Intrepid » n.h. au

Chapter 34

The minute where I tried ignoring the sound of my phone vibrating was probably the most agonizing one I've had in months. I know it would have been easier if I just switched it to silent or turned it off all together, but then I'd have to look at who's calling me – and that's probably the last thing I wanted to do.

But, seeing as I won't be able to get anything from this notebook in my head if it doesn't stop, I have no choice but to look at it. And cope with having to ignore the person that's calling.

I crawl across my bed, sighing as I pull my phone from under my pillow – where I've hidden it in a lame attempt to silence the annoying vibrating – and glance at the called ID before pressing the red button- actually, almost pressing the red button. Good thing I looked at the caller ID. Mum?

"Mum?" I say into the speaker, with a frown. I mean, this is when she normally calls, but I was convinced it was someone else calling.

"Hi darling," She greets me, the sound of paper bags being placed on a hard surface in the background. "Are you up? Am I calling too early?"

"No, it's like..." I bring my phone in front of my face, to tell her the exact time, "Past noon. You're home already?"

"Yeah, I'm on call today," She says and I nod to myself; she'd always leave the hospital early whenever she's on call. "How are you? How's school, is everything alright?"

"Um, yeah, everything's good. School doesn't start for another week and a half-"

"I hope you haven't stopped studying despite that, yes?"

"No, my bed is covered in textbooks as we speak," I sigh and roll from my stomach to my side for a second, to get a better view of my whole bed; I haven't noticed, but I was actually speaking the truth. My bed really is covered in textbooks and a few notebooks here and there.

"I'm serious, Niall-"

"So am I!" I defend myself immediately, "I'd snapchat you a photo of my bed, but you don't know how to use Snapchat."

"Alright, whatever you say." Whatever I say. If I were in Ireland, she'd personally come to my dorm to see if I really have books all over my bed. I'm already obsessed with knowing everything related to school, but she's on a whole different level. "What was the last thing you read?"

Of course. I knew she'd ask something like that. "Although the drafter creates the working drawings, the accuracy of the set of drawings is most often the responsibility of the design archit-"

"Okay, okay, I believe you," Mum exclaims urgently as I begin reading a line from one of my notebooks, quickly and in a flat tone, and I grin at her reaction; as a nurse, she could never understand my dad's, and my, obsession with constructing. The cherry on top of the cake was when my brother expressed that he wanted to be an optical engineer, ultimately leaving no one to be passionate about medicine, like she is. She was the one calling us interlopers, joke's on her.

"No, wait, let me ask you something," I poke my tongue out as I randomly reach for another notebook, "What do you call the long, colonnaded building that the Greeks used around public places and as shelters at religious shrines?"

"You've made your point-"

"It's a stoa," I interrupt her, "And I spent an embarrassingly long time thinking that it's a peristyle."

"That's good, sweetheart, you work on things that had you fooled all along."

"Wait, don't hang up. I'll stop," I say, unsure if she'd actually listen to me – this wouldn't be the first time she'd hang up on me because I'm boring her with stuff that she doesn't understand. "How are you guys? How's Greg? Denise? Theo?"