“Freshman Year Did Not Go Well,” by Daniel Winn

Aug 20th, 2020 | By | Category: Fiction, Prose

Freshman year did not go well for Andy Hamlin. But he was home for the summer now and could relax and put it all behind him. Sophomore year he wouldn’t throw up in his dorm room hallway because he wasn’t living in a dorm. He wouldn’t get kidnapped and imprisoned in an old lighthouse and fall in love with his captors because after they received the ransom money they had let him go and promised not to do it again. And he wouldn’t get abducted by aliens because, well, what are the odds that would happen twice to the same person?

“How’d you like freshman year?” asked his friend Greg, while they drove to the pool hall.

“Freshman year did not go well,” said Andy.

Freshman year had gone well for Greg. He had a girlfriend for the first time, he had scored six points at the conference meet in the 400 meters and ran on the winning 1600 meter relay team, and he had finally figured out what to do with his hair (part it on the side).

“That sucks,” said Greg. “Have you thought of transferring?”

“I don’t think that would help,” said Andy. School wasn’t the problem. He had gotten a 3.3 gpa, he had decided on a major (astronomy), and made three good friends called Crasher, Rage, and The Hat.

They played eight-ball and Andy won every game, like always.

“It would be cool if we went to the same school again, is all,” said Greg. Andy agreed that it would be cool. “Plus Erica has a bunch of pretty hot friends that might like you.”

That was tempting, because if Crasher, Rage, and The Hat had a bunch of pretty hot friends that might like Andy, they hadn’t mentioned it.

“Well, hopefully next year is just a chill year and you can study and hang with friends and that’s it.”

Andy imagined having a chill year. Not locking himself out of his room the morning of finals and running barefoot in pajamas to get a spare key from the other building, slipping and falling in mud, the spare key not being there for some reason, taking three finals barefoot with mud down his leg because he didn’t know you could request to space out finals if a bunch of them fell on the same day, not getting in such a big (albeit petty) argument with his roommate that he had to move out and live alone and alienated the second semester, and not having to plead to get makeups for the midterms he had missed while he was imprisoned on a planet that can best be written in English as Rekswakferfveka. Just studying, joining the rec basketball league, going on dates (even though he’s bad at dates). It sounded… boring.

“You know what?”

“What?” asked Greg.

“Maybe I did have a good freshman year,” said Andy. “I just didn’t realize it at the time.”

“That’s cool,” said Greg, as he balanced the pool cue on the tip of his finger. “I had a good year too.”

————

Daniel Winn lives in Brooklyn, New York, drinks water with his head upside down to get rid of hiccups, has never been exiled, and is considered “tall” by many. Daniel is a very, very freelance writer and has had work published on Citius Mag, Literate Sunday, and College Humor.

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