Faith and The Vampire ✔️

Chapter Eight

A COUPLE WEEKS PASSED AFTER that, and I soon forgot about random things as life at the Institute wrapped around me. My family's financial chaos had worn off a little, and I began to fall into a semi-comfortable routine. Now was when college-life really began . My days revolved around classes, lunch with Aisha, and whatever sort of social life I could scrape together outside of that. Denied any real free time, I didn't have too hard a time staying out of the trouble, although I did manage to steal a little attention here and there. I couldn't help it. I liked groups, and I liked making smartass comments in class.

Aisha attracted attention simply because she was smart, and helped a bunch of professors from her faculty with their research. Most people soon let that go, accepting that it was normal for scholarship-awardee to be smart and posh. Aisha was still fading off the social radar and content to run her 'Civil Engineering' group and me. Genius people's conversations still made me want to beat my head against a wall sometimes, but they were really nice—nicer than most people here—and I enjoyed hanging around her most of the time.

And, just as the counsellors had warned, I was indeed practicing my Romanian all the time. But as more time passed, Romanian literature stopped hating me. I could understand each presentation in my classes, my writing skills increased. I was still having a hard time reading journals in Romanian practice but not quite as badly as I used to, which was something. The biggest toll now seemed to be on my sleep routines. Being a students and having part-time jobs sometimes made my body hating me so much. Lack of sleep made my eyebags more visible, and at the end of the day I was asleep within minutes.

A routine also developed with Mr.Amar and me. Every Tuesday and Thursday, he would gave me lots of worksheets and made me read lots of Romanian literature. He was still the strong silent type Mr.Amar didn't hang out much with the other lecturers, though it was clear they all respected him. And the more I studied with him, the more I respected him too, though I didn't really understand his teaching methods.

Three weeks after my first encounter as professional dishwasher, after the dinnertime rush had ended, and with the place briefly empty, I walked into Daniel's diner side door after class one day and found him mopping the floor. The song coming from the portable CD player was some Moldovan pop song.

"Whoa, Daniel," I said, tossing my bag on the floor. "I realize this is actually a current hit in Moldova right now, but do you think we could maybe listen to something that familiar with?"

Only his eyes flicked toward me; he continued to mop the floor. "Since you work here, I want to share the soul of this diner"

I made a face as I set myself to start washing today's dirty dishes.

"Hey," I asked, moving on to the next pile of dishes, "what's with the move to Romania, anyway? I mean, I realize that you love your country and all that, but shouldn't you stay in your hometown?"

He stopped mopping the floor and put the mop behind the spices table. "My wife and I always wanted to travel the world together." He smiled a little "Venezuela, Ukraine, we've been there for couple months. But when we had kids, we decided to settle down."

"Here? In Brașov?" I exclaimed

He nodded. "My wife love it, here. She said this is a perfect town to raise a family."

I stopped washing and regarded him skeptically

He laughed at me. "Don't look at me like that. I know deep down you love Brașov as much as we do."

"Nope. But, I love to work here, at your diner."

"Oh?" He raised his eyebrows. "So, you work so hard like what you're doing right now has nothing to do with trying to survive here?"