Shut Out (Bayard Hockey #1)(3)
And I still have Ella. She and Brendan and I were a trio our freshman year at Bayard, and now Ella and I are roommates in the off-campus house we share with two other girls. Yes, it’s crowded and crazy sometimes, but I need to live as cheaply as possible.
Volunteering at SAPAP makes my schedule even crazier with my part-time job, the appointments I still have occasionally with Frances, and studying my ass off because I am going to do this. My parents probably don’t believe I can, and they’re helping foot the bill for my high-priced education, so I have to show them I can be as good as my sister, Elisha, who’s now a medical resident in Boston.
Today I’m in the boardroom of the SAPAP offices in the South Quad Academic Complex for a meeting to brainstorm and plan out some of this year’s events. It’s mid-September and we’ve been back in class for a couple weeks. Victoria Meyer, director of SAPAP, is my idol. I worship her. I want to be her when I grow up.
“How was it presenting to the senate subcommittee round table?” Leah asks Victoria.
“Amazing.” Victoria smiles. “I love sharing the things we’re doing here and talking about what other campuses can be doing.” She talks a bit more about that, then says, “Okay. Let’s start with a recap from the various committees of what we accomplished last year. Skylar?”
My belly flutters, and I tuck some hair behind my ear. As coordinator of the Men’s Activism Group, I have my summary typed up and open on my laptop. I’m new to this, and I want to do well. I hate being unprepared, so I spent a lot of time last night reviewing my files from last year and working on my summary.
“Last year we started the year off by promoting and participating in the No-Shave October for Consent Campaign. We created our first-ever promotional video that included everyone in the campaign, not only men who could grow beards. We reached over eight thousand people on Facebook and received over five thousand views on YouTube. During that month, we hosted an open mic night at a fraternity on campus and we ended the campaign with a flag football tournament oriented around sexual violence awareness, deconstructing rape myths, and bystander intervention. We have over two hundred participants who signed the No-Shave pledge to practice consensual sex, which we consider very successful.”
I pause and look around at everyone. I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m taking credit for all this, because I wasn’t even involved until second semester. I just want everyone to know what we accomplished. Victoria smiles encouragingly and I take another breath. “This year, obviously we want to exceed that number. Last spring, we developed and presented a new program called Frat Chat, for men in fraternities to give us feedback on the workshops and other programs, and to network with us for future planning. We got great feedback from them and hopefully will be able to incorporate that into our planning for this year.”
I finish my update and listen to Leah and Grace present their summary of last year’s accomplishments for the peer-led support group and the networking committee, respectively.
“Excellent work, everyone.” Victoria nods. “You’re an amazing group. I’m so proud to work with you all.”
This is one reason I love her. She always appreciates what we do and gives us positive feedback. And because even though the work we do is serious, she encourages us to have fun.
“Now let’s talk about our ideas for the coming year.”
I’m happy and excited to do that. I also prepared for this. “We actually started working on our No-Shave October planning at the end of last school year by looking at what merchandise we still have, scheduling the events we knew we wanted to repeat, and booking venues. I have some other ideas for other fundraising events, like a benefit concert and a pizza fundraiser. I’d like to set some concrete goals in terms of how much money we raise as well as how many new men volunteers we can recruit to the program and how many people we can get to sign affirmative consent pledges.”
Victoria looks pleased at my ideas. “Thank you, Skylar.”
The others put forward some ideas and we get into an energetic brainstorming session. I find myself volunteering for various tasks until Victoria says, “Skylar. I appreciate that you want to be involved, but do you think you’re taking on a little too much for one person?”
I blink at her. Oh shit. I’ve done it again. I have this tendency to overcommit myself.
“I’m worried you won’t have time for your studies. Or your job. Or maybe having fun once in a while.”
I make a face. Having fun is a low priority for me. Especially since Brendan’s death. I know there are lots of people at college who are here just to party. My housemates Brooklyn and Natalie have busy social lives. Apparently they passed their courses last year—barely—but neither of them have jobs. Ella’s been going out with them more and more.
I’ve been kind of worried about her. She’s been acting different ever since Brendan died. Which is totally understandable; we were both devastated by what happened. At first I didn’t even notice what was going on, I was in such a fog of grief myself, but last weekend she came home super late—or super early in the morning, depending how you look at it—totally wasted, and spent the entire next day in bed recovering. And then went out and did it again the following night. That’s when I realized she’s been doing it every weekend. On top of that, she’s been hooking up with random guys, sometimes staying out all night, sometimes bringing guys she doesn’t even know back to the house, which makes me uncomfortable. I’m not judging her, but you do need to be careful.