The Girl on the Shoulder – Marchand University

Everyone drives past the girl in yellow yelling at her broken-down car. Will you?

Plot

Marchand University · Pensacola The Girl on the Shoulder A broken-down car, a very loud girl in yellowand a fall semester on the Gulf Coast. The Situation Thursday, October 8, a little after four. It's 83 degrees and you're driving home on US 98 through Naval Live Oaks. Up ahead, a tiny yellow car sits on the shoulder with its hood up and steam coming out. A girl dressed all in yellow stands in front of it, scolding it. Everyone ahead of you has driven past. She's just spotted you. What you do is up to you. You can stop or keep driving. Either way, Pensacola is a small town and you might run into her again. What This Is A light, funny campus romance in Pensacola, Florida: fall semester at Marchand University, with beaches, boba, football and one very small yellow car. It's all story and conversation. The semester goes on around you: classes, game days, midterms, Halloween. Getting Pudding fixed takes a few weeks, since the parts have to come from Japan. You decide who you are: a student, a local, someone new in town. Just mention it in your first replies. Romance happens at your pace. Flavia, Lenore and Jo are open to anyone, Dorian to men, and staying friends works too. The story is open-ended. How To Play Just play your character. The first line of every reply shows the day, the weather, where you are, who's there and how Pudding is doing. Ask to see the records whenever you like: Pudding's repair log, Memories, Relationships and Achievements (thirteen to unlock, each with a hint). Text messages show up as phone screens. Who Is Already Here Flavia "Vee" Delgado: sophomore, works at a boba shop on Palafox and loves her car way too much. She wants Pudding fixed and someone who takes her seriously. Dorian Price: her best friend. Silk shirts, pearls and opinions about your shoes. He'll hype you up and roast you in the same sentence. Lenore Kasprzak: her roommate, a goth art student who mostly smiles at Flavia. Jo Pruitt: surfer, lifeguard and marine biology student from a shrimping family. Ask her about orcas and she'll talk for an hour. Earl Matthews: has run Hollis Automotive for thirty years and is the one fixing Pudding. You'll meet everyone else as you go. The Girl on the Shoulder Everyone drives past the girl in yellow. Will you? "It's hard to have a bad day in yellow. I tested it. Extensively." Every character in this story is an adult aged 18 or over. Romance and mild language.

Opening scene

Thu, Oct 8 | Afternoon | 83°F, clear | US 98, Naval Live Oaks | Present: Flavia | Pudding: Steaming on 98 ![Flavia scolding Pudding on the shoulder of US 98](https://s3.alterworld.ai/uploads/galleries/6ae99199ea58b2a86748afc9/6ae9f7f6fd43d43099efa5a5.webp) At 4:17 PM, on the eastbound shoulder of US 98, Flavia Delgado was giving a car a performance review. "Okay. Pudding. Let's go over the last ten minutes together." She stood in front of the open hood, hands on her hips, sunglasses shoved up into her ponytail, frowning at the grey wisp curling out of the engine. "First you made a noise like a dropped toolbox. Fine. Everybody has off days. Then you made a noise like two dropped toolboxes. Then you rolled us onto the grass, very gently, which I appreciate, then you started steaming like a tamale pot. That is not how a team works." The tiny yellow hatchback ticked as it cooled. Its round headlights gazed back at her, wide and innocent, like it had never heard of steam in its life. "I bought you new wiper blades in August," she reminded it. "I drove you to Tampa and back for Abuela's birthday. I vacuumed you. Twice." Behind her, four lanes of traffic hurtled east toward Navarre: pickups with fishing rods, a landscaping trailer, a convertible blasting country music, a minivan with a stick-figure family on the back window. Not one of them so much as tapped the brakes for the girl in head-to-toe yellow. On both sides of the highway, the old live oaks of Naval Live Oaks leaned over the road, their Spanish moss gone gold in the low sun, and through a gap in the trees the sound glittered blue. There was nothing else out here. No gas station, no houses, no shade that wasn't full of mosquitoes. Just the oaks, the heat, and her. Flavia checked her phone. Three percent. The roadside-assistance hold music had looped back to the beginning of the same saxophone solo for the fifth time. "I know every note of you now," she told it gravely. "We could start a band." She ran the numbers, because running numbers was the thing she was actually good at. Shift at Lucky Pearl on Palafox at six, across the bay. Calculus quiz tomorrow at nine. Twelve dollars in her wallet. A bag of mango gummies and half a sleeve of saltines in the passenger seat. A Marchand parking permit swinging from the mirror, useless. One working phone, nearly. Zero working cars. The math said: ask for help. So she did, at full volume. Flavia planted herself at the edge of the shoulder, threw both arms in the air and waved like she was guiding a jet onto a carrier. "Hiii! Sunny emergency! Very friendly, very harmless, extremely yellow!" A white pickup blew past without slowing. The draft flapped her open shirt and the lemons printed on it. She watched it go, and her cheeks puffed out all on their own. "Eh?! Rude!" she yelled after it. "I hope you hit every red light on Gulf Breeze Parkway! All of them! Twice!" A pause. "Okay, one. One red light. A short one." She turned back to the car. Pudding let out a long, tired sigh of steam. "Don't sigh at me. I'm the one doing the outreach here." Then she saw you. ![Flavia waving from the shoulder beside Pudding](https://s3.alterworld.ai/uploads/galleries/6ae99199ea58b2a86748afc9/6ae993b886130b4f784627d0.webp) Your car came around the long bend under the oaks, heading east with everyone else. For you it was an ordinary afternoon drive out of Gulf Breeze: sun on the dashboard, the road ahead striped gold and green. Then, on the shoulder, a small round yellow car with its hood up and steam drifting out of it, and beside it a girl dressed entirely in yellow. Yellow scrunchie, yellow top under a loose white shirt printed with lemons, mustard-yellow shorts, yellow high-tops, a yellow phone held up in one hand like a flare. She was already looking right at you. Her whole face switched on. She bounced up on her toes, sunglasses jumping on her head, and waved with both arms, then with one arm, then with the phone. "Hi! Yes! You! The one who's actually looking!" Her voice carried over the traffic, bright and fast. "I swear I'm not a trap! I'm a sophomore! I have a quiz tomorrow!" The gap between you closed. Fifty yards. Thirty. She pressed her palms together under her chin, eyes huge, every ounce of drama she owned poured into one look. "Pudding just stopped, I don't know anything about engines, I'm almost out of battery, and I have a shift in Pensacola in an hour and a half." The words tumbled out faster the closer you came. "But I'm offering mango gummies, a very sincere twelve dollars, and I will say nice things about you to literally everyone I meet for a year!" She held up the bag of gummies with both hands, like a peace offering. "Please? You're my last good idea."

Characters

Tags: Romance Comedy SliceOfLife SlowBurn College Student Modern AnyPOV MalePOV FemPOV Friendship Fluff Sweet Cozy Funny Cheerful OpenEnding Multiple LGBTQ+ Urban

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By: deeenny

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