Grey Swan [h.s.]

Chapter 3

I was late. Very late. Class had started almost 20 minutes ago and I was hastily taking two steps at once on the stairs to reach the lecture hall as quickly as possible. My hair was dripping from the pouring rain that had surprised me on the short walk from my bus stop to the old brick building. As I arrived in front of the lecture hall, I inhaled deeply to steady my racing heart before opening the door. About fifty pair of eyes looked at me as I quietly uttered an apology to the professor before taking a seat next to Grace in the last row of chairs. She shook her head with a fond smile and I grimaced while chucking my wet jacket onto the empty seat beside mine.
"Did you oversleep?" Grace quietly whispered as the professor continued his lecture. Usually I loved my courses, studying social work was my absolute dream. But this lecture mainly dealed with laws in social work and to say it was mundane would be an understatement. "I forgot to set an alarm, kinda had a crappy night," I answered Grace's question. She looked surprised, her eyebrows pulled together in concern. "Why's that?" she wondered.
Suddenly our professor cleared his throat loudly and I whipped my head to the front, catching his eyes already on us. "Sorry," I mumbled with a tight lipped smile. Thankfully he continued without any comment towards us and I sighed in relief. Grace grabbed my notebook and pulled it closer to her to write on it, 'coffee after this?' I nodded and smiled at her, before actually trying to focus on the lecture.

-

"Alright, spill," said Grace as soon as she sat down next to me on the comfy sofa in our favourite cafe near campus, her body fully facing me. I quietly laughed at her impatience.
"There's not much to spill, just had a shitty night after Harry brought some girl to ours for dinner yesterday and I got... jealous. It just left me with scattered thoughts and I forgot to set my alarm and overslept," I explained and shrugged while sipping on my chai. Grace's mouth fell open in shock.
"Back the fuck up, Harry brought a girl to dinner at your place?!" She said it like it was a massive scandal and I couldn't help but laugh at her expression.
"Well he didn't really bring her I guess, I don't really know. There were a few people who came to ours for pizza after playing football so it wasn't exactly weird that she was there. But he kept flirting with her in front of me even though he held my hand like a minute before when he came to my room to get me and then he winked at me while she was basically on his lap and I just... couldn't handle it," I sighed quietly, averting her stare.

Grace's voice sounded puzzled when she spoke next. "Wait wait wait. He came to you alone to get you downstairs for dinner, held your hand and then proceeded to flirt with another girl right in front of your eyes?" she summed up, annoyance evident in her voice. It sounded so childish when she said it like that, I felt a little embarrassed to even talk about it. Hell, we weren't sixteen anymore.
"That's the gist of it I guess. Just seeing him acting like that with that girl made me so angry, so I just got up and basically fled to my room. But Harry followed me and had the fucking audacity to be angry at me. Telling me to admit that I was jealous, like a lunatic. As if that hadn't been obvious, as if he hadn't humiliated me enough already. I just slammed my door shut," I mumbled angrily. Just thinking about it made my blood boil. It felt like Harry brought out the worst in me and I didn't know why I couldn't stop the affect he had on me.

The silence that followed was a bit too long, so I looked up with a frown, only to see Grace smirking over the rim of her coffee cup. "He wants you so bad," was all she said. I rolled my eyes and groaned.
"Not the point, Grace. He's childish and an asshole, he frustrates me more than anybody else and I don't even know why he has that power over me to even do that," I complained. It was true. Harry had the power to drive me up a wall with few words and the fact that I couldn't stop those feelings was the worst part. Grace's smirk only grew at my words. "You're not even denying it anymore. You know there's something there between you and him," she concluded.
"I-" my hand flew up to cover my forehead. "I mean yeah, obviously there's something. Like sexual tension or whatever. But I don't want it to be there at all. He's Henry's best mate, he's always around and I don't want it to be weird if there's something going on. It's always awkward to have that sort of history with a friend. Isn't there even a saying about that? Don't shit where you eat or something?" I mused. Grace bursted out laughing, her eyes crinkling in the process.