MISS CONGENIALITY x NEVER BEEN KISSED
When a journalism student's life changes in a matter of few hours after a frat party gone wrong, chaos ensue in the form of a job offer from her dream news agency, their condition that's got her doc martins run...
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Boy, it's been one heck of a day. I am truly and utterly worn out by the time the creaky wooden stairs of the girls dorm apartment come to an end. There's haze in my eyes, but I only realise it when it takes me a minute or two to recognise the led lights flashing on the grimy tiles leading out of my room. There's no dragging myself anymore, as I clutch onto my Milton water bottle and tip toe to the cracked open door; my heartbeats going up by notches for what seems like the fifth time since yesterday. A little push and I dive onto the woven carpet, looking like batman in a halter top and feeling incredibly ridiculous when Kiara and her boyfriend, Sam, stare at me with their mouths hung open, stuffed with popcorn.
"That's an entrance," Kiara slips out of the quilt they are wrapped up in, switching the television off before I have a chance to even look. The shopping bags on the side and the lace corset in one of them, slightly visible from my vantage point, make me glad I didn't.
"Sup, Naomi?" Sam just tips his head in my direction, shooting one of those smirks I've finally begun to accept after all this time. The rest of it? I still don't get what someone as chic as Kiara, with her loose curls, golden tan, and fitted maxi dresses, sees in a omeone like him, aka a walking and talking mannequin from a highway based franchise in, I don't know, Nashville.
I'm pretty sure he doesn't change his T-shirt for three days at least, and that his leather jacket has seen days worse than a veteran mechanic's vest. A part of the reason why I don't get too close to his vicinity is that I think those oil spills, probably months and years old, still reek as bad as last night's fried rice in the refrigerator.
"Just cruising past life," I force a laugh, sneakily escaping anymore questions and joining Kiara in the kitchen. She's got one of those looks with 'business' written all over the sleekness of her eyeliner, but I'd take anything over Sam's stories of the horrid incidents in the boys washroom of the University.
"You weren't supposed to come before nine?" Kiara pouts, nearly on the verge of making a tantrum with her feet tapping on the floor. "I told you yesterday, Sam's coming over because of the unrest at the frat house."
"You did?" I chuckle, but resort to a straight or rather a sorry face when I remember she did. It slipped my mind, what with the interview and my dreaded visit to the University, and then I missed my stop because sleep struck me during the rumbling bus ride, so I had to bear through the glut hour, where there's someone breathing down your neck from all the four corners. "I'm sorry I forgot all about it," I hold onto her weirdly warm and somewhat damp palms within mine, attempting the best puppy dog eyes anyone's ever seen.
"Alright," she murmurs, pouring me a glass of water that I can really use. Once I'm done, I explain her everything that's gone down today, and she's got her eyes wide by the end of it. "You mean, vice principal Krinski warned you about getting that job or taking a suspension letter instead? Damn, I always knew she hid something fierce behind those subtle smiles."
"That's what I assumed when she hissed at me to read the article on our university and it's loose principles, printed in The Sydney Morning Herald. Out loud." I still jitter at the sight of those nails of hers clawing onto the coarse paper, all set to tear it apart to shreds. "It's really been an eventful day".
