Her eyes

Chapter 1

The first day of my second year at Cambridge university, and I still haven't made a single friend during my time here. I don't know what that says about me as a person.

Do I really come of as that miserable? To where not a single person had approached me in all the years I had attended this school? I know that when my face was relaxed, my lips tilted slightly downwards and it made me look like I was in a constant state of melancholy.

I thought that might've been the reason I was always overlooked when it came to making friendships. People usually gravitated towards someone that radiated kindness or a positive aura. And I was not that someone.

Last year I tried my hardest to radiate that same energy -usually with a practiced smile- when someone talked to me, only for them to ask about directions towards a specific area of the campus.

I also tried my hardest not to show my disappointment when that happened. But I think people could tell that my soul reeked of misery and despondency from a mile away. Maybe I wasn't as good of an actress as I thought I was.

I entered the loud lecture hall and sat as far back as I possibly could, at the end of the rows of seats. A slight distance away from where all the people with designated groups usually sat. This morning whilst getting ready I tried to give myself a pep talk, that this year would be different and that it didn't matter if nobody tried to approach me.

Maybe this would be a good opportunity for me to get out of my anxiety induced thoughts. If I reach out my hand first maybe somebody would grab ahold of it, and perhaps together we could build a bridge between us. Hopefully it would be sturdy enough to hold a genuine connection.

I'd left my moldy flat with a slight upwards tilt to my lips, and I'd even said a cheery "good morning!" to the older lady that lived across from me. Even if she had always eyed me with a slight suspicion, as if I'd break into her house one day and steal all of her five cats.

And yet by the time I'd reached the bus stop I'd completely abandoned my pep talk. As usual. I didn't carry through with the goals I had set for myself in my mind. Everything seemed so easy in there. You want something, you plan the steps to get to it. And you execute your plans, flawlessly. But what my mind can't seem to comprehend is that real life is not so simple.

The path towards the outcome you desired was never really as easy as you'd imagined. My mother used to tell me I always had my head in the clouds. I was a dreamer and dreamers couldn't usually cope with the real world.

Everything was a fairytale for them. They made up different realities than what they themselves inhabited. And when the real world finally caught up to them, their minds had already tried to abandon ship. Leaving the person with nothing and no one to rely on, not even themselves. Now they had no one to tell them how to operate the minefield which is the real world. I think that's what happened to her. Before the drugs.

"Can you scoot over?" A dark voice with an American accent rasped close to my ear. I startled from my minds ramblings and looked to my left.
A man stood bent at the waist, his face a little too close for comfort. But what a face it was..

I quickly removed my bag from the chair to right side of me and scooted my body onto it. Effectively giving up my spot to the handsome stranger.

He straightened his body to his full height, which I deemed to be well above the average height for men. And sat down with a confidence I was instantly slightly envious of. How could he ask a stranger to sit down next to them when there were several unoccupied seats dotted all over the hall, with such confidence? I would've already been visibly shaking from adrenaline. Which is quite pathetic now that I think about it.