Shackles

2

A pounding on my door wakes me. An extremely loud and aggravating pounding. I roll onto my side and think about smothering myself with my pillow. After a few seconds of reevaluation, I tug off my blanket and fall out of bed.

I was starting to think the pounding was just inside my head. But when I open my bedroom door and get knocked in the face by a fist, I know I wasn't imagining it.

I stumble back, gripping my nose as if it's about to fall off.

"What the fuck!" I shout.

I clench my eyes shut and curl over in pain. I haven't even got a look at the culprit yet.

"I think I've been blinded," I wince.

I hear a scoff, and the noise echoes around my room. A noise that I recognise; a noise which only makes me angrier. I can feel the heat swirl around in my stomach and stretch its arms out through my veins until my pulse shoots me upright and suddenly the punch to the face was painless.

"You." I angle a stern finger in the direction of his face. "You just punched me in the face!"

He raises his hands, feigning innocence, "To be quite frank, you walked into my fist."

My eyes then become slits, as thin as paper. "Liar. You punched me."

He scoffs, "Grow up."

"Let me get even," I demand, taking a threatening step forward.

"What?" he questions, pulling himself away from the threshold of my door.

"You heard me," I cock a brow, taking another stride, "Let me punch you back, since apparently I'm just being dramatic!"

"Freak," he mutters, disgust shadowing his face as he turns.

I follow him. I follow him down the hallway and straight into our kitchen as if we are a cat and a mouse. I push through the door, unaware of my surroundings after the abrupt wake up and stumble straight into the back of a stainless steel frying pan.

"Oh you have to be kidding me!" I shriek, staggering back. "You just hit me in the face with a pan!"

"Again!" he shouts, "You walked into it! It's not my fault you're clumsy as fuck."

I rub my eyes, seeming to open them for the first time today. I groan and sit on one of the kitchen chairs, surrendering. He tentatively pust down the pan, taking a seat opposite me.

I scowl at him, arms crossed tightly along my chest, "Why were you banging on my door?"

"I was knocking on your door to check that you were alive," he corrects, tilting his head as if I should be praising him.

I drop my head to the side. "Why would I not be alive?"

"Because it's three p.m. and it's the first lecture you've missed. Ever."

My eyes widen and I scan the wall for the clock. Shit. It really is three p.m.. Slowly, my hand raises to cup my mouth. I hadn't realised he had been so astute in keeping up with my whereabouts.

"How do you know this is the first lecture I've missed?" I press.

I've not spoken to him since I printed off my notes for him after our very first lecture. It's been a week and ever since then we've somehow managed to avoid each other. We would sit on other sides of the lecture theatre, or I would use the stairs as he took the lift. As a pure coincidence we've not seen each other since.

Since then I've actually started to make some good friends. There's a girl in my course who I've been hanging out with quite a lot, she seems really nice. And then I've made friends with her flatmate. We're all getting along quite well.