Freshman Girl and Junior Guy (a short story) INTERIM GODDESS OF LOVE PREQUEL

4. Wednesday Morning

I wake up determined. I know I can do this. I can walk up to the Flowers For A Cause booth and sign up, leave my name, and wait for someone to buy the roses for me. I mean, to donate to the relief fund on my behalf.

What's the worst that could happen, right? This isn't about me. It's about giving people who lost their livelihoods a chance. It's not about me.

But it would be nice to know who would buy me flowers.

It's probably going to be Sol.

Because I'm a loser. (Stop thinking that.)

I tell my doubts to shoo away as I walk up to the signup table, at the foyer of the Student Center. That place is usually a hangout for people waiting for their photocopies and package deliveries, but now it's got a table dressed in red, and boxes of red roses, all clumped into bouquets by the dozen.

Oh god, what am I doing here.

"Yes?" The girl manning the table is smiling at me, and is not making me feel like I'm so out of place here. "Are you buying, or putting your name up?"

There's a blackboard behind her, I notice, and it's got names up. Names and info. Sophia, 2 BS Biology. Ronald, 4 BS Management. Traci, 3 AB Creative Writing. And more names, more people. Some of the names have been moved to a column marked "DELIVERED!"

None of them are freshmen.

It's too late for me to back out now, so I scribble my name, and year and course, quickly on the notebook the girl provides. She rewrites the info on pink paper and a guy in a black shirt next to her sticks it to the board behind them. Hannah, 1 BS Psych. Added to the people asking for flowers.

For a cause.

What's my cause?

Before I know it, I hear music behind me, and I have to move back because a guy with a guitar pushes right to the front of the line.

"I have a delivery," he declares, "for Traci, 3 AB Creative Writing."

The girl who took my name? She's Traci. Her face turns pink but she's smiling. "Who's it from?"

The guy with the guitar is strumming something, the beginning of a song I don't recognize, and he points with his chin forward...to the guy in black.

Who starts singing.

"Toby!" Traci squeals, trying to hide her face from all of us witnessing this. But Toby is getting into it. He's got a good voice, and I don't know this song at all but I'm watching, and it's getting stuck in my head. There are about a dozen people in the foyer and we're all clapping along by the chorus.

And Toby picks up one of the rose bouquets, tosses it in the air, throwing it at her. Traci catches it, just barely. We're in a freaking musical. But we're clapping, and the happiness is contagious. Someone moves the paper with Traci's name on it to the DELIVERED! column.

And I'm looking at my name on the other side, un-delivered, and I feel so small.

Whatdid I get myself into?