Finding Your Feet

September 2024

Angel Go and Meadow Thayer are 18; Tosha Go and Vivian Thomason are 22

The coffee shop at Richmond City Tech was surprisingly empty for a late summer morning when Meadow and Angel arrived.  It was early in the semester and the two girls were still trying to get their heads around schedules and textbooks and lecture halls, settling into college life.

"I hardly saw you all summer,"  Angel said.  "I thought we were going to keep in touch."
"I've been busy," Meadow said.  "And you know, it doesn't help that you go out of your way to make Jamie uncomfortable - "
"I don't - "

"Yeah, you do," said Meadow.  "And I wish you'd stop because you make me feel like I have to choose between you two.  You said you were ok with us being together."

"I am," Angel said..  "I just... I'm just being stupid.  Just forget about it, I won't do it any more."

"You know what you need?" Meadow said.  "You need to get out there and meet people, make new friends. Have you gotten to know anyone new at all since you moved into the dorm?"

"Um... I had a great conversation with the cafeteria cook the other night," Angel said.  "Does that count?"

Meadow shook her head.  "Unless he's under 30 and single, that's not what I meant!  Come on, Angel, you're here!  Remember how you looked forward to this?  You're finally here, you're out on your own, you're free.  Enjoy it!"

Meadow was right, of course.  Angel had been looking forward to this, for as long as she could remember.  Looking forward to leaving the children's home, being on her own, free to do whatever she wanted.  Only somehow, now that she was here, it didn't seem so exciting any more.

Maybe that was because she was on her own.  She'd lied, just a little bit, when she said she was ok with Jamie and Meadow together.  It wasn't that she didn't want Meadow to be happy, she just wanted her to be happy with someone else.  Meadow was  pretty and flirty and she could have any guy she wanted.  Why did she have to want the only one who had ever made Angel feel she was worth a second look?

Other people made it look so easy, this relationship thing.  It seemed that everywhere she went, everyone had someone, and they made a point of telling the world about it.  She had no idea how they did it.  Even friendships didn't come naturally to her, never mind romance.

She started spending her free time in the university library.  When she'd finished all the reading she needed to do for her classes, she started reading other stuff, just anything that interested her.   Anything that would pass the time.

One afternoon, one of the college professors approached her.  "Excuse me, Miss, I'm sure I haven't met you before, but I have to ask... are you in one of my classses?"

"Uh...  no, " she said.  She'd seen him around the library before.  He seemed to spend a lot of time there, too.  "Why did you think I was?"

"It's just the book you were reading..."

"You know that book?"

"I wrote it."

Angel felt her face reddening.  "Sorry... I didn't realise... Mr... sorry, Professor...?"  she tried to discretely read the name on the spine of the book back in the shelf.

"...Rusewicz," he supplied.  "Professor Thomas Rusewicz. And don't be embarrassed.  I only wondered if you were in one of my classes because that text was written for advanced music students, and I didn't expect to see anyone else reading it.  Are you studying music?"

"No...  no, not at all," she said.  "I'm just interested  for fun."

"That's a pretty advanced book to be reading for fun.  Maybe you should consider taking some classes, if you're that interested."

"I couldn't," she said.  "You have to be able to play some instrument or something, and I can't even read music."

"There are some instruments you can start learning without reading music, at least at first.  Drums, for example."

She laughed.  "I don't think I want to play drums."

"Well, what would you like to play.  If you could pick any instrument, I mean?"

She thought for a moment.  "Piano would be kind of good," she said.  "You can play it on your own, without needing anyone else and it still sounds good."

"Would you like me to teach you to play the piano?"

"Wha... what?" Angel stammered.  "Why... I mean, if you're writing advanced music textbooks, why would you want to take the time to teach someone who doesn't know anything and isn't even taking music classes?"

"I would take the time for the rare student like you who has sufficient interest and enthusiasm," he said. "I spend most of my week teaching students who care about little else but doing the minimum amount of work to pass.  Not all of them are like that, of course, but too many.  Privately tutoring someone like you who is genuinely interested would be refreshing, to say the least."

"But what if I turn out to be totally un-talented or something?"

"Talent is 90% interest and dedication, and when I see an attractive young woman like you spending hours in the library reading for fun, I know you already have that," he said.  "Someone with an attitude like yours would have a far greater chance of success than a so-called 'naturally talented' person who can't be bothered trying."  He handed her a business card.  "Here, take this, Miss - "

"Angel Go.  But I don't know if I should - "

"Think about it, and call me when you make up your mind.  I'd hate to waste the opportunity... I believe this could be very good for both of us."

---

Angel was still thinking about the professor and his offer, as she walked to her sister's apartment.

Tosha was in her final semester and when her girlfriend Vivian had graduated a semester ahead of her, they'd moved off-campus to a tiny apartment a couple of blocks away.  

She'd spent some fun evenings there, chatting well into the small hours of the morning.  Vivian treated her more like a friend than just her girlfriend's little sister, and it was one of the few places that Angel really felt at ease.  Today, however, she only wanted to talk to Tosha.

"Do you think there's something wrong with me?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Something... different... you know... am I weird or something?"

"You're being weird now.  What's up?"

Angel shrugged.  "Sometimes I just feel like I'm not normal."

"Hey, what the heck is 'normal' anyway?" Tosha asked.  "I mean, we've hardly had a 'normal' life, have we?"
"No, but - "
"You can't compare yourself to other people, not when they've had things that we never had.  Other people have parents and families and people who cared about them.  We had a mother who left two little kids to look after themselves in a run-down apartment and never came back."
That was Tosha's answer to everything - their childhood made them different and that was all there was to say  about it.  Angel didn't buy it.
"But - but you turned out ok... so did Meadow, and she never had a family, either.  You guys can make friends, have relationships... that stuff doesn't happen for me."

"It will," said Tosha.  "Just give it time.  You just need to find your feet a bit."  Her tone indicated that the subject was closed.  "Now," she went on, "tell me about how your classes are going.  Have you decided a major yet?"

Angel hadn't, and that was another thing that bothered her.  She had no idea of what she wanted to do in life.  She'd only gone to college because Meadow and Jamie went, and because she had an orphans' scholarship, and because Tosha had said it would be a good idea.  She hadn't really thought about it much beyond that.
"I was kind of thinking about music... " she started tentatively.
"Music!" said Tosha, with a laugh.  "What on earth gave you a dumb idea like that?"
"I just thought maybe I could learn - "
"Forget it," said Tosha firmly.  "You've never studied music in your life, and you'd be up against students who learned to play instruments when they were, like, five or something... at least pick a major you've got a chance of succeeding in."

---

Back at the dorm, Angel looked around her little room.  The first place that she'd ever been able to call her own.  She'd furnished it with a rug and curtains from a second hand shop, and an old computer that some friend of Tosha had been about to throw away.  She'd been so proud of it, but now the room just seemed empty.

Finding her feet, Tosha had said.  Angel laughed dryly to herself.  Sometimes it felt like it wasn't just her feet, it was her whole self that was missing.

Meadow had told her to get out there, but somehow being out there didn't help, either.

She found the card from Professor Rusewicz in the bottom of her bag one evening.  It sat on her desk for another two days before she plucked up the courage to call him.  No one else needed to know, she reasoned.  Maybe it was just a dumb idea but, on the other hand, he was the music professor.  He'd know more about it than Tosha, and why else would he want to waste his time on her, anyway?  With her hand shaking slightly, Angel called the number of the music department.

Maybe there, she'd find her feet.

----

So, this is what happens when the game generates a shy popularity sim!


These two townie teens with the same last name both got into relationships with playable sims around the same time, so it made sense to make them sisters.  Along with Meadow, they were the first occupants of my teen foster home/orphanage.


I've got other playable sims at college at the moment (both the couples in the pictures with Angel are playable), but for now I'll just focus on these guys, and a couple of others at SSU that you've already met (I have two colleges)... the others may come into the college story at some stage, or you might not meet some of them until after they graduate.