The Taunting (College Life #1)

The gift that keeps on giving

When I get back to my room, the girls are still sitting in a circle, food being stuffed in their mouths. They all turn around when they hear me come in, the bouquet still clasped in my hand, the box under my arm, and Jill's ice in my other hand.

I lean down, handing it to her. "Thank you." She pops them out, and the ice splashes in the cup. "I send you to go pick up ice and you come back with flowers. What gives?"

I sit the arrangement of colors on the bed, alongside the box with the book in it.

"Andreas got these for me."

Jill squeals, "He bought you flowers! It's a basic gift to give a girl, but even then, there's nothing like getting flowers."

"Such a romantical." Mary coos.

"Did he get you anything else?" asked Tana. She's now laying on Mary's bed, texting something on her phone.

"Yeah, he got me a book." I don't further on about what he wrote on the card or the fact that he highlighted my name over and over in the book.

The girls don't follow up with anything.

I grab the last egg roll, shoving it in my mouth as I continue watching the show. From what I'm seeing on the screen, the guy is being accused of sexually assaulting another woman, oh god, this guy needs to go to jail.

Under me, I feel my phone buzzing. Checking the caller ID, I see that it's Andreas calling. Being respectable, I walk into the hallway, clicking on the green call button.

"Hi," I say into the phone.

"Hey E, did you get your gift?"

I smile against my hand, "I did."

It's silence for a second, all I hear is him breathing, and I swear I can hear him grin. "Did you like it? I did my best."

"I-," My voice cuts off. Do I tell him right away that I liked the gift, that means he'll stop and think that he's 100% forgiven. I mean, in my eyes he kind of is, the gift was thoughtful and creative.

I need to make him sweat; my voice reminds me.

"Hello? E, are you still there?" He asked.

I come back to reality, "Yeah, I'm still here."

"Ok, what did you think of the gift?"

"I thought it was ok."

"Ok? Ok? Ok as in the gifts weren't that good or ok as in, I could have done better?"

"Ok as in I liked the gift, but it didn't make me swoon."

At this point, he's hysterical. "Swoon! What the fu-, look Elizabeth, that was just the first gift, something else is coming your way later on. I'm not giving up."

I lean my head against my dorm room door, "I know you won't."

"Goodnight, Elizabeth."

"Goodnight, Andreas."

✏️✏️✏️✏️

He wasn't lying, the next day he had a gift for me.

I lumbered my backpack over my shoulder, walking with no purpose through the Foothill dorm doors. Today was a long day and all I want to do is lay down and watch "Abbott Elementary", a new show on Hulu. I still need to finish "The Sex Lives of College Girls."

Math has been whooping my ass, I got a 50 on my recent test. I felt so stupid, I almost cried in the lecture hall. When I asked my professor if I could make it up, he told me no. Saying that I should have been prepared for the test before I came in.

They are so unreasonable.

As I walk past the service desk, I'm stopped.

"Ms. Pratt?"

"Yes." Janice, the woman who works behind the counter calls my name. She lives here in the dorm and works behind the counter to make extra money for college.

"This package came for you." She picks up a medium-sized box. It's a simple box, nothing gives me hints of what lies inside.

"I didn't order anything. Do you know when this came?"

"About an hour ago. A guy with brown hair and the most beautiful eyes dropped it off."

I smile.

Teddy.

"Now that I remember it, I was expecting a package. It's been a long day and my mind has been spacing. Thank you for holding the package, Janice."

She laughs, "It's my job. Have a good night." She goes back to texting on her phone. I tell her to have a good night and go up the elevator, carrying the box close to my chest.

Unlocking the room, I'm met with silence. I think Mary went home this weekend to visit her family. She lives a few hours away from Berkeley. Her parents are uber-rich and own a chunk of land up in the valley. She told me she would bring me back some snacks since her mother owns a baking shop on Rodeo Drive.

Sitting everything down, I kick my shoes off and hop on the bed, wondering what Andreas got me this time. I take no time with opening up the box, my fingers are practically shaking in anticipation of what I'm going to find.

And what I find is. . .not that interesting.

It's five old notebooks with his name on them. I flip through them, thinking maybe he wrote me a love letter or morse code. It's just math equations and math terms. You've got to be eating my ass right now. I have been looking at math for the past hour, come home to a gift I wasn't expecting and he's giving me old notebooks. With MATH in them.

Come on!

My phone starts to ring in my backpack. It's Andreas.

"You sick fucker." I say into the phone.

"Hello to you too, E. I was expecting a thank you for the package I gave you today, I thought you would be jumping up and down for it."

I scoff, "You thought I would be excited to get old notebooks filled with math that I don't even like! Andreas, baby, I've been looking at math all day, if I could, I would strangle a quadratic formula. I would shit on the x and y-axis. Why are you doing this to me?" I moan, leaning back on my bed, letting my pillow sink around my head.

"Baby?"

"What?"

"You called me baby; I don't think you've said that to me before."

"Are you grinning like a chimp?" I ask.

"Maybe." He says slowly.

I wish I could see his smile right now. Those roads need to be ready as soon as possible, I need to see him.