Ten minutes isn't very long. But it feels like an eternity every time I'm waiting for my mom to pick me up in the parking lot by Messer Hall. Because I'm the only person who still has to have her mom pick her up from school. Even when "school" is now college.
Ten minutes is the amount of time it takes my mom to drive to my campus after she gets out of work, which ends at the exact same time as my last class of the day— evolutionary psychology class. It’s pretty fast in terms of a commute time. But it’s plenty of time for a lot of things I don’t want to happen to happen.
For instance, right now Michelle walks by me on her way to car and doesn’t talk to me. And then Diana walks by and does talk to me.
I don’t know which scenario is worse. Because I have social anxiety, both are bad. The first makes me wonder why barely anyone talks to me. The second reminds me that it’s because I’m weird.
“Hey there, Elizabeth Jane.”
I envy her stride— a subtle swagger that combines assertive confidence with laid back unconcern. My walk has always been more self-conscious— when I actually have to walk somewhere instead of fading into the background like the wallflower I am.
“Hi Diana.”
We sit next to each other in class and sometimes talk after class—I guess you could say we’ve become friends. Except “friends” isn’t really something I “do”— both because of my shyness and my over-protective mother who is always telling me that everyone’s out to get me.
“Want a ride?”
“Nah, I can’t…”
I trail off, hoping she leaves before my embarrassing mother shows up.
“Your mom coming to get you again?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
My eyes dart back and forth along the road leading to the campus from the main street— praying that I don’t see my mom’s car driving along it.
“That’s what you said last time,” she says. “You know, you’re always free to grab a ride with me. That way she doesn’t have to go out of her way. You live over near Ridgemont. So do I. So it’s on the way.”
Now I have to force my eyes not to widen in surprise. I’m paranoid, wondering how she knows where I live.
“The Wright dissertation,” she says immediately, as if reading my mind and answering my question for me.
That’s right. I remember we worked on a class project together— a dissertation on Wright’s Moral Animal— and we had to fill out our addresses on the information sheet.
I nod.
“Thanks,” I tell her. “I appreciate the offer.”
She glances at me as if expecting me to continue— to tell her I’ll take her up on it next time or offer some reason why I can’t. I get that this is how a normal conversation— average human interaction— is supposed to go. But I have no excuse that anyone would understand. Just an overbearing, mortifyingly embarrassing mother who insists on taking me everywhere I need to go and picking me back up again.
I’ve tried to gently request— and then openly protest— this “preference” of hers but then she reminds me that I live under her roof and she pays my college tuition so I must do as she says. Then she quotes her favorite Bible verse to me, from Ephesians, which reminds me that if I obey and honor my mother, it will go well with me and I may live long in the land.
The way she arches her eyebrows and squints her eyes at me after that line is her way of adding her own subtle threat at the end: “And if you don’t, then things won’t go well with you and you won’t live long in the land.” I swear, my mom should write her own book of the Bible; she is straight out of the Old Testament sometimes.
Now, I shift my weight from one foot to the other, which reminds me that I need to go on a diet soon or my mother will give me a lecture about sloth and gluttony, waiting for Diana to leave. The other times she’s offered to give me a ride home, she’s taken no for an answer, but this time she seems more insistent, or at least intent on talking more to me.
“That lecture today was pretty wild, right?” she asks, putting the keys she had been carrying into her Coach pocketbook.
Great. That’s the opposite of what I wanted her to do— keep on walking to her car and then unlock it, get in, and drive home to her normal life with her undoubtedly normal parents. It’s not that I don’t like her— it’s just that I’m completely unable to relate to her or anyone else, it seems.
“You think?”
I shrug.
“Well, I was particularly fascinated about how Dr. Calvert described the sexual instinct of older male animals in the wild; how they want to pounce on the younger and more definitively fertile young female animals. Weren’t you?”
I look at her, then look quickly away while blushing.
It’s almost like she could read my thoughts during the lecture.
I have to admit, while Dr. Calvert had been talking my panties were dripping wet and I was squirming a little uncomfortably in my chair, because the topic was driving me wild— no pun intended. Maybe Diana— who eagerly participates in class discussions about sex and has even brought it up to me outside of class before, telling me she can’t wait to head home to meet a hot date and she hopes he rips her clothes off like tigers in the wild bite their mates before they mount them— has some sixth sense about sexual thoughts and was somehow able to sense my wicked, dirty desires.
I’ve never even had sex before— I’ve barely come anywhere close to having anything resembling sex— but older men are my turn-on. If I could have sex with anyone at all— not that I could, because my mother would probably literally crucify me if she founds out— it would definitely be…
“Dr. Calvert,” Diana sighs, mentioning our professor. “He’s so dreamy. He’s so hot. He’s old, but older men are hot, am I right?”
I can’t help but smile and nod. Even though I don’t agree with her assessment of Dr. Calvert being all that hot himself.
“I knew it,” she says, tilting her head back and laughing recklessly, in that way of abandoning herself to joy and merriment that I wish I could do. “You aren’t as stand-offish as you seem. You do want to bone Dr. Calvert.”
Now I blush again, and laugh awkwardly.
“Oh my god,” I tell her. “Not him. But yeah…”
I stop myself. I’m not about to divulge secrets to someone I don’t even know that well. I’ll write it all down in my diary tonight, and then rip it into tiny shreds and throw it away like I do every night. Every night, that is, since my mom found my last diary, still kept locked and under my mattress like I was twelve years old when really I was seventeen, and read it and then took me to church to be prayed over and cleansed.
Luckily I hadn’t even revealed anything that damning in the diary entries. I haven’t even done anything that damning. However, just little observations such as “the guy in front of me in class turned around and winked at me, and he was super hot” were enough for my mother to be convinced I’m going straight to Hell.
“What?” Diana asks, shaking her head slightly. “You don’t think it would be hot if Dr. Calvert asked you to stay after class for a little private lesson? And then did a psychological study on you where he needed to tie you up and make you submit to him?”
“Uhhhh.”
I don’t even know what sound escapes my lips. Diana’s comments definitely shock me. And she must have gotten the rise out of me that she was wanting, because she laughs heartily.
Screw her, I think, suddenly becoming angry. This is another reason why I don’t even try to make friends with people. I never know if they’re genuinely interested in me, or trying to mess with me.
I have the social awareness of an elementary schooler because everyone has just looked at me and thought, “There’s that girl with the weird mom; she must be weird too,” and it’s become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Since I grew up here— and Mom would never in a million years dream of letting me leave— most people have known all of this about me for a long time, and passed it on to any newcomers like Diana, who moved here for college. It’s a reputation that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get away from. And sadly enough, it’s right on point.
“I was just kidding.” Diana playfully elbows me, but I take a step away from her.
“Actually, no.”
I decide to be as bold as everyone else seems to be, for once. What do I have to lose? Certainly not my dignity, because I didn’t have that to begin with. I might as well shock Diana and let her know what a whore I am— in my mind at least. Since I’ll never be able to explore my sexual fantasies in real life, thanks to my mom.
But will she be able to handle all the things I’ve been thinking about another guy— not our professor— doing to me? Or will my thoughts be too sinful even for her to bear? I guess it’s time to find out.