I am unprepared for this college experience on my own. Now that I no longer have access to my BFF who understands all these things, I am barely treading water. I have become boy crazy but have no idea how to talk to boys. I’ve tried. It ends...badly. I’m lonely, but don’t know how to make friends. My clothes fit me weird, especially after my hormone surge, but I don’t know how to shop or style myself. I am seriously out of my league on all fronts except academia. Which I still love, but not as much. Not nearly as much.

I do not know or understand this new person living in my body.

I’m not exaggerating about being boy crazy, either. No man is safe from my filthy mind anymore. Every guy I see, I’m picturing naked. I don’t understand it. I don’t want to understand it. If anyone saw my browser history, they’d wonder how I get anything done. I’m going to blame my intellect for this obsession with naked men on the internet. Now that I have all these hormones and no place to use them, I am drawn to the pictures, the videos, the stories, that might help me make sense of it all. It’s research.

And I have always been very, very good at research.

It’s embarrassing how much time I spend researching. I think about sex all the time, but I have no outlet. I spend hours looking at porn. I spend my class time wondering about the penises of every male person unfortunate enough to be within my sighting distance. If they knew what I was thinking...God, I’m indecent. I just want, all the time. And it’s likely I will never assuage the ache because I cannot figure out how to even start a conversation, much less carry one out long enough to get from hello to naked and sweaty.

Jenna has had sex seven times this quarter, and I haven’t been able to ask a boy his name. And my roommate is psycho and wants me to die.

“What are you thinking right now?” Jenna asks.

That I probably don’t need a college graduation to manage the Pizza Hut back home. They’d hire me back, I’m sure of it. I’ll work my way up from supervisor to manager. “I’m going to quit. I’ll call my parents and have them pick me up tomorrow.”

“Penelope, no.”

“I can go to the community college for two years. I’m not cut out for this yet. I need to be home. Maybe a couple more years of maturity will help.”

“Sweetie, you worked really hard to get into the chem program at CSU. You can’t quit. You can’t let the psycho win.”

I sniffle.

“But you can’t stay there either. Not even tonight.”