Chapter - 6
I wake up to the sound of birds chirping on the tree right outside my window. I get up and admire the birds for a while and look down to see Yvonne still sleeping. I start to worry after looking at her. Her mom has stage four cancer—how can someone swallow something like that? It must be horrible. I can't even imagine. I thought to myself that I'll to cheer her up and be there for her as much as I can because she needs a whole lot of support.
I check the wall clock and realize it's already eight thirty. Shit. College starts in an hour.
I jump down from my bed shouting "Yvonne! Yvonne! Wake up! We are going to be late!"
She wakes up hearing my shoutings and rubs her eyes, saying, "Shut up Summer. Let me sleep." and sleeps again.
"Yvonne, wake up! It's already eight thirty!" I shake her so that she wakes up. Upon hearing the time, she jerks my hand and gets up instantly, her eyes screaming 'WHAT!'
"Yes! Get up! We gotta shower and dress up too! And then a two minute walk! But Showering and dressing up will take more than an hour so get up fast!"
She jumps out of her bed and starts shouting.
"Shut up! Anyways, I'm going first for the shower."
Suddenly, she pushes me and runs inside the bathroom. Once she is inside, she shouts from there, "Sorry friend but I wanna go first. Sorry not sorry." and then she laughs.
I shout at her but she just continues laughing.
After ten minutes, she comes out. I glare at her and she starts to laugh again. "Shut up." I say and I enter the bathroom angrily. She continues to laugh anyways. Both of us know none of our fights are serious, including this one. This is what makes our friendship stronger with each passing day.
I take a five minutes quick shower and dress up quickly. Yvonne was already dressed. She gives me a grin when I come out of the bathroom but I just throw her an 'annoyed' look. I decide to wear my full sleeve black turtle neck in case it gets a little bit chilly and wore a high waisted jeans with my wood block heels boots. When I told Yvonne that I am planning to wear boots, she asked me if I would be comfortable walking around in high heels but shut up after she saw my boots. "Yes, it's not high heels" I told her. I tucked my turtle neck inside my jeans and when I was all ready, I realise that I haven't put my phone in charge. Shit. I run to the bedside table and check my phone.
"What!?!?!" I shout.
Yvonne gets up from sofa and run towards me.
"What happened?"
"I forgot to put my phone in charge. What to do now?"
"Oh lord. Only for that."
"What? How am I supposed to take it now?"
"Phones aren't allowed inside the classrooms. You gotta keep it somewhere else. People usually keep it in their lockers but sometimes, students tend to forget to charge their phones so they ask for permissions and charge their phones in teachers departments. Last year, my phone was out of charge so Mrs Wells, a biology assistant professor asked me if I would like to charge it in their department."
"Yeah? Wow. Then I'll take my charger and charge it in any department?"
"Yeah, do that but now, classes start in ten minutes. We gotta hurry."
I nod. After I grab a blue scrunchie from my accessories box to tie up my blonde highlighted dark brown hair into a simple yet messy low ponytail, we head out of our room. We both didn't wear much makeup. Just a little mascara and a light nude matte lipstick that she has.
We meet Mrs. Johnson downstairs who smiles at us and wishes us good morning back when we wished her. She seems like a nice and understanding caretaker who doesn't interfere much but does her job perfectly, to me. Suddenly I notice her last name. MRS. JOHNSON?
"Yvonne, Mrs. Johnson as in our dean, Mr. Darren Johnson?"
"Duh. People say that they are married for twenty five years. I asked her once and she corrected me by saying, 'Twenty nine years to be precise.'"
"Wow. One true love. In a world where divorce rates are as high as Mt. Everest, they stayed. Impressive!"
"My point too. I know that even my parents will stay together till death do them apart."
I smile, on hearing how her father's remarriage to her soul mother is the real inspiration behind her concept of 'True love'. She seems so happy that the second marriage happened. But suddenly, her face dropped. I get to know it right away that it's because of the news. I remember the promise to myself and try to change the subject.
"I'm so damn sure that even my parents will stay no matter what. They are too much in love with each to do some stupid thing like divorce over petty things. I know that."
She smiles and hugs me. Her hug assures me that they will.
"Anyways, what's your first class?" I ask.
She checks her time table sheet and answers, "History. Hey, we are in same course. Forgot already?"
"Oh my fucking god! Yes, I totally forgot."
"That's why I called you dumb." She gives me a punch on my shoulder.
I roll my eyes at her.
We reach the campus and along the hallway is a crowd, hustling over a big black bulletin board.
"That is where we have to check our new classrooms. Come let's go check."
She leads the way and I follow her. I check the time on my phone which is running really low in battery. 14%. I sulk, looking at the my charge plus the time. In seven minutes, the classes will start and I have to charge my phone before entering the class but here we are—waiting for the crowd to get a little less. We wait for a good few minutes but the condition of the crowd still does not get any better. Yvonne finally loses her patience.
"That's it! I ain't gonna stand here, waiting anymore trying to show that we have a degree in maturity." She snaps and pushes the crowd on one side to take a look. She reaches the front in no time which shows how physically strong she is. She takes a quick look, running her forefinger through the broad, wide and large white paper and comes back in no time.
"Wow, you are physically also so strong. You reached the front and came back in no time."
She gives me a 'I know that' look and laughs a little.
"I took a couple of defence and martial arts class when I was younger."
"Wow, that's so impressive." I say, impressed.
She laughs and says, "Compliment me later. Now we gotta go fast to charge your phone." She leads the way and I follow her.
We descend up the stairs and go upstairs to the first floor when we meet a man in his early forties coming from the opposite direction of us. Yvonne gives him a smile and wishes him good morning and she signals me to do the same. I do it and he flashes back a smile to me too. He was just descending down the stairs with his one hand in his pocket when she calls out to him.
"Mr. Brooks, may I just ask you a favour please?"
He looks back and answers, "Sure."
She walks up to him, taking me with her'
"She is Summer Hayes. She is a freshman here and we have almost every class in common except for our extra ones."
"Nice to meet you, Miss Hayes." He says, taking out his hand towards me. I shake it quickly.
"You both took extra subjects? It's good. Students normally don't do that because they think it's a double burden."
We both smile in agreement. Then he signals her to go on.
"We will be attending your Psychology classes too. We both took it."
He nods, happy that he is getting students.
"Actually, last night Summer forgot to charge her phone and now, her battery is almost dead. If you allow, can you let her charge her phone in your department?"
"Sure. Why not?"
We both smile at his happy agreement.
"Please follow me fast to charge. You both won't want to be late in your first day of the new session."
"What do you have right now?"
"History." We reply in unison.
"Oh, Mrs. Green won't appreciate it at all if you turn up late. Yvonne, you know how grumpy she can get sometimes."
"Yes, Mr. Brooks."
He leans in to whisper before saying, "Old age, you know." Then he looks around in the department if anyone saw or heard it. We both laugh after he said those words. He seems to be a really cool teacher.
He goes to his desk and takes out a rectangular thing from the drawer beside his chair. The rectangular thing turns out to be a usb charging station with around ten plugs in it. He tells me to go ahead and charge my phone and hurry back to class once I'm dine with it. I feel a little worried in case something happens to his phone. Mr. Brooks seems to notice it so he says, "Don't worry. I'll be here because I have a free period right now. You come and get your phone once you are done with your History class because I have a class next period." I nod happily. Now, I don't feel worried anymore because his aura around people feels trustworthy enough.
I charge my phone and we were just heading out of the psychology department after waving at Mr. Brooks when we hear a shrilling sound over a mic nearby. The bell.
We run upstairs as fast as we can and reach our classroom. It was the fifth one to the left. We enter our classroom, happy that the grumpy teacher isn't here yet and catch our breaths. Except that I can't. I cannot catch my breath because my breathing stopped. I feel like my heart stopped pumping, our earth has stopped revolving. It's already so hard to stay away and now this?! Can my life get any more confusing? Kill me right now.
I can see Yvonne getting confused at my unexpected and sudden weird expressions from the corner of my right eye but I can't care less about it right now because in front of me, sitting on the second row, third seat with Jason at his side is none other than—Elijah Grey.
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