Applied Mathematics isn’t an easy subject to concentrate on, especially now that I was going to start school after years of not going to one. The environment seemed new to me; being around so much students once again in a huge classroom where you had to keep your mouth shut for an hour, where you had to scribble notes as fast as you could before the teacher leapt off to another topic, and where understanding everything was necessary unless you wanted to fail.
My first class every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday was Math 1a (Introduction to Calculus)—a one hour half course that was required for all students who wanted to concentrate on Applied Mathematics. This would be my first subject for the first semester on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but that day we were required to attend the first meeting at 8:30 a.m.
I woke up on that day, September first, at around six in the morning. It was surprisingly cool outside despite the lack of ventilation in the unit I lived in, but I wasn’t complaining. After taking a long, cold shower, I gathered up all the stuff that was maybe necessary to bring and headed outside.
Cool morning breeze greeted me. There were already bikers along the edge of the Charles River, cruising by leisurely in their sleep wear. Some were taking their morning walks with their pets, or by themselves, with a mug in hand. I walked alone down the streets and headed for Starbucks to get some breakfast.
There weren’t much people, and the ones who were there looked like upperclassmen; those who had early morning rituals and those who looked sleep deprived or were poring over books or newspapers. There was the occasional professor who sat at the corner, trying his best to look subtle and well-hidden.
After placing my order I settled down on one of the seats near the window, staring out into the foggy streets of early morning Massachusetts. In Arizona, every time of the day it was hot, whether it was early morning or noon there wouldn’t be much of a difference. This was a nice change to the Arizona humidity that I had grown used to.
As I mindlessly ate through my ham and cheese croissant while staring out the window, I heard a faint cough coming from the area beside me.
I looked up and saw a girl wearing a blue button-up polo and faded blue jeans holding a tray of coffee and what looked like a banoffee pie. Her straight brown hair fell well past her shoulders. She smiled at me, her brown eyes squinting ever so slightly.
“Uh, would you mind if I share a table with you?” she asked, biting her lip shyly. She gestured to the other tables which were already occupied, indicating that she had no other place to sit. I followed her hand and looked back at her.
“Yeah, sure,” I said, moving my stuff aside. Her smile grew bigger as she set her tray down and sat on the chair in front of me, casually pushing the hair away from her face. I watched her as she moved the contents of her tray onto the table, picking up a fork and eating her way through her banoffee pie. She raised her eyes to look at me and smirked—something I’d never seen a girl do.
“Is there a problem, sir?” she asked teasingly, setting her fork down and straightening up.
I nearly coughed my coffee out at her and shook my head, proceeding to just stare outside, trying to ignore the fact that she was staring at me. It made me uncomfortable in the good sort of way…if that even made any sense.
The two of us ate in silence; but it was comfortable silence. We were just strangers anyway, and neither found the need to communicate with the other. I wasn’t sure how long we were wrapped in silence, but was soon broken when I heard her sing softly to Lucky Now, a song by Ryan Adams, which was playing on the radio.
My eyes drifted to this girl. “And the lights will draw you in,” she sang, adding some more sugar to her coffee. “And the dark will bring you down,” she continued, her head tilting a little to the side; her eyes downcast, focused on her coffee cup, her long, dark eyelashes concealing my view of her brown eyes. “And the night will break your heart, but only if you’re lucky now,” she finished, shaking a pack of coffee creamer into her cup.
ČTEŠ
My Heroine
Teen Fiction[Sequel to His Saving Grace.] In one year, everything had changed. I had found her, I had loved her, but now I had lost her. The girl who had fixed me, the girl who was my heroine, the girl who had saved me was the same girl who tore me apart and le...
