Rosalie

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My limbs felt heavy with lead, just reaching over to snooze that blaring, disturbingly loud alarm was quite the task. With the intention to sleep for another 15 minutes, I shut my eyes once more only to feel anxious to get my day started. I reminded myself that snoozing for even one more minute would only make me even more tired than if I woke up now. Too stressed to let myself sleep, I forced myself up.

Shower.

Dress.

Hair.

Coffee.

And out the door. The sun just barely peaked out with its beautiful rays of pink and orange, but my foggy breaths in the chilly air was a clear indication that the sun would not keep up with me for much longer. Soon, I'll be walking to the gym each morning in darkness.

The campus was still sleeping, save a few likeminded productivity junkies on their morning jogs, their eyes too trained on the road ahead of them to notice me marching by.

King's University of Ontario was nestled at the heart of Kingston, yet somehow secluded from the busy bustle of downtown, so pretty much everyone here was a student or faculty member. King's surpassed University of Toronto and McGill in rankings of top universities in the world, now being at the top of Canada and 30th in the world. I know this because my stepdad never lets me forget it, he was an alumnus of King's.

It was leg day today, my favourite. First cardio, then warmup and glute activation, followed by hip abduction and adduction, leg press, smith machine, hip thrusts, and finally, stretching and rolling. Covered in sweat and using my shaky legs to take me home, I went over my mental checklist for the rest of the day.

Shower #2

9:00am: Class

12:30pm: Class

3:30pm: Class (psychology of addiction—my favourite one so far)

I had a 30-minute break between my first and second class, plus an additional 15 minutes because the prof was always late. I would get my lunch in then. Breakfast would be the campus café which was conveniently located in the same building as my first class. I had to get my protein in within two hours after my workout so that blessed café was my saviour.

My empty stomach ached and kicked my ass throughout the entire shower and walk to class, begging for sustenance. I pulled out my credit card as I was in line, which was about all I could do to make the process faster. The idiot in front of me kept asking what was in every menu item, his ridiculous indecisiveness had me seconds away from snapping. Do people not look at the menu before they order? Who the hell holds up a line during morning rush?

My huff of annoyance was apparently all it took for him to order the panini, and I hastily walked up to the cashier to order my usual (large coffee and an egg breakfast sandwich to-go). I checked my phone as I waited, opening the student portal to see a notification from Psychology of Addictions.

Students,

Much to your luck, I am sick today and will be cancelling today's class. I hope you use the time to do next week's reading, which is already up on the course shell. For some of you, it means you have more time to do last week's reading or the reading before that.

Sorry if this inconvenienced you,

Stephen.

I frowned. My favourite class...

***

After finishing up with classes, I headed home. I would get started on my readings early given the extra time. I usually dedicated Wednesdays to get all my readings done, but at least I would have less to do then.