summer time

This is where I will be living this summer. With 100 other students. Just like last year. Across the street there is a grocery store, an ekered, a chinese food place, and a liquor store. We made booze runs like 3 times a week.

It seems inevitable that people would hook up, right? We did, of course, but the only thing worth noting was Rhyan and Nora. Rhyan is unlike anyone I have ever met. He looks like an abercrombie model and he is probably a sociopath. He was truly mean to people (girls) and didn't ease up when it hit a nerve (I swear this guy thrived of off girls' body issues).

On a drunken night he hooked up with Nora. Nora is cute, not gorgeous, she has a preppy body type but not thin (no boobs, flat ass. I'm not criticizing, she looks great in J Crew. She worked there. I'm jealous) But she did that thing that girls do, where she figured now they were going out and that she could expect him to hang out with her most nights, that she could sleep in his bed whenever she wanted, that they would keep hooking up.

I don't think he liked her, but he didn't want to admit to himself that he was hooking up with a girl he didn't like, so rather than back off he just let it come out as nasty comments and mean gestures. He would make fun of the way her ass didn't totally fill out her bathing suit bottom as she was coming out of the pool, in front off their whole group of friends. He would cut her down in big groups, play little tricks on her, just genenrally treat her like crap. She assured me he was different when they were alone.

One night they were playing around and he held her arm and punched her right in the center of her upper arm, over and over. It was the worst bruuise I've ever seen and I've plent of drunkenly acquired bruises. It was black, about 3 inches across, and it lasted more than a week till it turned that sick yellow color. She thought it was great. She wore short sleeves even when we were all wearing sweaters against the air conditioning, she doodled on it at work with a sharpie, drew arrows pointing to it, and showed it to anyone she could. She was proud of it, she thought it meant she was in with his crew.

I thought it was kind of sick, both that he would hit a girl, that hard, and that she would take it so cheerfully. The dynamic was representative of every interaction- Rhyan beat up on her and she took it and thought it meant they were close, that she understood him. It's heartbreaking to watch, I just hope I never end up letting that happen to me.

Maybe this summer will be less theatrical.