Authors: Erica Cope
Chapter 2
I'm going to be late. I've never been late for anything a day in my life so of course I'm going to be late for Orientation. If this wasn't required, I wouldn't even bother, but it is required, so I'm pedaling so fast I swear I could easily give Lance Armstrong a run for his money. I zip through the parking lot, swerving when the black SUV doesn't see me in their rear-view mirror to avoid being turned into an Aria-shaped pancake. Finally I make it, thankfully unscathed, albeit out of breath and grossly sweaty.
I secure the bike and run up the hill to the front of Popplewell Hall where a group of about five eager-faced freshman girls surround who I assume is our tour guide with just as many guys hanging back, obviously trying to play it cool. There's a big banner draped across the front of the building that says “Welcome Week” in bright colors.
Our Welcome Week volunteer-slash-tour guide for the day is leaning down, checking off a checklist which I realize is a roll-call when I get close enough to hear him calling out names. I breathe a sigh of relief as I hear him call out Olivia Ryans—my last name is Watkins so I guess I'm not that late after all. I try to casually blend in and calm my heavy breathing so no one notices me.
“And finally, Aria Watkins,” the tour guide says as he looks up at the group for the first time since my arrival.
I'd recognize those bright blue eyes anywhere.
“Aria Watkins?” he calls out again.
“Oh, um, here,” I say as I raise my hand from the back of the group. Recognition flashes on his face and he smiles widely, before addressing the group again, “Now that we are all here, let's begin.”
I slink to the very back of the group, unable to put enough distance between myself and Holden. I'm so embarrassed about the way I acted last night—and that was when I thought I'd never see him again. My mortification has increased ten-fold because now I'm going to be spending the entire day with him. Best I can hope for is that one of the other bright-eyed girls captures his attention quickly and I will be easily forgotten.
“Typically we would meet in one of the classrooms, but it's too nice to be cooped up inside all day.” His statement is met with general whoops and shouts of glee. There are even some fist bumps exchanged. Seriously—why do I have to be here? “Does anyone have any questions before we begin?”
A couple of girls giggle flirtatiously, but nobody asks any questions.
“What about you in the back?”
I keep my eyes trained on the grass, wishing I could shrink into the greenery. Anything to avoid looking at him. A shadow casts below me and his sudden closeness makes it impossible not to meet his eyes.
“Do you have any questions Brown-eyed girl?” He gives me the same smile he did last night, the cocky one that says he's used to getting what he wants.
I somehow manage to swallow the lump that has suddenly formed in my throat. Then I force myself to stare defiantly right back at him so he knows that I'm not one of those girls who will melt into a puddle of goo just being on the receiving end of one of his smiles.
“No, I'm good,” I say coolly.
“Alright, let's begin,” he addresses the group again completely unfazed by my indifference and I feel like I can breathe again. He continues, “This is obviously Popplewell Hall, which is the Arts and Sciences department,” Holden says as he gestures toward the red brick building. It is only two stories high and has a lot of large windows. It looks old though and has a historic feeling.
The campus is small. If you stand in the middle of the main parking lot you can see almost every building. Holden leads the way down the winding sidewalks through campus, pointing out the different departments, the library, the administration building, the bookstore, etc. The campus is right in the middle of town and on the west side we pass a little quaint coffee shop located just across the street. I'm a little addicted to coffee and though it's no Starbucks, hopefully it will do in a pinch because I'm pretty sure this town doesn't have a Starbucks. I really should have verified that before making the decision to attend college here. It would have been a deal-breaker.
As we tour the campus, I can't help but notice that Holden's eyes find mine more often than I think is strictly necessary in a group this large—he should be spreading the wealth, especially with so many freshman girls eager for his attention. I keep my face impassive in hopes that he loses interest quickly.
Kensington College is in the relatively small town of Fairmount, South Carolina. It was one of the things I remember liking about it when I first discovered it. The town has a population of about twenty-five thousand so it is slightly larger than my hometown, but small enough that I won’t get easily lost. And since I have no sense of direction whatsoever, that is sort of a necessity when moving far away from home.
The class sizes aren't that much different than the ones at my high school and I thought I'd be much more comfortable in this sort of environment versus a large school where there are hundreds of students in each class and your professor never learns your name. Yet I still crave anonymity hence choosing to attend college a thousand miles away where no one has ever heard of me.
The tour through campus is short and sweet but the South Carolina humidity is already causing my thick, brown hair to frizz up. I twist it back into a high messy bun as Holden leads us to the dorm cafeteria for lunch. I could probably skip this part of the tour since I won't be living on campus but I'm hungry and I don't really want to go back to my apartment. By the time I get there and grab something to eat, I probably won't want to come back. But I have a meeting with my adviser this afternoon which is something that I can't miss if I want to make sure I get into the classes I want. One day of eating cafeteria food probably won't kill me—of course those might be famous last words.
The cafeteria is full with other groups of incoming freshman. They are all talking animatedly, filling the room with an overwhelmingly loud buzz. I almost turn around and leave the room but then I spot a table in the corner that's unoccupied and make a beeline over to it. It's even by a window so I can pretend to be captivated by the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. Everything is so vibrantly green and lush in contrast to the plains of the Midwest.
“He's hot, right?” A tall willowy blonde interrupts my thoughts as she sits down beside me. Her hair is pulled back in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. She has the body of a ballerina and moves with the grace of a dancer. I look at her and feign confusion though I think I know exactly who she's referring to. Holden stands out amongst the fresh-faced freshman boys. She smiles and introduces herself, “I'm Olivia.”
“Aria,” I offer with a forced smile.
“Sooooo,” she says with a pointed look. “What do you think?”
“About what?”
“About our schmexy tour guide!”
“Oh, I—um, I don't know,” I stammer nervously. I'm a little out of practice at this whole 'being social' thing.
“You have a cute accent. You aren't from around here are you?” she asks randomly.
The question takes me off guard. I didn't think I had an accent, not a cute one anyway. Cute accents are British or Australian or even Southern belle, but not Kansas. I mean, what do you call a Kansas accent anyway? Midwestern? Hillbilly?
“Is it that obvious?” I ask, disappointed because I don't want to stand out here. I just want to blend into the background like the color gray in a room full of rainbows. I used to be a rainbow but now I'm more like a rain cloud, a mass of gloom floating aimlessly through this thing called life.
Before she can answer Holden sits down beside me. “Hello again,” he says and then with a smirk he adds, “Funny
bumping
into you here.”
I cringe at the memory, but he just chuckles, clearly amused by his little pun which only earns him a glare. He smirks at my narrowed eyes like he's facing a kitten that believes she is a lion and he finds it adorable. Stupid ass.
“So I was thinking maybe we could try this whole thing again,” he says as he holds out his hand. “I'm Holden Whitmore.” He stares at me expectantly. “Don't leave me hangin' again. I'm not sure my ego could handle it.”
He mocks a heartbroken expression, but all I can do is stare blankly at him.
Olivia takes it upon herself to speak up just then. “Her name is Aria.”
“Thank you,” he says earnestly like he has been waiting his whole life to know my name—which is dumb since he called out my name during roll call just over an hour ago. He's obviously completely aware of my name and is just playing some sort of game. I'm not in the mood for stupid games so I roll my eyes. He turns back to me. “So Aria, where are you from?”
I briefly consider attempting the “face” a la Jenna Marbles but at the last minute decide against it—I want to blend in, not stand out like a freak. So I opt to just stare indifferently at him instead.
Unfortunately he appears immune to my rudeness because he patiently meets my stare waiting for me to crack and give into his so-called charms.
Finally I give up. “A small town in the middle of Kansas.” I'm being vague on purpose. I don't know this guy, I don't need to be giving him any personal information about myself.
“A Midwest girl. Don't tell me you are a farmer's daughter.”
“Guilty as charged. Let me guess, you were born and raised on the East Coast?” I guess, purposely trying to infuse my tone with disdain. Apparently ignoring and glaring at him weren't going to get him to leave me alone—maybe I need to go all out bitch-mode on this guy.
“No, well, you're half right. I was actually born in the Midwest myself.”
“No way.” I'm surprised at first but I guess it's not an uncommon goal for Midwest kids to want to escape the country life. Just about everyone I went to school with at some point said they wanted to move somewhere else, to see and experience new things. I'm just not sure how many of them actually did it. I haven't talked to anyone from high school in a while now. Even though I lived at home for the past year, I didn't exactly leave my house. Ever. I realize how pathetic that makes me—hence the moving away and trying to start fresh.
“True story. Kansas City.”
My stomach clenches and I swallow back the bile slowly rising into my throat. He's looking at me again, like I'm the only one in the room. It's unsettling.
“What brought you out here?” Olivia asks Holden, a flirting lilt to her voice. She even bats her eyelashes. Why do girls do that? Is it supposed to be attractive? Because it usually just looks like they have something in their eyes.
“My mom grew up here,” he says with a shrug but doesn't offer up any other information, his eyes never leaving my face.
A different guy approaches our table. He's not as tall as Holden, with short dark hair and equally dark eyes. “Hey Holden, do you have a—” The new guy stops as he spots Olivia. “Who are your friends?”
“This is, uh, Olivia right?” Holden finally tears his eyes away from me, but only briefly. “And this is Aria.” “Freshman?”
“Obviously,” Olivia answers.
“I'm Beckett, but everyone calls me Beck.”
Olivia smiles coyly. “Nice to meet you, Beck.”
He smiles back triumphantly like he just won some sort of prize before turning back to Holden. “Hey, do you have any extra copies of the afternoon agenda?”
“Yeah, hold on a sec and I'll grab you one,” Holden says.
“See you ladies later.” Beck grins widely.
“It's very nice to meet you both,” Holden says with a wink before walking away with Beck.
“Okay, first, whoa. Schmexy, schmexy men. Second, explain that. Do you guys know each other?” she asks, a perplexed expression on her face. “I feel like I'm missing something here.”
“No. I mean, I sorta ran into him last night at the park but I don't know him-know him,” I explain lamely.
“I wondered. He kept looking at you during the tour.”
“I seriously doubt that. I think he's just making eye-contact with everyone. Maybe he's a political science major.”
“Fine, deny it all you want but I have eyes you know.” She smiles coyly like she knows something I don't know. “So what brought
you
out here?”
I sigh, so much for blending in. Olivia apparently wasn’t going to ignore me like I wanted.
“Escaping,” I answer truthfully, but she just laughs. She seems like the kind of person to do that a lot and I think that it must be nice to have something to laugh about. I wonder if it's actually possible to forget how to be happy. It's been so long since I've felt like smiling that it wouldn't surprise me if I have forgotten.
“What are you going to major in?” It’s a perfectly simple question, but suddenly I’m not sure why she's even talking to me I look around the room at all the other people who are smiling and laughing and talking like normal people do and here I am sitting alone, sullen and staring dejectedly out the window. Obviously I just want to be left alone.