FRESHMAN FIFTEEN

  WRENSHAW UNIVERSITY

  KATE BAUER

  Freshman Fifteen (Wrenshaw University) by Kate Bauer

  Copyright ©2024 Expanded Story ©2026

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover Design by K.A. Bauer

  Background  Photograph by  Kai Hurley

  Model Photograph licensed through Shutterstock: Stock Photo ID 2163230249

  No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, submitting to an artificial intelligence database, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Note: This is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, people, or places are used fictitiously or with permission. Names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  *There was no use of generative AI in the creation of this book nor cover art.*

  This author does not support the use of generative artificial intelligence in any creative sphere.

  CONTENTS

  Note From The Author

  Introduction

  Preface

  1. Commencement

  2. Welcome to Wrenshaw

  Jesse’s Diary

  3. Dorm Life

  Jesse’s Diary

  4. Orientation

  Jesse’s Diary

  5. Get a Job

  Jesse’s Diary

  6. The Gym

  Jesse’s Diary

  7. I Quit

  Jesse’s Diary

  8. Adventures in Toy Land

  Jesse’s Diary

  9. First Date Disaster

  Jesse’s Diary

  10. Shoes First

  Jesse’s Diary

  11. Gag Me

  Jesse’s Diary

  12. Twin-tuition

  Jesse’s Diary

  13. Deck The Halls

  Jesse’s Diary

  14. Lies Catch Up

  Jesse’s Diary

  15. Nightmare or Memory?

  Jesse’s Diary

  16. Sooo Not a Party Animal

  Jesse’s Diary

  17. Teamwork Makes The Dream Work

  Jesse’s Diary

  18. Perspective is Everything

  Jesse’s Diary

  19. Finding Mr. Right

  Jesse’s Diary

  20. Home is Where the Heart Loves

  Jesse’s Diary

  21. Nothing Gained But Love

  About the Author

  More Books By

  Books By

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  I want to thank those of you who have taken the time to invest in the world I’ve created. Your love and support really mean a lot to me.

  At this time, there is a lot of book piracy going on in the literary world and it is causing a lot of independent authors to suffer the consequences. I myself fell victim to this and have been fighting a legal battle to get the unauthorized distribution of my stories removed from sites that are not only sharing illegally, but also may include some type of malware on the files.

  Never in a million years would I want a reader to suffer legal or technical consequences from my books, so please if you are accessing this as an e-book from anything other than a major retailer or official library app, please double check on my social media channels and/or website to make sure the site you got this from is authorized to carry my works before continuing. These books are the difference between a ramen or peanut butter month and a real food month for some of us.

  If you are finding this book through a free share site, please report it as stolen work to the site so that myself and other independent authors can continue to publish our stories.

  A complete listing of where my books are legally available can be found at:

  https://authorkabauer.com

  INTRODUCTION

  Wrenshaw University is one of the many options for post-high school education in the greater Pittsburgh region. In recent years, a new dean has taken over. The campus has been evolving into a more welcoming and inclusive place for students and faculty alike under the new administration.

  This series will focus on the students and faculty of the university as they fall in love and face the challenges of being true to themselves in a world that doesn’t always accept them.

  Some of the characters from my other series will pop up here from time to time as they all take place in Wrenshaw, PA.

  I hope you enjoy.

  PREFACE

  If you are reading this note, it means that this is not the most up to date version of this book. Please remove the download from your devices and re-download the file.

  If this message is still present after that, please let me know at authorkabauer@gmail.com or via direct message on instagram @authorkabauer and I will load the final file again.

  I have uploaded multiple files as the book progressed and lately there have been issues with the final files on some books not loading correctly. This message is proactive to try and prevent you from having an incomplete version of the book to ensure reader satisfaction.

  CHAPTER 1

  COMMENCEMENT

  “Elizabeth Swanson”

  Moving up the line, I ignore the leering eyes of my fellow graduates. Here I am, graduating from my podunk high school in the middle of nowhere South Dakota, hoping to escape these fuckers once and for all. Today should be a day of celebration, but I just want to leave. If I could have skipped today, I would have.

  “Steven Taylor”

  My parents don’t know the hell that my life has been ever since I broke my leg at hockey camp in sixth grade. Unlike my younger siblings, I never had any real interest in playing the game for more than fun. I played to make Dad happy. He is a bit obsessed with the game, but never was able to afford to play growing up beyond some pond hockey with a few neighbors.

  Making him happy was enough incentive for me to put in the effort once it stopped being fun for me. U-12’s was when the sport became less about playing with friends and more about winning games. My attitude apparently didn’t measure up to my teammates’ expectations. It wouldn’t have been so bad except I was in the top three scorers in our league. I was excelling without actually giving a shit about scores or standings. It pissed off the guys that were busting their asses to only be called mediocre by our dipshit of a coach.

  When I crashed into the boards that day, I had my suspicions that it was not an accident, but no one wants to think that a group of fourteen year olds would hurt a twelve year old kid just for playing a game better. If they looked too closely, they would have seen the toxic shit that went on behind the scenes. As long as the team was winning, they didn’t want to do anything that might rock the boat.

  They also managed to keep it from my family, despite the fact that my little brothers were just a year behind me with talent that easily surpassed my own. Mom and Dad had to split their focus five ways, so I can’t blame them for missing the clues. At least my family didn’t push me to play anymore after the months in the cast and needing to learn how to walk again. They think the fact that my career ended is what caused my depression and further withdrawal from everyone. It wasn’t.

  “Jessica Thorne”

  My depression spawned from my former teammates constantly putting me down, hitting me, stealing my things, and locking me in closets. I had to hide during lunch and eat as fast as possible to avoid wearing my food. I was constantly on edge, looking over my shoulder in between every class. They taught it to the new guys as they came up. My brothers knew they were targeting someone, but the team managed to keep them in the dark as to who – thanks to the twins’ massive tunnel vision for the game itself. It didn’t help that I refused to say anything. I am the big brother. There was no way I was going to have my little brothers come to my rescue.

  If it was only the hockey thing, I would be able to get them to back off just by avoiding the barn. Unfortunately, going from prodigy to piggy was too much temptation for the assholes. Being bedridden for half a year to let my leg heal combined with puberty made me gain an extra seventy-five or so pounds that I haven’t been able to shake. Even with running ten miles every morning, it just won’t drop off.

  “Stephanie Talbot”

  Six years I’ve put up with my former teammates turned bullies. They’ve even made sure no one outside of my family is willing to even talk to me in school. Since they’re the star players going on to top tier colleges and Juniors, teachers let them get away with so much.

  I’ve made it this far; I can make it another twenty minutes…

  “Sidney Xavier”

  As my name is called, I step out into the aisle to the sound of snickers and the usual taunts whispered too low for the parents to hear. I ignore them.

  Stepping onto the stage it hits me that my family isn’t cheering and embarrassing me. If there’s one thing the Xavier family is good at, it would be embarrassing each other. I l
ook out at the audience and see only frowns and looks of horror in place of smiles on their faces.

  The whispers from around the room turn into full on jeers and outright laughter as I hear the curtain pulling back, and my confusion seems to make it worse. My younger brothers race to the stage pushing past me and the faculty to pull the curtains closed, but it’s too late.

  The banner that was supposed to read “Congratulations, Graduates!” is not what is showing. In its place, someone put up a giant poster of me hiding in the bathroom stall to eat my lunch with the caption of VIRGIN in bold red letters.

  The banner above shows my shame, my secret that I still hadn’t had the courage to speak out loud.: “Congrats, Fatty Fag!”

  Those assholes took six years of my life. They took my choices away time after time after time.

  FUCK THEM!

  I race off the stage, barely holding back the tears of rage welling inside of me. I hear the catcalls and jokes about earthquakes, but I don’t stop until I’m pushing out of the emergency exit doors. I don’t care about the alarms going off.

  “Sid!”

  My dad’s voice calls out to me, but I don’t stop running.

  Fuck those assholes. Fuck this small town dickishness. Fuck the obsessive winner takes all mentality that fostered my shit situation. Fuck my dad for giving me a girl’s name…

  I start to slow as the guilt of that thought hits me. My dad loves me. He always wants the best for me, and he named me after the number one draft pick the year I was born.

  “Son, hop in the truck,” Dad says as he pulls up alongside me. “Let’s go for a drive.”

  This is rural South Dakota. Obeying my parents is ingrained in me. I don’t even hesitate to climb in the cab, slamming the door so it doesn’t pop back open while we’re driving. To support the current hockey playing of four growing kids, including two goalies, my parents each work two jobs to cover all the costs. I’ve never seen them behind the wheel of a car newer than a 2012 and that was a rental years ago.

  “You know I love you, right?”

  Dad’s question confuses me until I remember the banner. They told the whole town my secret. I don’t even know how they knew. I only ever told one person, and Miss Johnson is the school counselor. She’s not allowed to share what I say in confidence unless it’s a danger to myself or other students. Even then, she could only tell my parents and the administration.

  “Sidney, there is nothing you could ever do or think or feel that would make me or your mother love you less than we always have. You need to know that,” Dad says as he pulls over next to the pond where he taught us all to skate.

  “You are my beautiful boy, my firstborn, and all I’ve ever wanted is your happiness. What did I do that made you think you couldn’t come to me?”

  And there’s the reason.

  I come from a family of fixers. I’m the outlier. Instead of a fixer, I became a people pleaser. I learned to swallow my feelings, both figuratively and literally, during my year-long recovery being confined to a bed. As much as my family will want to fix everything for me this time, they can’t. My life in this town is effectively over.

  “I love you, Dad,” I tell him as I wipe my face with the sleeve of my graduation gown before I rip the thing off to toss it in the bed with the rest of the trash. I forgot I was still wearing it. “There’s no changing it now, but I was planning to tell you before I leave for college.”

  Telling my family that I’m gay and was bullied for the last six years was not a conversation I wanted to have when they could put their two cents in repeatedly for months. My plan was to wait until right before I left so that I would only have to deal with it for a few days.

  “Speaking of college,” he says as he reaches into the glove box to pull out a large envelope. “You got another acceptance letter. This one is from that school in Pennsylvania you checked out a few months ago. What do you say?”

  I look at the envelope and can’t wrap my mind around it. I mean, I was planning on heading to a smaller school in Michigan since my twin brothers are playing for the national Juniors under 18 development team this year. They had a blast last year on the U-17 team, but said it was tough being so far away from family. Since Mom and Dad are going to be busy working and looking after Kris and Jordan, the plan was for me to keep an eye on Max and Marc, hitting up as many games as I could when they played at home. There was even talk of me spending the weekends with them at their billet family’s home.

  “What about Michigan?”

  Dad pulls me across the bench seat into his arms. Even though I’m taller and easily a hundred pounds heavier than him, Wayne Xavier has never failed to make me feel like a cherished little boy when he embraces me.

  “As much as I hate to say it, you deserve a life away from all of the reminders of this place. You deserve a fresh start where no one from this hick ass town will follow you.”

  “You’ve been in this hick ass town your whole life, Dad.”

  Throwing me a wink, he pulls back onto the road to bring us home. I guess this means I’m going to Wrenshaw University. It’s bittersweet, but for the first time in six years, I feel hope for my future.

  CHAPTER 2

  WELCOME TO WRENSHAW

  Stepping off the tram in the Pittsburgh airport, I feel like a totally new person. Dad wanted to come with me to do the whole parent drop off at school, but I declined. He has four kids playing hockey, two in the USHL, and Mom just had her hours cut at the factory because she got into it with Linda over the graduation incident. The only reason we could even afford me going to school out of state is the fact that I managed to snag an academic scholarship to pay for most of my costs. As long as I can find a professor to sign off on my work study, I’ll be able to be employed on campus and not have to worry about transportation costs for a while.

  “Break me off a piece of that.” Some random girl mutters as I pull my big suitcase from the baggage carousel.

  Although I hear it, I’m still not used to having positive things said about the way I look. Over the last few months, my little brothers took me with them for all of their full training workouts and Mom put me on the same diet as them. The lean protein, vegetable heavy meal plan that they thrive on seems to be beneficial for me as well.

  Add on the fact that my body decided to hit another random growth spurt halfway through July and the weight redistributed. The layer of fat thinned out and the muscle built up in all the right places.

  My family also surprised me with lasik surgery for my eyesight as a graduation present, so even the people who knew me for my entire life no longer recognized me in the days before I left. It was amazing, but I still couldn’t shake the anxiety that someone was going to recognize me.

  After grabbing my final bag, I pull out my phone to check and see what the wait time is for an Uber to get me to campus. I saw online that there is a public transit bus system that I can take, but the groups on social media for the colleges in the area say that using the bus will take hours and require switching lines at least twice. It’s not worth it compared to the forty-five minutes or so for ordering a rideshare, at least until I get my student ID and can get a free bus pass.

  Since the wait time for a ride is only about five minutes, I ignore the people around me and head outside with my stuff. I hate using my old hockey equipment bag as a second suitcase, but in our house it was all there was that was big enough and the Goodwill didn’t have any decent luggage for sale. I wouldn’t have cared if I was going to Michigan. Anything I didn’t bring initially would have been able to be brought when my brothers were dropped off to their billet family.

  But I’m alone here…

  “You Sid?” a voice calls out from the rather bland four door sedan parked in the front of the line of cars.

  I grab my bags and head to the car, laughing at the bumper stickers I can see on the back of the vehicle.

  My other vehicle is a TARDIS

  Puck Off

  My Dog Will Eat Your Stick Family

  I Solemnly Swear… A Lot