Fantastic Fictions by Roger Keyserling, Roger Keyserling (cat reading book .TXT) 📖

"Why? Why should I?"

"Please for once just come."

I did. I allowed him to take my hand and lead me to where I wasn't sure. I didn't have long to wait. His eyes showed me what his lips had longed to say. There, in front of me, was a picnic mat with everything one could eat. I had the best time in my life. He showed me there was a future if I wanted it.

I had rather an unusual college experience. At least from my junior year until I graduated, my life was quite different from the typical twenty-one-year-old. My freshman and sophomore years went as planned. I was a member of the soccer team and had recently moved into my off-campus apartment at the beginning of my sophomore year. My roommate was also a member of the soccer team and our apartment quickly became the place to be on a Friday or Saturday night.

At this point, I had been dating my girlfriend for almost a year. We had a healthy relationship although I did not believe that this was going to be the girl that I married. We really started having problems during the fall of our sophomore year. My girlfriend had become increasingly annoyed that I was partying with the soccer team rather than spending time with her. Even though I always invited her to our parties, she would rather stay at her place or hang out with her own friends.

We had broken up just before winter break of our sophomore year and I came home to Maryland for the month-long break. When the break was over, I went back to my college apartment a few days before the start of classes to sort things out in the apartment and get myself organized for the upcoming semester. Shortly after returning to my apartment, my now ex-girlfriend and I began texting back and forth. One thing led to another and we spent a night together before the start of the semester.

We hadn't talked to each other for almost two months after that evening. I woke up on a Saturday, hungover from the night before, to a text message from my ex telling me that we need to talk. I already knew what we needed to talk about. She was pregnant.

At first, I was terrified and uncertain that I would be a good father and certainly did not know anything about taking care of a child. By this time it was nearing the time for summer break to begin and I was to go back to Maryland for the summer. Rather than going home, I stayed with my ex's grandmother. At least that is what I told my parents. What I was really doing was staying with my now pregnant ex-girlfriend. I do not know if it were a result of the hormones but we fought a lot. Even more than usual. It was a difficult time for both of us but this was just the beginning.

The upcoming fall semester was quickly approaching. A week before the start of the semester the soccer team was required to be on campus for training camp. My now pregnant girlfriend or ex-girlfriend if you ask her the story, did not approve of me staying on campus let alone playing soccer. I made it halfway through the season fighting with my girlfriend and clashing the team's new coach before I finally made the decision to quit the team. The day after I quit the team, my son was born.

On October 5, the team was to take a bus to Buffalo for the biggest game of the season. It was a conference game against our biggest rival. My son's due date was October 6. While I realized that about only 5% of babies are born on their due date, the possibility of missing the birth of my son was not an option. On the morning of the 5th, we were supposed to meet in the training room for our team meeting and to prepare for the bus ride. I did not go. I did not let my coach know I was not going either. He was probably happy when he found out from my roommate that I was not a member of the team anymore.

I spent the day of the 5th on the phone talking to members of the team and getting updates via text throughout the game. I had not heard from my son's mother for several days at this point until about 2 AM on the morning of October 6. She sent me a text explaining that she had started contractions and would be heading to the hospital soon. I told her I would meet her there.

If you have never experienced childbirth please take note that it is not for those with a weak stomach. Yes, it is a beautiful thing but it is also gruesome, downright bloody and at times smelly. My ex received an epidural while I was in the delivery room with her. Seeing the doctor place a needle that was several inches long into my ex's back was enough to make me feel faint.

As much as I tried not to look at what was going on down there, I couldn't help but be mesmerized at what the human body was capable of. She was pushing as hard as she could trying to get that baby out. Her face was as red as could be and a mixture of sweat and tears soaked her gown. Before I knew it, I heard a splat hit the floor. Looking down I realized that my ex had paid me back for all of the arguments and partying by shooting a nice healthy turd directly at me that happened to land right on top of my foot. The people that run the birthing classes failed to mention that this is a common occurrence during childbirth.

It took me a moment to gather myself. I was caught halfway between laughing historically and hitting the floor. Luckily the poopy push was the last big push before my son was officially born. The doctor stood there holding my screaming son and asked if I wanted to cut the umbilical cord. I'm sorry, cut the what? My biggest fear was causing more pain to the mother of my child but the doctor assured me she would not feel a thing. He showed me where to cut and instructed me to just do one clean snip through the cord and that is just what I did shortly before completely fainting. I woke up a few minutes later in a hospital bed next to my son and his mother.

I went to a small Catholic college in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania. Being that this was a private college, we had to take classes that were called convocation classes. In these classes, we would have to attend certain campus activities, complete a certain number of community service hours, and complete weekly reflections in a journal. Most of the events that we would attend were group events such as college soccer games or a speech presented by one of the department heads. We were also allowed to do our community service projects in groups. I chose to be in a group with Tyne and Katie. Shortly after classes began for the semester, I quickly learned how to not go about finding a long-lasting relationship.

Tyne and I had one other class together so I had already noticed her and made the simple decision to ask her out. I didn't know a single thing about her but we were in college so what did it matter? Before I really got to know Tyne I would kind of just sit in class and admire her, wishing that I could come up with the courage to ask her on a date.

We were sitting in our convocation class listening to our teacher explain what kind of community service projects would be allowed and that projects could be completed in groups of three. Katie sat to my left and Tyne coincidentally sat directly in front of me so our group basically formed itself. That same day we spent the class discussing what we should do for our service project. Tyne's mother does environmental work for the county that our college was in and was sure she could come up with something for us to do.

After the weekend, our group met in class again and Tyne told Katie and me that we could do service work for the county by cleaning up river beds and flood zones. From the start, I knew that I was going to be stuck doing all the work but I was crushing on Tyne, and Katie was pretty cute too.

By this time I was starting to come out of my shell and got more comfortable being around Tyne. I had finally made up my mind as to when I was going to ask her out. However, I still had not worked out how I was going to ask her outlet alone what I was going to say. One day after class, it was probably about four weeks into the semester, the group was preparing to meet for our first few hours of community service the next morning. Tyne had told Katie that she would text her the location as they were both from the area and knew it a lot better than I did. I didn't even have a car.

As I tried to figure out how I was even going to make it to the community service location I found myself walking away from the classroom asking Tyne an abundance of questions that had absolutely nothing to do with our project or the class. I was asking her random things like if she knew of any good places to eat or which building she lived in. I think I was just trying to continue talking to her. I was quickly informed that she lived off-campus several towns over.

Before I knew it I had followed Tyne to the basement of the building with her walking rather quickly as if she were trying to get away from me. I obviously didn't get the hint. She opened the door to go outside towards the parking lot and in a last-ditch effort to hang out with her outside of a school event, I asked her if I could get a ride to community service the