Silhouettes

Chapter 4: Young and Gifted

This Janu point of view.

Time passed by as I sat on the top of the staircase.
The hustle around me started to die down. Housewives left the beach rushing back home to welcome their husbands after a long day of work. While the older retired men were heading to have their lunch.
The sun was getting hotter, which resulted in me switching to sit on a bench that was shaded by a tree. I sat down with my own thoughts, they muted out the beach and seagulls around me.

Yes, I met Nikola before.

Not that he can remember me. But I will never forget him, ever.
During my first year back in college..........

*(8 years ago)

I sat in the library flipping through the pages of my book, I was tired I just had some simit and tea, yet I was still sleepy. You see, I am functioning on three hours of sleep.I am preparing for me next final exam.

I looked up I was surrounded by books, notebooks, highlighters, pens, every studying essential that could come into you mind was there on my library table.

It is exams seasons in here and everyone had their head hidden behind a book or some papers.

You could smell it in the thick air the exhaustion, the fear, and the excitement.

I shut my eye tight, they were itching me and were starting to get blurry. I crossed my arms into the desk in front of me and laid my head on the top of my arms.

"DUUUUUUBBBBBBBBBBBBB" a loud thud came straight into my right ear, disrupting my peace.

"Welcome Eve" even with my eyes, I knew it was her. She had dropped her text book next to my head, annoying little bug.Eve is the kind of girl you meet on your first day in college. She is your typical kind of sweet girl. We were both fresh high school graduates in the same state of confusion and excitement. We helped one another find our first introductory course. But that wasn't the end of it. She kept following me around, insisting we could be good friends. Well she wasn't wrong we became good friend, she is my best friend besides my childhood friend Mia.Eve was a redheaded angel, she had hazel eyes and freckles across her checks. She is what I call my autumn, and much like autumn she is sweet, cool, and red!Eve was part French from her mother's side of the family, which explains her name. It is Eve rather than Hawa. She also descends from a rich Turkish family from her father's side. She is the princess of her own kingdom.

"Well hello Janu' she replied 'where have you been?!"
I looked up, peaking through one exhausted eye. "What do you want?!" I replied in a little whiny voice.
"Look, look" she said while moving behind me and pulling me by the shoulders to a sitting position.
"Look the new edition it out" she held some girl's magazine directly in front of my face.

"Not again! That "successful lawyer" of yours, isn't it?!" I said in a sarcastic tone.It was silly she had a crush on this young lawyer that she never met. Who am I kidding?!! She was in love with him, she followed his work and everything he did.She gave me a dead-on serious stare before adding "I am going into my exam, take my things back into my apartment please and have a little nap, you look like a ghost."She started collecting her exams essentials before turning to me to declare "We will be studying tonight" while pointing a finger at me. Yeah, Eve had her own apartment that I casually visit. I even have my own set of keys to it. I never moved in with her because I cannot really detach myself from my family.

She turned her back on me and started to walk away, to which I pulled a face at her and stuck out my tongue.
"DON'T YOU DARE JANU" she shouted back while walking away, she knows me too well.

I straightened my face and waited for her to disappear out of sight, then proceeded into my older position of my heads over my arms. A few minutes passed by, my mind was buzzing with everything I studied.Eve was right I needed that nap.At last, I sat up and started collecting my table. I started to pile the books, put my pens and highlighters into my pencil case, until it caught my attention.

That silly magazine that Eve brought in with her.
Gracing the front page was a celebrity I know nothing about but to her right was what caught my eyes.
"EXCLUSIVE: The Young & Gifted List" the magazine promoted. I opened the magazine and turned to page 29, as it was promoted on the cover, with a mocking smile.
Then, there I saw it!
I shut the magazine as fast as I could and slammed it into the table forcibly, disrupting others and acquiring stares and shushing sounds from them.

That's when I knew it, the one thing I was ridiculing, I just fell for. "Our Young Successful Lawyer " the magazine read.I let out a faint exhale.It was late, too late.

He was already in my head.

His piercing brown eyes and dimpled smile are going to haunt me forever.No matter how much and how long I worked to deny it.He had managed to manifest,
into my heart and soul.