physiotherapy | awsten knight

1: ghosts

October 1st, 10 weeks before the incident

Cosmia's hands shook relentlessly, causing the notes she was attempting to take, to turn out squiggly and smudged.

The bad quality coffee on the empty seat next to her seemed to taunt her. Apparently, that's what you get when you're too stingy to spend money on some good coffee.

The girl proceeded to clench and unclench her hands to release some nervous tension. Just then, Professor Williams informed the students that he put everyone into groups of six for this course, until the end of the semester.

Cosima pulled up the word-document with the list of names, as instructed. She was absolutely not pleased to see that the one person in this course she was friends with wasn't in a group with her. Instead she would be stuck with people she hardly knew. Well, she has worked with that one girl Bianca before, it was one time only and a disaster, and she had hoped that it would've been the last time.

It really shouldn't be that hard to avoid someone when there's approximately 500 other people to get paired up with. A psychology's Bachelor degree of Arts was an immensely popular degree to study, but then again, she's gotten into way too many courses with that whiny girl for her liking. Just like this one; cognitive psychology.

Cosima quickly scanned over the names on the list again:

David Allen
Virginia King
Cosima Moore
Richard Speight
Jawn Rocha
Bianca Warren

At least she knew who Jawn was; his faded orange hair and the leftist patches on his jean jacket were very recognisable.

And Virginia seemed like an extremely smart student, always knowing exactly what the professor was talking about. Apparently, she had some experience in the field, before studying it.

She didn't really know the other two, and then there was Bianca. But whatever; Cosima would rather ignore her existence.

Prof. Williams went on and explained how they will be doing most of the coursework in their groups, and depending on how well they do in presenting their assignments, will determine their credits for this course.
Then, he explained their first assignment, that not-so-coincidentally, was about the subject of his most recent presentation.
The professor ended the lecture early, to give the students time to consult with their partners.

Cosima strutted over to the only person she was kind of looking forward to meet, Jawn Rocha. He stood in the corner of the big hall, while he chewed on his fingernails and sported his usual denim jacket. It had several patches embroidered, that said things like "GO GREEN", "F*ck The NRA", or Cosima's personal favourite "Defund The Police".

"Hi, I'm Cosima. You must be Jawn.", she introduced herself and waved.

"Hi, yeah that's right. It's nice to meet you.", Jawn replied politely.

He took in Cosima's appearance briefly. She had a multi-coloured vans bag pack slung over her shoulder that complimented the bright purple vans she was wearing. Her hair was magnificent, extremely long; reaching her waist and bleached light blonde. It complimented her brown skin tone very well.

"You have really nice hair.", Jawn tried to fill the awkward silence.

"Thanks. It took me 23 years to grow it. I like yours too by the way.",  Cosima replied, mustering up a light-hearted laugh.