Off Limits ✔

3. The Boy I Used to Like

Spring came near to an end. As the temperature gradually warmed up, the clusters of tulips in my faculty garden started to lose their fearlessness. The petals were now dried up and stiffly curled, and the leaves bent over like a banana skin dangling outward when they were pulled halfway. Some petals had already left the stem, lying helplessly on the ground and waiting for their vibrant color to wither, before they returned to what had given them life in the first place: the earth. Soon, the roses would take over the fame.

Sitting on the grass while inhaling the sweet floral scents, I slowly munched on the sandwich I carelessly packed this morning. It took me longer to finish my lunch since I forgot to smear some butter, making my lunch as dry as my brain at the very moment. I contemplated skipping my last class, psychodiagnostic, but then I would miss the last chance to earn extra points from the last-day quiz. Judging from how cynical Mr. Andrew was during our brief talk, I didn't expect him to help me with my report revision. He would probably approve my submission, but then the grade I received would be painful.

The sound of a soft thud on the ground disrupted my train of thought, followed by a blue backpack landing on the grass next to my feet. I looked up just to find the owner staring down at me, grinning, or wincing from the glaring sun. His dirty blond hair was disheveled, probably from being pulled too often during a boring lecture.

"Thought I would find you here," Dean said before plopping beside me. His familiar scent instantly invaded my nostrils; a mix of the sweetness of his perfume, his sweat, and the smell of the sun. I grew up with this scent and took comfort in it.

"I'm too broke to buy lunch at the canteen this week."

"But what's that look for?" he asked, raising a brow.

I shrugged. "Nothing." I put the rest of my sandwich in my lunch box before chugging down the remaining drink in my water bottle. "I was just thinking of skipping my last class so that I can sleep for a few hours before starting my shift."

"What's stopping you, then?" He unwrapped the bread roll he'd been cradling in his hand; meatballs with barbeque sauce, and no veggies. Classic Dean.

"My last chance to earn points from the weekly quiz."

"It won't do much, will it? It's not like you haven't collected enough points." He took his first bite, earning an eye roll from me since he made a crunching noise while chewing.

"Quite the contrary. I screwed up with the experiment, big time, and I am probably going to get a D, if I'm lucky. So, the quiz it is. It's only twenty percent of the total grade, but still, it counts."

Dean's green eyes were fixed on me. "What did you do with the experiment?"

"Stupid thing." I groaned as I bent my knees and buried my face in them. "I'm behind with my reports, like, very behind that I might have gotten kicked out of the mentoring group. So, I tried to fix it today and went to find my mentor, to beg him, making up a story about why I didn't come to him in time, but then I found out he was the guy I got nasty with at the coffee shop early this morning."

"What?" Dean frowned, then chuckled with a full mouth. If my mom was around, he would get scolded for sure.

"We fought over coffee this morning. I thought it was mine, so I attacked him, but apparently, he was there first, and it was his coffee. In the next fifteen minutes, I learned that he was my mentor." I groaned. "Fuck me."

Dean barked a laugh, not a pity laugh, nor a solidarity laugh, but an evil laugh as he threw his head backward. He stopped when I smacked his shoulder hard. "But how did you not know him?"

"I knew his name, of course. He was from the diagnostic team, or the assessment center, or whatever. Long story short, we only needed to contact him when we started working on our analysis."