The Outsider Ch. 03

His initial reaction of shock and heartbreak eventually transformed itself into anger and bitterness, not just against Lisa, but also against the world into which she had immersed herself over the summer. A mutual acquaintance from Chicago e-mailed him and mentioned that she had successfully pledged the Four Beta Sorority. That news affected what he did at his job, because he made it a point to target any car that boasted the markings of a "Greek" for special attention from his ticketing machine.

He needed someone...someone who was different from that stupid bitch Lisa. However, his luck with other women since she left him had been atrocious. He was far too serious for most young women to find attractive. Ten months after the breakup, Mike Sinclair was alone and his heart burned with resentment. He had to face the hard truth what he was a loser with women and that Lisa Campbell was the only chance that he ever would have for a relationship. Lisa was gone from his life and there would be no other women for Mike Sinclair. No woman, no matter how strange or how much of a loser she might be, was ever going to want to touch him. Apparently that was a law of nature, something as unalterable as gravity. Lisa Campbell was the exception...the one lucky shot he had at finding a partner. That opportunity had come and gone. He had blown his only chance.

As he dwelt on Lisa, the lines of an old Queensrÿche song passed through his thoughts:

I don't believe in love I never have, I never will I don't believe in love I'll just pretend she never was real I don't believe in love I need to forget her face, I see it still I don't believe in love It's never worth the pain that you feel

Queensrÿche...Mike loved their music, even though their more famous songs were at least 10 years old. He first heard of Queensrÿche on a station that featured "classic" Metal from the 1980's and 1990's. Perhaps it was a trait of a loser to listen to music that was not in the least bit current, but he didn't care. The music of Queensrÿche, which dwelt on alienation, anger, and loneliness, seemed to be written directly for Mike Sinclair.

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Mike tried to cheer up as he wandered through the basement of the library, looking for a couple of extra books that would give him the 10 sources he needed as the minimum for a term paper. More BS, he thought to himself...these stupid term papers. He knew how to play the game with term papers, however. There wasn't much to writing a term paper if one knew how to do it. Normally he used two or three books to get his facts, and then picked a few quotes out of the others. The extra two books would only be needed be for quotes, but he did have to include them.

As he got ready to leave, Mike passed a table with an open backpack set next to a pile of books. He recognized the backpack as the one belonging to his classmate Ruthie Burns. Curiosity led him to examine the titles. Much to his surprise, most of the books were in Spanish. There were two groups of titles: books that appeared to be novels and books that were literature reviews.

He dared not touch what was on the table; for fear that Ruthie would catch him. However, just by looking at the covers he could tell that her selection of books was not the sort of literature that a freshman would be expected to read. This was very dense reading, and in Spanish, not English. A worn syllabus laid among her notes answered his question: the books were required reading for a third-year class with the Spanish Department. That meant the Ruthie Burns, who was enrolled in her first semester as a freshman, was taking at least one class at the junior level. It also meant she was fluent in another language.

Mike walked past several shelves of books and saw his classmate thumbing through a literature journal. She was engrossed in what she was doing and didn't notice him. He resisted the temptation to go back to her table and look through her notebooks to find out more about her. Yes, there was no question that girl was totally weird, but there also was no question that she was intelligent. He found her fascinating.

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Mike returned to his dorm. When he opened the door to his room, the sight and sounds that greeted him were the ones he expected. When he entered he could hear explosions and the roars of electronic monsters. His roommate Todd was sitting at the computer at his desk, playing an online video game. With a quick single movement Todd put on a pair of headphones and plugged them into the computer. He never took his eyes off the screen or missed a beat in his online battle.

Mike briefly looked at what his roommate was doing. A monster's head came off and flew towards the viewer. There were a bunch of explosions and then Todd's character started bleeding. He reacted by quickly going through a menu and found what he needed to restore his online self. Within seconds he was back in the battle.

Todd would be at it all night, just as he was almost every night. Mike had read an article about that game he was playing; that it was extremely addictive for serious players because of a ranking system it used. There was no question that Todd had a high rank in that game, but what was he sacrificing to keep it? He had no social life, over the semester his physical health had deteriorated, and undoubtedly his grades were suffering because very rarely had Mike seen him studying.

For a few minutes Mike watched his roommate. He was an addict, no doubt about it. His life was as lost as that of a chronic gambler. Not that Mike cared that much about Todd's well-being, because the two students did not like each other, but he did shake his head at the loss of yet another life to an activity that was a total waste of time.

Finally he went to the men's room to get cleaned up. When he returned to the room, he took off his towel and got in bed. He was too tired to put anything on and had decided to sleep naked, but Todd was too engrossed in his game to notice or care. Mike covered his eyes with a pillow to block out the light from his roommate's computer. He still could hear the muffled sound effects of the online battle through the headphones. The sound was very faint, but it was just enough to totally irritate him.

Abruptly the battle sound stopped. Todd started swearing and desperately tried to reconnect. He turned off his computer and rebooted, but to no avail. The campus Internet must have gone down again. Poor Todd, he was out of the fight and undoubtedly his ranking would suffer.

Mike smiled to himself in the darkness and fell asleep.