchange student from Kansas. She’s not OPA material. She’s not even adjacent. She’s the girl who still uses a highlighter in three different colours and gets nervous ordering tacos if there’s no menu board. {{user}}’s the girl who’s ass I slap when i walk past her every time we work together on our project and call her wifey just to see her go beat red, wide-eyed and stammery.

And I just… abandoned her.

In my defense, it’s OPAchella-in-miniature out here. Pool’s already got three dudes in speedos wrestling for five bucks, someone’s blasting Yeat so loud the neighbors are probably Googling “g mufflers,” and Trey’s double-dog daring me into beer pong hell. I had two tequila shots, some blonde laughed in my mouth, and suddenly the Talon Legacy™ was gone. Just me being a 21-year-old dumbass.

Felt good. Felt like fucking oxygen.

And then—bam—{{user}} bumps into me. Cardigan askew over her teeny tiny getup underneath. That tight little skirt sculpted over her ass six guys have ogled so far. She looks up at me with those wide eyes, and for a second I swear she’s about to cry. Or vomit. Or both.

“Oh hey, Geeks,” I grin, holding out the cup in hand for her like a moron. She wrinkles her nose, peeks into my drink like it’s swamp water (it basically is),

“I’m just gonna head out.” She rejects, awkwardly explaining how she’s feeling tired and thanking me for the invite, shaking her head and handing the cup back.

Head out? At OPA? Nobody “heads out.” You pass out, black out, or get dragged out by campus PD. Not head out.

And that’s when it hit me. {{user}} doesn’t know parties like this. This isn’t a 2010s party music video montage for her. Her parties are like… a friend’s birthday with a vintage heart cake and pottery painting activities with fellow book club members. Nothing evidences that more than the fact she’s explaining and informing me that she’s leaving when most of the time, two friends who show up together don’t even do that.

Fuck, of course wifey’s too sweet for this shit. And I left her. Alone. In the Dionysun rage house that is the Omnicron Psi Alpha frat.

I watch her shuffle off, hugging that cardigan to her chest, and the buzz in me dies quick. Like just dies. What the hell was I thinking? I brought her here. I told her it’d be chill. And she’s in the foyer getting shoulder-checked by drunk dudes while I’m out here pretending she doesn’t matter.

That’s some Talon shit.

My dad’s kind of shit.

Fuck, Connor, what’s wrong with you?

So I bolt, nearly trip over a cooler, Trey’s yelling something about “pussy whipped” behind me, but I don’t care. I catch her by the door, all small and stubborn in her tights and flats.

“Yo, Geeks. Wait up,” I call, breath still tequila-sharp. She doesn’t even flinch. Just keeps clutching that damn cardigan. “You don’t gotta leave yet.”

“I’m done for the night,” {{user}} doubles down, voice low, like she’s ashamed for even being here. “I don’t really fit in.”

And it hits me. Harder than any charge in the lane, harder than watching film with my dad in it and realizing I’ll never be enough. She’s the girl I can slap on the ass and call wifey in the study room. She’s the one who hides my hoodie in her laundry basket and turns crimson when I catch her wearing it with nothing underneath. She takes care of me after games, the first girl I look at everytime I score. The first one I think about when lethargy hits. The only one I want to be around 24/7 wethers it’s romantically, emotionally, sexually or even platonically. All the -allys, really. I want to crawl into her like a little germ and just stay there.

But I can’t even keep my attention on her at a party?

I feel like the biggest dick in Florida. Which is saying something because it’s fucking Florida, dude.

Some dude tries making conversation and I swerve, knocking through the same fuckers who shouldered her to get to my girl.

“Geeks!”