The Attorney ✓( A White House occupants prequel)

Chapter Seven

  The trail I often frequent is just off of campus, so close that I can walk there and back. I'm incredibly lucky and grateful that campus is so close to the highest point in the state. It allows me to get my exercise in without trying.

  Most of the time, however- I'm alone. Sonia wouldn't go with me because she was always studying or she didn't want to get her hair greasy or it was too hot. Point being- she always found one excuse or another.

  But Noelle seems to be different, at least in that department. She does not care what she looks like, not as much as Sonia did- so I think I'd find her more attractive if we hadn't broken up so recently.

  I'm sitting in a chair in the corner of her living room now, watching her get ready since I showed up a little too early and she was taking a nap. For her, getting ready consists of pulling her hair back, switching out the contacts for glasses, and disappearing into her bedroom so she can change into sweatpants.

  A part of me is curious as to what that room looks like, but I'm not creepy. The thought merely passes through like any other intrusive one, and my mind wanders back to the trail.

  It's one of the most biodiverse in the state, too. Some of the rarer plants are marked off and labeled, along with the more poisonous ones- which have very large signs urging you not to touch them. Some idiots have ignored the signs, of course.

  Said idiots ended up dead or in the hospital for months. Sometimes I wish I weren't human. Humans are the root of all environmental issues. The planet would be better off without us- nearly every scientist agrees with me.

  "Alright- lets go!" Noelle reappears from the bedroom and immediately starts pulling on my hand.

  "Hold on a second-" I say, smiling. "Are your shoes stiff or confirming?"

  "Does it matter?" She asks, confused.

  "God yes- You'll get blisters that bleed like hell if they're not conforming. So are they?" I raise an eyebrow. She leans down to feel the toe, the sides, and the heel.

  "Uhm....I think so. I've had these for years." Noelle Shrugs.

  "Good- now we can go." She pulls me along. Once we're outside, she realizes she doesn't know where the trail is and turns to me, silently asking me to lead the way.

  "I swear I go outside. I've just never hiked before." She babbles on.

"Okay."

  "I mean, I walk around campus sometimes if that counts, but nature...was never really my thing until a few months ago when I started volunteering at a plant nursery just for something to do on the rare occasion that I actually have free time. Lame, I know."

  "Nope. I'd find somewhere to volunteer if I had the energy. Law school's sucked it right out of me." I sigh, because every word of what I just said is true. I always told myself I'd help people, that helping people would be my life's purpose, yet here I am- on a date  when I could be using my day off for the soup kitchen or nursing home.

  "Amen to that." She mumbles, because she also understands the feeling. I get the sense though, that she doesn't have an off switch. That the nap she was taking just before I arrived at her apartment is a rare occasion, and that you probably had to drug yourself into it with melatonin, when I knock out every time my head touches a pillow.

  If she was Sonia, this conversation would feel a lot less forced, less awkward like it always is on a first one. But she's not Sonia, and I'm constantly remind of that fact when I look at her. She seems much, much kinder- even though Sonia usually wasn't too bad until law school.