Cindel74

2

Cindy opened her eyes. Back in the VR booth. Time to face the real world. At that moment, she was a nervous wreck. One of her roommates and the assistant RA were among the opponents she defeated. She packed up her Lattetude laptop and put everything in the messenger bag. After a deep breath, she opened the door to exit the VR booth.

They were waiting for her.

Erin and Meg stood with their arms crossed. Alexis and Isabel had their hands on their hips.

"Think you're so good, don't you, Scholarship," Erin said. "Well, loser, you just won yourself bathroom duty, again."

The other three snickered.

"I just did it yesterday," Cindy said.

"And you're going to do it today too. And tomorrow while you're at it since you're going to mouth off," Erin sneered.

"That's not fair. I have to be at the animal shelter in less than two hours," Cindy said.

"Well, you'd better hurry then," Erin remarked. The four girls flipped their hair and walked away.

The scene was all too familiar for almost four years. If she did not do as Erin said, she could write her up. If only Anna, the senior RA, were around more often. Anna would not let the behavior continue. Cindy hurried back to the dorm and cleaned the bathroom. Quickly she changed her clothes, grabbed her messenger bag, and rushed to the animal shelter.

The couple of hours a day she spent at the animal shelter were her happiest. Moreover, all of the animals loved her. The staff told her once the animals knew when she was going to arrive and grew antsy in anticipation. The dogs barked and jumped up and down. The cats meowed and circled the cages. Even the birds, if there were any, would chirp and fly around. No matter how bad her day was, the animals cheered her up.

On the way back to the dorm, a display in the Lattetude computer store caught her attention. There was new wireless NICs available. Cindy did not have the money for one, but she was saving up. With the new ones out, she wondered how price of the older model dropped and went inside.

There were two boys about her age working behind the counter. They did not seem to pay her any mind. She looked around at the accessories. The old wireless had not dropped in price too much yet.

"Can I help you?" a voice said behind her.

Cindy jumped out of her skin and spun around. She did not hear one of the clerks walk up behind her.

"Oh, I'm just looking," she answered.

"The new wireless just arrived today. You should check those out instead."

Her face turned red. "Oh, yeah, I saw the display in the window. I just think I'll be able to save up for one of these first."

He smiled. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to embarrass you. I'm Dean." He extended his hand.

She forced a smile and shook his hand. "I'm Cindy." Her glasses slid down her nose. She hastily pushed them back up. "Well, I'd better get going if I'm going to make it back for class."

"Oh, you're at the University? What a coincidence, so am I. What's your major?"

"Computer Science."

"Impressive. That is a hard program to get into. I am in Computer Engineering, at my father's insistence."

Cindy's gaze turned to the door.

"Wait here for a second," Dean said and jogged to the back of the store. He returned with a small box. "This was in the throw away pile, but it's brand new. They always throw out the old stuff."

She took it from him and saw it was a USB wireless stick. "I can't accept this. Won't you get in trouble?"

"No one will even notice. And please, stop back in sometime."

"Uh, OK, sure." She put the box in her bag and headed out. No one had ever done something like that for her before. She thought he was cute, but quickly dismissed it. There was no way he liked her. After all, she was one of the few poor scholarship students at the university. Once he found that out, he would quickly lose interest. Like all of the rest of the guys she met.