THINKING
Snow had begun to fall. Colin stared out at the puffy flakes and lost his train of thought yet again. He'd been trying to write an essay for his History class all day, but he just couldn't keep hold of his mind. Classes had just resumed after Christmas break and all he could see in the near future was more of this menial nonsense in his first-year courses. He wasn't like most of his friends. He actually looked forward to university, but spending an entire year just meeting general requirements felt no different to him than high school.
It was made all the worse by the fact that all his friends had moved away for school. For over half a year, his only contact with anybody other than his professors had been on MSN and Facebook. He'd never really had many friends, but the friends he had were good, and it was depressing to be alone.
At first, he wasn't the only one alone. Each friend had gone to a different university, so they all began the school year by themselves. If anything, Colin had an advantage because, since he had stayed home to attend his first year of classes, he knew the terrain better than those who'd gone away. In time, everyone had adjusted, though. This was great for them, but now Colin was hearing about new friends made while he just sat at home by himself. He'd never been good at making friends, which was why he had so few, so he didn't have anybody in his classes, or in town anywhere, he could talk to.
Hearing about girlfriends was also hard. Colin had never been on a date in his life, and he kept getting updates -- general ones, because his friends weren't so low as to divulge specifics -- about new girlfriends and how wonderful they were. How could anybody just show up in a strange city and not only meet a few people to hang out with, but somebody to date, all in just a few months? It seemed impossible to comprehend.
Colin supposed he could just go out to a club or to the student bar or something, but he just couldn't make himself. His old friends weren't club-friends, and he didn't want to start making club-friends now. He'd have to do a lot of pretending to fit in with people like that. He didn't like the atmosphere, the music, or the way everybody got too friendly too quickly once booze was factored in. If people liked that scene, that was fine and more power to them, but he just didn't feel like he belonged there.
The only people he saw regularly outside class were his parents and his younger brother Eric. Eric was 18 and in grade 12 and similarly afflicted when it came to women. He still had his friends, so he wasn't around the house very much, but there were never any girlfriends coming around to meet the parents.
Actually, Colin had begun wondering about Eric. Colin knew from experience what it was like to have no girlfriends or chances of girlfriends. But people like him generally pine a little bit. They don't go around moaning about how they don't have anybody, but they do seem to talk about women in brief asides with a hint of humor in their voices. They're lonely and they want to tell somebody, but they don't want to be annoying or creepy. Eric never seemed to care and never seemed to talk. Granted, Colin only ever heard Eric talking around his friends when they were over at the house, but they never talked about things like that.
It wasn't good evidence, but Colin felt there was just some kind of distance between Eric and women.
Of course, Eric being alone didn't mean he was gay. This was the twenty first century and their parents never displayed negative feelings about homosexuality. They would never object to Eric coming home with a boyfriend rather than a girlfriend.
Colin snapped out of his daze and stared down at his paper. Fuck it, he thought. He put down his pen and got out of his chair. He decided to spend the rest of the afternoon watching TV. He'd probably regret the decision later, but he just felt tired of trying.
* * *
The program he was watching in the living room had made it to the twenty-first hottest hottie out of one hundred when his parents went out. They said they were going for some groceries and that they'd be back in a couple of hours. He called out that he'd heard them and was shocked to hear Eric call out too. He'd had no idea that his brother was home on a Saturday afternoon. Colin himself had been trying to get a handle on his workload, but Eric was usually out this time on weekends.
After the front door shut, Colin went back to watching the show and made it to the fifteenth hottest hottie before shutting it off. He figured he'd try to get at least something done before supper.
He got off the couch and went for the stairs.
INTERCOURSE
Eric was working on an essay of his own. He was sitting on his bed with a clipboard on his lap and a plastic bottle of hand lotion on the night table beside him. Everyone in the family had pretty dry skin, so they always had a bottle in the bathroom, but Eric liked having his own because he was always getting calls to go out and he didn't want to look flaky just because he was in a rush. He looked up when Colin walked by his door.
"You're in today?" Colin asked.
"Got exams this week," Eric replied.
"Oh, yeah."
Colin had forgotten that the schools had moved their exams to January beginning this year. Nobody really saw the point. You wanted to be free over the Christmas break, not use it to wonder about your exams. Maybe the idea was to give students a rest before the big tests, but that didn't make sense, since the end of the year exams weren't preceded by a break.
"All the guys are over at Rick's, probably playing video games, so I decided to stay here."
"That sucks."
"Except Shane. His girlfriend's at his place helping him."
"You should probably put air-quotes around the words 'helping him'."