A Game Called Life

brandyandmj

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This isn't a story where the girl is a damsel in distress and the guy comes to save her, or one where the guy has had a rough life resulting in going down the wrong path and the girl is there to turn his life around.

This is a story about Stacey, a college freshman who finds a friend in Michael, an upperclassmen. They both teach and learn a few things about this thing called life as they work their way through it trying to master it's game.

Friendship, drama, love, etc... you know the deal.

This is a story that I've already started writing on another forum but I'm going to switch it up and share it with you guys so I hope you all enjoy. - Brandy
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Thursday – August 14, 1995

It was the fall of 1995 and my first year of college. I was more than excited to be attending Grand Allen University in North Carolina. It was arguably one of the best colleges in the country. They had a pretty high graduation rate and a damn good football and basketball team.

“If you need anything you know where to find me,” my dad says cupping my face.

I thought when you went to college you were free of your parents, and I’m sure that’s true, but not for me. My parents weren’t that far, just over in South Carolina so even if I wanted to escape them, I knew I couldn’t.

“Dad, I got it.” I chuckle taking his hands off my face.

“My little girl is growing up,” he whines and I widen my eyes at him.

“Daaaad.”

“Okay, I know, I know. Go on, go” he waves me off and I smile.

“Tell mom I love her and that I’ll call her later.” My mom was currently in the car crying her eyes out after saying goodbye at least fifty times. It wasn’t like I was going somewhere eight hours away… I was a small three hour drive from them. They could visit whenever they wanted, with my permission of course.

“I will baby, you have fun.” My dad kisses my forehead and I turn around making my way back into my dorm complex.

Before when my dad and I walked back outside I didn’t have a roommate but now I did. She was taking the stuff out of her suitcase and moving about the room. She jumps back once she sees’ me standing there and I quickly begin to apologize.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She waves me off, “All good girl. I guess you’re my roommate?”

I nod, “Stacey Hash,” I hold out my hand and she shakes it.

“Maria Anderson. We’re going to have some fun with being roommates with each other…. You’re not crazy are you?” She asks furrowing her brows at me and I laugh while shaking my head.

“I’m pretty normal.”

“Good. So are you excited about the party tonight?”

“Party? There’s a party already?” I hop up on my bed and she nods. “And you got the scoop?”

“My boyfriend is at his third year here. He’s got the scoop on everything. The party is being hosted at a close friend of his’ club. It’s called the Mayan and I’ve been hearing people talk about it all day. It’s the party to start off the school year; the party of all parties.”

“Oh really?”

“Mhm… so how about we go and show them how we freshman’s get down?”

“But wait; don’t we have freshman orientation tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Maria nods her head, “what about it though?”

“It’s an all-day thing, so shouldn’t we get some sleep for it?”

“Girl don’t stress, my boyfriend said freshman orientation is like smooth sailing.” She waves her hand off at me. “We’ll be fine. Plus, we won’t be at the part that long, maybe about an hour maybe two.”

“Okay then,” I nod my head, standing up from the bed. “I’m down.”

9:20pm

I didn’t know how they got down at these college parties. I wasn’t sure how to dress and I was scared shitless for what I would say if any upperclassmen guy came over to me. I wasn’t a natural at the dating game, explains why I was never in a real committed relationship while in high school. Dating was just something I wasn’t good at.

“Ooh girl you look good!” Maria says when she’s coming back into the room.

All I wore was a red, black, gray, and white plaid dress with tall black stockings and boots to match.

“So do you,” I smile gesturing to her and she turns in a circle.

She wore a yellow skater skirt with a gray V-neck and knee high black boots. I had to admit that the yellow skirt complimented her brown skin.

“Great! C’mon he’ll be arriving any minute,” he –I assumed—was her boyfriend. And my assumption was right because after walking for what felt like forever we finally came up on a ’93 black impala. She hops in the front while I get in the back, her boyfriend turning to me. He had smooth dark skin, a nice shape up, and a set of pearly whites—he was a pretty attractive guy. “Kev, this is my roomie, Stacey.”

“Nice to meet you Stacey. I’m Kevin but you can call me Kev.” he holds his hand out and I shake it.

I nod my head, “nice to meet you too Kev.”

“Great, now that we’re all acquainted… let’s hit the party!” Maria screams excitedly and I plug my ears with the tip of index fingers while laughing.

An hour maybe two for Maria was more like three. It was almost twelve thirty and she was nowhere to be found in this club. She had disappeared with Kevin knowing that I didn’t know anyone. I was about to ask the bartender for another cup of water but decided against it and got up to go and find Maria so hopefully we could head back to the dorm.

“Hey there freshie,” a guy says in my ear while wrapping his arm around my waist and bringing me close to him and I snatch from him feeling nauseated by his breath. It smelled like a mixture of alcohol and cigarettes… two very bad combinations. While backing away from him I bump into someone making me whip around to see I made a girl spill her drink on herself.

“Damn, watch it,” she yells over the music shoving me back.

“Ciara chill,” her friend yells next to her. “She’s a freshman, she’s sorry,” the girl says looking over to me. “Right?”

I nod my head, “yeah sorry,” I briskly walk away hoping that the next person I bump into was Maria so we could get the hell out of here. I was tired, I was hungry, and I just wanted to be back in the dorm where I knew I wouldn’t be close to getting in a fight with a couple of upperclassmen girls.

After about 10 more minutes of looking for her I give up and walk outside the club and into a large puff of smoke. I felt like I was dying when I started to have a coughing fit and my eyes were watering making it hard for me to see. I try lifting the collar of my dress to wipe out my eyes but I just end up poking my left one—while letting out a small whine— I slap my hands over my now irritated eye while still trying to walk down the pathway to the steps. I’m unsuccessful because I miss the steps, tumbling down the small grass hill. I hear the roaring laughter of the people that were standing around and at this moment I just want to die. I was embarrassed, my eye was hurting, and my throat was burning. I thought that maybe if I just lay there for a little while everyone would eventually go back inside.

“Looks like we got ourselves a drunk here, Mike,” I hear a deep voice say as I’m lightly kicked at my ankle. I didn’t budge. I was too embarrassed and pretty sure I had ****ed up my knee and I didn’t want anyone to see me cry. If I laid here long enough maybe they would think I was a statue for the club… You know, a part of the outside decoration.

“Aye, don’t put your nasty ass shoes on her, Dee.” Another guy with a softer voice says and then I feel someone shaking my shoulder. I felt even more pathetic that I had just laid here on the ground and let someone put their feet on me. “Hey earth to the girl on the floor,” the soft voice says making me turn my head a little to look at him through one eye.

He had pretty brown skin, big brown eyes, and a head full of some very defined curls. He cocks an eyebrow at me while giving me a closed-mouth smile.

“Are you all right? Should I go find a pre-med major to check you out?” He asks giving off a sweet chuckle. “Are you drunk?”

I shake my head and finally sit up, still covering my eye.

“Yeah you don’t look drunk,” I follow his eyes as they make their way to my scraped up bloody knee. “Can you stand up?” He asks and I nod my head. He stands up and then holds his hands out to help me up. I hesitate removing my hand from my eye but do it anyway, grabbing his hands as he pulls me up. I let out a hiss and bend over to cover my knee.

“Great, she can walk, let’s go inside,” another one of his friends say.

“Chaz, damn,” the guy says “y’all wanna go in so bad then go ahead. I’m comin,” he says to his friends and they just kiss their teeth walking around us and up the steps. He looks over at me smiling again. “My name is Michael.” He holds out his hand for me to shake. “You have a name?” He asks me when I don’t say anything but before I can say anything I hear Maria’s voice.

“Girl, there you are!” I turn to see Maria jogging down the steps. “I been looking for you for the past ten minutes. They said some chick took a big ass fall out here. Did you see her?” She asks laughing, “they in there rolling about it.” She points back to the club and I gesture down to my knee and she frowns. “Oh… that was you?”

“Yeah, but we all fall,” Michael says turning our attention back to him. “She’s good now though,” he winks at me before walking pass Maria and making his way up the steps where he’s greeted by the same people who were once laughing at me.

“You mean you took a fell and got that fine brotha over here to talk to you? Maybe I should go back up there and fall,” she jokes and I laugh.

“You’re a trip Maria, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know.” She chuckles and puts my arm around her neck. “Let’s go get Kevin so we can get you back to the dorm and cleaned up.”

Friday—August 15, 1995


10:03am

Maria plops down in the theatre seat next to me stuffing her face with powdered donuts from the vending machine.

“Really?” I asks laughing gesturing to them.

“Girl yes, this was the only way I was going to stay awake through all this talking.”

“Hey there clutz” someone says making me turn to them. It was a group of boys laughing as they walked pass and I just roll my eyes. I hadn’t been at college for more than twenty-four hours and I had already made a name for myself, a bad name at that.

“Just ignore it,” Maria says patting my thigh, “it’ll pass.”

“Easy for you to say, your nickname isn’t clutz.”

“If I have to admit it’s sort of cute on you,” I cock my eyebrow at her.

“I’m going to go and get me a bottle of water,” she quickly excuses herself.

“Yeah, you do that,” I reply folding my arms.

“How’s that knee?” I hear the soft voice, Michael’s, say behind me.

“It’s better,” I reply before twisting in my seat to face him. “So you’re a freshman?”

He chuckles and shakes his head. “Far from, I’m a junior.”

“So what are you doing here at the freshman orientation?”

“Doing a little community service,” he smiles and shrugs. “See let me help you out.” He gets up from the chair he was sitting in behind me and climbs over the chair next to me to take a seat.

“Freshman Orientation— other than getting your classes and all that important stuff together— is pointless. It consists of a big ass ice breaker that no one wants to do. It’s supposed to make the freshman’s interact with the other freshman’s. You get a little downtime during orientation but let’s face it majority of y’all don’t know each other so talking to the person next to you is out of the question because honestly they don’t care that you’re majoring in history but thinking about switching it to government. They didn’t care and neither did the five people you told before them.” I immediately laugh at that because it was true and I had already experienced it five times since we came in this room.

“Orientation is also one big ol’ secret hookup session. This is mostly for your upperclassmen guys to get a chance to prey on the newbies. That’s why they sign up to be on the orientation committee just so they can meet the girls. Although our advisor over the committee begs us every year to wait at least two weeks,” he smirks over at me, “that never happens. It starts with “I can show you around to your classes if you want” and next thing you know she’s slapping him in front of the science department for never calling her back.”

“And may I ask how do you know that? Are you apart of that scandal?”

He scoffs offended, putting his hand to his chest. “Me? Nooo. I told you- community service.”

I chuckle and nod my head. “Now,” he continues, gesturing his hand to a girl at the door passing out pamphlets. “you have your freshman veterans. These are the people who had their orientation prior to today. They’re a couple of steps ahead of you. Let them have their shine for a little while.”

“You really have this down. How many girls do you tell this to every year?”

He chuckles, shaking a finger at me. “You’re the first I’ve let in on my little dirty secrets.”

“Oh is that right?”

“On my heart,” he says placing his hand over his heart. “Now that I’ve shared my most sacred secrets of orientation, can you tell me your name?”

We’re interrupted again by a middle-aged women talking into the microphone. “Testing, testing, okay we’re good. Welcome, welcome, freshman to Grand-Allen University!” She says excitedly and we all clap our hands as a few hoop and hollers go through the large theatre.

“I’ll see you around,” Michael whispers in my ear before standing up and gliding himself pass other people right as Maria comes back to sit next to me.

“Damn, I missed the cutie pie,” she sighs and I turn my head to her. “What? I wanted to see him too.”

“You have a boyfriend.” I reply and she smiles wickedly at me.

“I see.”

“You see what?” I ask, confused.

“You want ‘em for yourself. I get it girl, I understand.”

“Pay attention Maria,” I chuckle gesturing to the woman whose name I didn’t know for my lack of paying attention.

“Okay, okay.”
 
Authors note

I should've added that this should be read for people of the ages 17+ for the simple fact that it has some bad language in it and scenes that shouldn't be read by a younger audiences. I should've also mentioned that Michael is not mainstream famous, but he's in college majoring in music production while working on his first album and I'll go more into that during the story. For now here are your main characters:

Stacey:
5fb901835c1f48cf08989810d1eb9c95.jpg


Maria:
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Michael: Off The Wall Era
Off-the-Wall-era-michael-jackson-9202574-500-702.jpg
 
Thanks for sharing this story, Brandy :dancin:

Looking forward to read more! :D
 
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