All My Firsts

Chapter 4: A New Friend

I woke up to my phone singing "Bang Dem Sticks" by Meghan Trainor. I sang along as I got up and went to the bathroom to get ready for the day.

I love it when it's loud

I love it when it's big

You can feel it in the crowd

C'mon bang dem sticks

I brushed my teeth while I waited for my water to warm up to take a shower, and in 15 minutes I was washed, dressed, and brushing my hair as I hummed "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun."

I ate my breakfast and settles down to start my homework. Before I could though, I got a message on my phone.

Hey. It's Daniel. Looking forward to later today. You still coming?

I texted him back almost immediately so I could get started on my work.

Hopefully I can still go. Too many things to do today. If I'm not there by 5:00, don't wait for me.

Okay. :( Please come

I put my phone down and started on the worksheets and packets I had gotten yesterday. I still needed to go to the bookstore to get my textbooks for my Chemistry and my History classes and see if maybe they were hiring. I decided to wait to get the books until I was done at home. The bookstore was only about five minutes from the coffee shop I was supposed to be meeting Daniel at. I hoped he hadn't just been waiting for me for hours when I finished my work, ate a late lunch, and headed out.

At the bookstore, I got one of the textbooks I needed, but couldn't find the other one among the shelves of many different books. Romance, sci-fi, thriller, non-fiction, adventure, with titles like The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Selection, The Maze Runner, Forgive my Fins, and Harry Potter. I went up to the front counter to ask about it. Maybe they didn't even have it yet. It was a pretty new version.

"Hi, do you have this textbook here in stock? I need it for my Chemistry class." I pulled out the page with the name and picture of the book on it, and the boy at the counter nodded.

"Yeah. We just got them in the other day, but we weren't supposed to shelf them yet. The rush of students is a bit too much for this bookstore. The walls wouldn't be able to handle it. But I think I can make an exception since you came all the way out here. Besides, I understand the daily struggle of a college student." he smiled as he motioned for me to follow him to the back.

I looked around at the shelves again at some romantic fiction books, and lost track of the employee. When he found me again, holding a thick textbook in his hands with relative ease, his face distorted as he looked like he was holding in laughter.

"Someone's a hopeless romantic bookworm." He commented, looking at the stack of books I held in my hands that would probably equal the same amount of that textbook, if not more.

"Oh, haha, yeah. I think I'm going to look for some of these at the library first before coming back here to buy the ones I couldn't find though."

"I understand, but why didn't you just do that with your textbooks?"

"They're much too new to be in the library yet, and besides, they're always in terrible condition." I remembered a conversation I overheard at the grocery store last week between two college students, friends I'd guessed, about how they were going to pay for the textbooks this year since there were new versions that just came out.

"Speaking of new," I continued, "Are you guys hiring by any chance? I'm not picky with positions, and I just need it part-time."

He smiled and nodded." Yeah actually. We were looking to get at least one new employee before we shelved those new textbooks and the massacre started. I don't think we'll survive on just the manager and me," He laughed, scanning my books.