Loving The Wallflower

Chapter Five : Orion's Garden

Astra had quite a hard week after Orientation. With Skye having different schedules than her, Astra was all alone most of the time.

She wanted to make friends with her course mates, but she needed more time to bring out the little confidence in her. She could not erase the self-doubt that was living in the deepest part of her mind.

Professor Harvey was delivering her last part of the lecture and were asking for the everyone's' full attention.

"Okay, so I will be gone next week for a talk in Australia. Therefore, I will give you a week's advanced assignment and I hope you all will spend the extra time to do this assignment wholeheartedly. The results may be important, but so will the process in completing it. So I'd like to ask every one of you to give your best to this assignment, and better if you could do the same for the course. Check the SLN (Students & Lecturer Notes) website and you'll find your assignment's instructions there. Is that clear?"

No one voiced out objections, so Professor Harvey took that as a "yes" and ended the class.

Astra found it interesting that it was quite a universal thing for students to stay silent instead of answering yes to any educator asking them questions. Astra was not excluded. She would rather not say anything before anyone else does.

That was Astra's  only class for the day, so she chose to go to her newly-founded favourite cafe in campus, Orion's Garden.

It was located at the other side of the lake infront of the dorm area. The other side was named Pavilion.

Their university was well known for its huge man-made lake in the middle, and it is famous for the kayaking and rafting activities. The Pavilion, dorms, parks and faculties were surrounding the lake. Students could access back and forth the lake through a huge bridge that was built across it.

She first visited the cafe last week, on the last day of Orientation Week with Skye. She fell in love almost immediately with the interior designs, and more when she found a mini library in the cafe. There was a small space at the right side of the cafe where the owner placed four bookshelves full of novels and comics for the customers.

She absolutely loved the Iced Matcha Latte and their signature Chocolate Mousse.

She found herself very comfortable doing her assignments or hanging out at Orion's Garden. Astra walked to the cafe and was relieved that it was not packed with students yet. It made sense because two in the evening is the time when most students would still be in their classes. Most faculties, matter of fact.

Astra took the closest seat to the mini library and placed her order at the counter. She had not taken her breakfast that day, so she was a bit more hungry than usual. She was in a dilemma of whether she should order a plate of Carbonara Spaghetti or just take two chocolate croissants. She was mentally thankful that the staff in charge was patient with her.

When it comes to ordering food in public places, Astra had always been cautious and doubtful. She always felt like people would judge her for the food portion she would order. For someone her size, people would have expected her to order either more or less.

It was just another common issue that plus size people faced daily. If they ordered too many food, people would laugh at their faces, calling them greedy and lack of self awareness for not managing their diet. On the other hand, plus size people also got tons of insults for ordering too little. People would call them "pretentious" for not being "true" to their own intention.

Astra knew it all too well.

She finally decided to order the Carbonara Spaghetti and a glass of iced black coffee. Astra took the buzzer and waited for her food to be prepared. It was raining outside and she enjoyed watching the trees swayed from left to right because of the wind.