THE PURSUITS OF SHAIYA FONTAINE

3

I ended up arriving late to my lecture as I had decided to change and then while I was scrutinising my appearance in the mirror I suddenly did not like the way my hair looked since it had not been deep conditioned for a while so I pulled my hair up into a curly topknot. I attempted to sneak in through the back entrance of the lecture theatre discretely but a few people spun around in response to the door being opened, which led to more heads turning and gazing over at me. I refrained from rolling my eyes — why were people so nosey? I glanced over at the third row from the back of the right hand side of the room where I usually sat with Zara, Ishmael and Cain — they were all looking straight back at me, Ishmael was muttering something while a smile lingered on his lips. I smiled at this while frowning as I slipped into the row and plopped down on the seat Zara had saved for me by placing her handbag on top of it.

"Why are you always late?" Cain whispered over to me while laughing.

"She underestimates the time she has to get ready and get in." Zara explained hurriedly before returning her focus on to our lecturer Maria as she flicked through slides about Interview Techniques.

"I really do." I whispered back in agreement as I went through the motions of retrieving my notebook and a pen from my bag.

"Did you bring the book?" Ishmael immediately perked up when he saw me opening my bag.

"Can you wait?" I glanced up at an impatient and fidgety Ishmael who had outstretched his long arm over Zara's lap opening and closing his hand as he did this his fingertips brushed the side of my upper thigh. "I'm starting to think you just wanted an excuse to touch me." I muttered as I buried my hand into my bag once more retrieving the textbook and handing it over to him. I laughed and shook my head at the way he planted a kiss on the hardback front cover before waving it in Cain's face and cackling causing a few people to look over at us. Zara lowered herself into her seat, clearly embarrassed, while exhaling loudly, "Why can't this boy act his age?" she muttered keeping her eyes glued onto our lecturer who had now moved on to demonstrating two annotated examples of ways to approach a "killer" question. I laughed at the annoyed expression that was plastered across Zara's face before tuning into the lecture occasionally becoming distracted by Cain and Ishmael muttering amongst themselves, from the bits and pieces that I had picked up, they were discussing a female. I couldn't stop a smile forming on my lips, scribbling away furiously in my notebook in an attempt to keep up with Maria's points before she moved onto another lecture slide but Cain's loud whispers kept causing me to lose concentration as their conversation took an explicit turn.

"Cain no one wants to know how talented this girl's tongue was — she's not showing us any of her tricks so can you please be quiet and allow yourself to be educated?" I hissed over at him.

Of course the only thing Cain took from what I said was, "You want her to show you her tricks yeah? Do you want me to ask her if she would be willing to show you what her tongue can do?" I rolled my eyes at his response mentally asking myself why I had bothered to say anything before reeling back and staring straight ahead once more. Cain and Ishmael immediately returned to whispering loudly and chuckling amongst themselves, while Zara and I would exchange looks and roll our eyes at some of the things they were saying. Zara exhaled deeply through her nose causing me to look over at her and chuckle at the grimace that was plastered on her face.

"I don't understand how you cannot see what's wrong with this whole situation." I caught Ruby saying when I had caught up with everyone after signing my name on the register at the end of the end of the lecture. I understood why Ruby refused to sit with us now. Cain and Ishmael were extremely distracting in the best and worst way, they brought life to our sometimes long, dowdy days at university but at times they did not know their limits, they could not switch off from banter mode and concentrate, they needed the urgency of the deadline approaching and the adrenaline rush that came with it to finally get their work done. Ruby, who was particularly close to Cain soon had enough and would sit on the opposite side of the room to us during our lectures and workshops. Although I feel as if these actions were brought forward by something else behind the scenes that Zara and I were not aware of. As Ishmael, Cain and Ruby — like Zara and I — attended the same college, their bond was tighter, there were some things that they did not really share with us and I understood that completely as Zara and I did the same thing. For the first term in first year it was only ever us two while they used to be a trio, the tall, slender mixed race girl with a bohemian-esque sense of style, who was always sandwiched between these even taller black guys, Ishmael, with oak brown skin, a defined facial structure and a high top fade and Cain, skin the colour of dark honey with big, innocent brown eyes that were his most distinctive facial feature. Ishmael had nicknamed Cain 'Harajuku Barbie' because of his eyes, while I liked to call him Bambi. He hated both nicknames obviously.