Bleed Until You Heal

12- Orientations

"I cannot believe that you did that," Jasper mutters to me, glaring at me as we walk down the long sidewalk that connects our apartment building to the Art Institute building that's just around the corner. Another major bonus of finding our apartment.

"Oh, lighten up," I say with a quiet laugh. "You'll love it, it'll be fun. You'll see."

"Spending my afternoon getting repeatedly dropped into a large bucket of dirty, unsanitary water does not sound like fun to me," He tells me with a bitter frown. I had just told him about signing him up for the dunk tank at Jenny's human society fair and, if you haven't noticed yet, he isn't taking this lightly.

"But you're doing it for a good cause," I remind him. "And you can invite Conner and it'll be kind of like a date."

"We aren't dating."

"Really?" I wonder with raised eyebrows. "Then what are you doing?"

"We're talking," He says to me.

"You didn't call me to tell me that I couldn't come to the apartment on Tuesday just so that you could talk," I say to him with a pointed look.

"Okay, well we're more-than-talking but we aren't dating," Jasper insists, a blush creeping onto the tips of his ears. When we get to the building, I look down at my dress and make sure that I look okay. I'm wearing a blousy crème dress with a dark floral print on the bottom. It's a conservative dress with lacy sneakers so that I don't have to wear heels- I can tolerate them most of the time but I try to avoid heels when I can. I want to look nice today though, for all of the had honchos that are going to be there today for orientation, which I had forgotten about until this morning when Jasper had woken me up extra early so that I could get ready.

"It sounds complicated," I mumble, eyeing the building in front of us. It was a perfectly rectangular white building with symmetrical windows on each side and it looked to be about four or five stories tall. This will be my school for the next few years. I like it. "But you sound happy, so I'm going to let it slide. Do you think that you're going to date in the future?"

"That isn't letting it slide."

"Okay but I can still be curious," I refute as we walk into the front entrance of the building and we're immediately met by people, who are probably students themselves, ready to direct us to where we need to be.

"Hello!" The brunette girl in front of us beams. "Welcome to orientation! There's going to be an introductory meeting in 102 and that's going to be the third door on your right. There's a big sign, you can't miss it."

We politely thank her and then follow her instructions, walking down the hallway with all of the other people who are walking through the doors right now for the same reason as us.

"Well, I don't know," Jasper tells me honestly. "He really is pretty awesome. It'd be kind of awkward though, don't you think? I mean, you hooked up with his brother and they're really close and we're really close so you'd be bound to run into the guy sometimes."

"Don't worry about me," I say quickly, looping my arm through his as another one of the guides ("Orientation Leaders" as their black polo shirts said) points us into the room, 102, which is a large lecture hall filled with people who are about to start out their college life here just next week, and then some parents as well. "I'm happy if you're happy."

"Don't be cheesy," We sit down in one of the middle rows as people are still filing into the large room.

"I'm serious," I say with a laugh. "I can deal with awkwardness with Noah. And who knows? Maybe it won't even be awkward."