“We won!  I can’t believe it!  We actually won!”  I held my phone in my hand and danced around the room.

“Seriously?”  My best friend, Hannah, started jumping up and down with her mouth hanging open in shock.  “See, I knew all of my useless trivia knowledge would come in handy one day.  You beat all the people rushing to look it up on Google!”

“This is crazy!  We’re going to start the summer off at a mountain resort.  Look at the website!  They have a jacuzzi, a heated pool, a gym, and there are tons of hiking trails with scenic views for picnics.  This is going to be awesome!”  I pointed at my laptop where I had loaded the Blue Ridge Resort website while waiting on someone to answer the phone at the radio station.

“And the dates don’t interfere with your beach trip.  This is going to be the best summer ever!”  Hannah smiled as she clicked on a few pictures.

“Oh, hello,”  I purred when I saw a picture of several hot guys in a jacuzzi.  “Maybe those guys will be there.”

“Like you would do anything with them.”  Hannah rolled her eyes.  “You’re saving yourself for Mr. Right.”

“One of them could be Mr. Right.  I mean, look at them.  They’re fucking hot.”  I licked drool off my bottom lip.

“I’m sure they’re just models posing for a photograph.  Don’t get too excited.  I’ve been to these kinds of resorts before.  The only single guys are either too young or way too old.”

“Dad-bod old or like old-old?”  I raised my eyebrows.

“Like, grandpa-bod old.”  She shook her head back and forth.  “You can’t even bag that and pretend it’s hot.”

“That’s okay.”  I took a seat on my bed.  “We can have some girl time, drink some wine, and then we’ll go to the beach where we know we’ll have a good time.”

“Where I’ll have a good time.  You’ll just stand in the corner and look pretty.”  Hannah giggled.  “You know it’s true.”

“Give me a break, I’m trying to be a responsible nineteen year old.”  I scoffed at her and shook my head.

“You’re on an island by yourself, because I plan on hooking up with a different guy every night once we get to the beach.”  She ran her hand down her stomach and squeezed her crotch.  “This girl needs something long and hard between her legs.”

“God, you’re such a slut.”  I rolled my eyes.  “How in the world are we best friends?”

“Because you’re secretly a lesbian and just waiting on me to get to that phase of college?”  She giggled again and dodged a pillow that I threw at her.

“You need to leave.  I have to finish my assignment for Professor King’s class.”  I glared at her and shook my head.  “I know you have no plans of working on it until the last minute.”

“Yeah, yeah.  You stay here and be the good girl.  I’m going out tonight.”  She picked up her purse from the couch.  “Besides, I have a nerd doing my assignment for me.”

“I don’t even want to know how you’re paying him.”  I moved over to my desk and closed the browser window for the Blue Ridge Resort website.

“A handjob.”  She filled me in anyway.

“I said I didn’t want to know!”  I opened the document I was working on for my Literature class and waited for her to leave.

I had a lot of work ahead of me and with Hannah gone, it was time to get down to business.  There were times when I wished I could be more like her.  It didn’t help that my moral compass kept me on a boring path while hers spun out of control.  We were exactly the same when we were kids, talking about boys we liked, and eventually sharing the intimate details of our first kiss over Cherry Cokes when we got to high school. 

From there, we just kind of went in different directions.  She became a cheerleader and started dating football players—sometimes more than one at the same time.  I spent my Friday nights in the library, trying to stay ahead of my assignments.  Somehow, we both ended up going to the same college.  She was on a scholarship to yell from the sidelines during the football games.  I was paying my way with a part time job and student loans.  How that was fair baffled me.

“Okay, Professor King.  Prepare to dazzled by the best paper you’ve ever read.”  I put my fingers on the keyboard and started typing.

Professor King’s class was extremely challenging.  He expected the best and if it wasn’t absolutely perfect, there was no way he was going to give you an A.  I had managed to exceed his expectations for the entire year, until the previous week when I got my first C on one of my papers.  He found a flaw in my argument and tore my paper to shreds with red ink along with my chance of keeping my GPA if I didn’t get a perfect grade on the last assignment of the year.  The pressure was on and my stomach was in knots as I wrote and rewrote every sentence.

Come on, you can do this.  You’ve crushed so many assignments for his class.  Don’t let one bad grade ruin it.

I tried to give myself an internal pep-talk as I typed away.  I had the whole weekend to work on it, but I wanted a workable first draft before I went to bed on Friday night.  I was still typing some hours later when I heard a key in the door.  Hannah came in like a bolt of lightning, crashing into the table and laughing uncontrollably.  She was drunk or high—possibly both.  It seemed that I wasn’t going to be able to get the first draft done, because she was going to need a babysitter if I didn’t want her to break something or set the apartment on fire.

“Mandy, you should have seen the guy I hooked up with tonight at the party!”  She started walking towards me, but stumbled sideways and nearly tripped over the chair.

“I’m sure he was great.”  I sighed and grabbed her arm.  “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

“No, I’m not done drinking yet!  What do we have to drink here?”  She pulled out of my grasp and walked towards the kitchen.

“Nothing.  We have coffee if it won’t make you throw up.”  I grabbed her arm again and turned her towards the bedroom.

“I need alcohol!”  She started walking towards the bedroom, mostly because that was the direction I pointed her in.

“You need sleep.”  I caught her before she ended up needing a dentist when she stumbled next to the door frame.

Yep, this is my college experience in a nutshell.

***

“HANNAH, WHAT THE HELL?  You’re really not going with me to the resort?”  I was practically in tears after Hannah broke the news to me.  “I can’t go alone!”

“Brady’s dad is out of town and he has a lake house.  That’s so much better than a resort in the mountains.  Come on, you’re invited too.”  She took my hand and started to plead with me.  “The whole football team is going and the cheerleaders have to go.”

“But that’s nothing more than a big party with people we see every day.  We were supposed to have a nice, relaxing vacation before the beach.”  I tilted my head with disappointment clearly etched on my face.  “You were excited about the resort!”

“Brady said it sucks.”  She shrugged.  “His family went there when he was a kid and he said the place is a shit hole.”

“He just wants to get in your panties, Hannah.”  I shook my head back and forth.  “Of course a resort is a shit hole to Brady Remington.  His family is loaded and he’s the quarterback of a college football team in the south!”

“Look, I love you.  You know that.  I don’t mind that you’re introverted as fuck.  It’s cute sometimes, but I have to go where the party is.  Come with me.  I promise you’ll have fun.”  She squeezed my hand.  “There’s no reason for you to have to go home for a week before we hit the beach.”

“I’m not going home for a week.”  I shook my head and pulled my hand away.  “If you don’t want to go to the resort with me, then I’ll just go on my own.”

“Seriously?”  She raised her eyebrows in surprise.  “Remember what I said about the grandpa-bods.  You’re not going to have fun by yourself.”

“I’m not going there to get laid.  I think I can entertain myself if you don’t want to go with me.”  I shrugged and stood up.  “If it’s boring, I’ll just hang out in my cabin and eat ice cream for a week.”

“No, please don’t do that.”  She shook her head back and forth rapidly.  “We need to be hot for the beach.”

“Go have fun, Hannah.”  I sighed angrily.  “I’ll see you at the beach.  I’m sure you’ll be able to get there on your own.”

Anger didn’t even begin to describe how I felt about my best friend’s decision.  I was even considering whether she was worthy of that title after she decided to abandon me.  The one thing that had been constant, no matter which direction we took on the weekend, was that we still looked out for each other.  When her nerd didn’t come through with her assignment for Mr. King’s class, I stepped up and helped her write it.  We stayed up all night and pulled a marathon session, barely getting it in on time.  I was even willing to risk my GPA so she could pass the class.  My paper turned out to be good enough, even without a final night of revisions, but I didn’t know that until I got it back.

You know what—forget Hannah.  I’ll enjoy this on my own.

It was too late for me to find someone else to go with me, and I really didn’t even know who I would ask besides Hannah.  I could have reached out to my mother, but I didn’t want her to know how pathetic I was.  She was like a forty-year old version of Hannah, still partying on the weekends with two ex-husbands that had been left in the past and more boyfriends than I could count keeping her entertained in the present.  Going with her would have been a disaster, and all those grandpa-bods Hannah mentioned would probably be good enough for a one-night-stands—if they were willing to spoil her first.

“Last chance, Hannah.”  I walked into the living room and dropped my suitcase next to the door.

“I’m sorry, Mandy.  I really am.”  She grimaced and held up her bikini.  “Do you think Brady will like this?”

“I’m sure you won’t be wearing it long enough for him to notice.”  I grabbed my suitcase and slammed the door behind me.

It was a six hour drive to the resort, one that would have been much easier if I had someone to trade out with at the midway point.  I fumed as I drove and it was hours before I finally settled down and switched the angry-rock music on my radio to something relaxing.  When I finally got to the mountain path that led to the Blue Ridge Mountains, I couldn’t help but smile.  The mountain was beautiful.  It looked so peaceful.  I rolled down my windows to enjoy the breeze and the fresh air.  I grew up near Chicago, so I didn’t get to see much nature or smell anything other than the stench of the city.  We were going to college near the East Coast, which was a lot nicer than Chicago, but it wasn’t very peaceful.

Yep, this is perfect.  I’ll have no problem enjoying this alone.

It was a long ride up the mountain, but I didn’t mind because it was so beautiful to look at.  I actually felt in tune with nature when I saw a sign indicating the resort was only a mile away.  I could already see myself hiking through the woods, picnicking on a ledge overlooking the valley that surrounded the mountain.  I wasn’t just ready to vacation there, I was ready to move in permanently.  I made a vow that I would retire somewhere like that, long after I had married and raised lots of babies—while balancing a successful career and coaching Hannah through her latest divorce.