The Tales of a Future Hockey Wife

Chapter 6: El's First College Day

~Five months later~

~Eleanor~

This morning, I woke up at five am when Ben's alarm went off. I still haven't gotten used to the sound enough to be able to block it from my mind, so, almost every day since we've been here, I woke up at the same time as him. He gave me a kiss, told me to go back to sleep, got up, and left. I heard the front door close ten minutes later. He forgot. Of course, he forgot. Today is the last day of his training camp with the Spitfires. Today, the coach announces the trios for the first few games. My first day of college must have slipped his mind, I get it, it's nothing compared to the stress he has to endure today.

No matter how hard I tried, I could not do as I was told and go back to sleep. I stayed in bed, my eyes wide open, fixing the ceiling until six-thirty. I turned off my own alarm that was set to go off at seven-thirty. I couldn't bear it anymore. I had to get out of bed, or I think I would've combusted from all the stress. Ben would have come home only to find my heart who would have busted out of my chest.  Even if I showered last night, I hopped into the shower, the warm water relaxing my tensed muscles. I must have stayed in there for half an hour without doing anything. I just stood under the warm boiling water thinking about all the ways today could go wrong. What if I was late because I couldn't find my classroom? What if I humiliated myself enough on the first day that no one would ever want to be my friend? To calm myself down a little bit, I repeated my itinerary in my head over and over in my head. "You take the eight forty-five bus down the street. I get off at Wyandotte and Sunset. I walk 300 meters, 100 straight ahead and the 200 meters left, I turn right. I will be in the university's front yard. My first class is in Chrysler Hall, on the second floor. I need the books that I already placed in my bag last night. My teacher is Mister Donovan, he teaches Introduction to American Literature. It's going to be okay, El. Everything will be just fine. You'll make tons of friends, you're not the only one who comes from another province. You're not the only one who is alone." I repeat the last few sentences more often before deciding to get out of the shower. It's the first time in my entire life that I am completely alone. I knew Olive before we started kindergarten. Our parents have been friends since they were in high school, so I already had a best friend picked out from me way before I was born. If I decided to do an extracurricular activity, it was always with her. At the beginning, we would go to hockey games together because I was too shy to go by myself. For the first time, I will go to school and she won't be with me. I won't meet her for lunch in the cafeteria, I won't see her in math class third period. I'll be lucky if I have lunch with someone else today or if I meet people I could become friends with. On any other day, I would have called Ben, but today, I can't. The coach makes them leave their phones in the locker-room. They can't even go get them for lunch since it ruins the team spirit. I'll have to deal with it on my own.

I made myself my favorite breakfast, oatmeal with toasts. My mother used to make this for me when I was little. It always comforted me in times of stress, but I can't take more than two bites before realizing that I am way too stressed out to eat anything. I still make coffee to go, you never know. I read a book once where the main character becomes friends with someone just because they drink their coffee the same way. If I am lucky, I'll meet a girl who likes mochaccinos and puts two sugars in her regular coffee.

I am twenty minutes early at the bus stop, good thing it's not too cold outside. Apart from me, there is only a woman who seems to be waiting for the same bus as me. There is plenty of room on the bench next to her, but I stay up. I am afraid that, if I sit down, she will notice the shaking in my legs that I cannot control, nor stop. As the clock moves forward, more people arrive at the bus stop. Some look my age, so I assume that they are going to the university. Most of them are boys, I don't know why I noticed this, but I did. Apart from me and the older woman, there is only another girl at the bus stop. She is wearing black leather pants and what looks like a band t-shirt with holes in it. Her bottom lip is pierced, and her black hair looks too dark compared to her pale skin. I look at my flowery skirt that stops just above my knee, my black round-collar t-shirt, and my jean jacket and I hope that people at Windsor University do not all dress like that girl. In high school, we had a dress code. If she had showed up dressed like that, the teachers would have sent her home in a second. In university, there are no more codes. Everyone dresses as they please, acts the way they want. Everyone gets to be themselves. I have yet to decide if I think that it's a good or a bad thing.