Free The Stipulation by M.L. Young

Chapter One
     
    The blistering cold wind hit me as I walked out of Gabel Hall and started my trek across campus. December in Illinois and the ground began to turn solid from frost and the breath coming from your mouth instantly turned into a fog before quickly dissipating. It didn’t help that I decided to wear a skirt today, thinking I would actually look cute for once. Now my decision started to haunt me, as the freezing cold wind battered my freshly shaven legs and made any tiny remnants of stubble that were there stand on end.
    I weave d in and out of the slow-walking students and couples, not paying attention to the way they held onto each other for warmth, as if it even mattered when the temperature was this cold outside. I admit I was a little jealous, for I wanted to be holding onto somebody, but it just wasn’t in the cards. I only got into this university because I held a 3.9 GPA through high school, and my only way to pay the rest of the tuition that my grants didn’t cover was to work almost full-time while not in class. I barely had time for anything anymore, with my time filled up with either listening to an old professor drone on, or standing in front of a cash register acting polite to the bitchy men and women who came in and deliberately tried to cause me problems. I wanted to say the whole situation really bothered me, but I guess I signed up for it all. I’m the one who chose this school out of all of the others I could’ve gone to. My parents even tried to talk me out of it, saying it was too expensive and I wouldn’t get to socialize, but I didn’t listen. I told them I was eighteen, an adult, and I could conquer anything that came my way! Now while all of my friends went to parties and spent time together, I was either stuck with my face inside of a textbook or in front of a ringing cash register.
    I never told my parents, for quite frankly, I didn’t want them to know they were right. They told me if I went to a smaller school they would’ve helped me pay some of the tuition and board, but I declined. They’re missionaries, and not exactly a glamorous or high-paying job. They’re paid by the church to go and help not only people in this country, but also outside the country, and they made just enough to pay the mortgage and put food in their stomachs. All I had told them, on the rare chance I got to talk to them, was that I was having a great time and partying it up. If it made them think I was right then that’s all that mattered.
    Tuesday night and my six o’clock class was over—not to mention one of the only nights I didn’t have to work—so I decided to go back to my dorm and munch on some of the snacks my parents had sent me in a care package from Mexico. I was a little scared the products would make me sick, but my parents assured me they were in a great place and everything was safe. Normally I would just smile while emptying the box into the trash, but my meal plan money for the week was already gone—my roommate’s best friend’s boyfriend took my card and got food for not only him, but also his buddies—letting me starve for the week until the money refreshed.
    I got stopped at the Glade Street stoplight, which was the biggest and most annoying of all of the intersections on campus. The traffic lights for cars and pedestrians changed almost in the blink of an eye and if you were in the middle of the street then you had better run like your life depended on it. Normally, when the weather was nice, it wouldn’t be a problem, but now it posed a serious threat. The air and ground were chilling, and we even had a few flurries over the past week. Earlier today, outside the student union, I saw a university worker slip and fall, and I didn’t want to follow by planting myself in the middle of the road— in a skirt . I didn’t want anybody, especially these horny and hormone-raged college guys to see up my skirt and get any wet dreams about me later tonight. I was a virgin and