Wild ♥︎ Book 2

Chapter 6

HPOV

Fifteen hours before
(Because the school day was seven hours, and Hux is 8 hours ahead of Ben)

Hux couldn't believe that he would be sitting in a class all day. The same exact class doing different things. It reminded him of grade school but far harder and far more tiring. And then to make things worse, the Headmistress taught his class. She intimidated Hux to no end, actually.

What was even worse was that Hux had nobody except for the company of his cat and Mitaka at some points of that week. His parents hadn't even called him, they'd sent him a text once and they promised to send him letters. Hux didn't really want them.

What he wanted was to hear from Ben. It had been 5 days, nearly 6 days since he'd heard from him. He knew that it wasn't long in the grand scheme of things but it was too long for him. But in the last few days, Hux was working on his project that he'd give in the first day of class and since he had just arrived, he only had the 5 days to do it. And that's what he spent all of his time on for the past 5 days, with Mitaka coming over twice in that time span to help him out and check up on him. Hux wondered why Ben hadn't called him, and wondered if he was curious about what Hux was doing or misunderstanding.

All of this was running through Hux's mind as he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. He had a digital clock that projected the time into the ceiling so he wouldn't have to roll around in bed to check it. It read 5:46 am. Class started at 7:30 and Hux had woken up early. He technically didn't even need to wake up until 6:00.

His first instinct was to call Ben. But then he rolled his eyes when remembering that he was still in school. Millicent seemed to tell that he was awake so she jumped on Hux's bed and curled up on the pillow next to him. Hux stroked her for a little while and was reminded of that night five days ago when he was stroking Ben's hair and he was in bed next to him. Hux never thought that his cat would remind him of his boyfriend.

He sat up in bed and watched a cheesy Hallmark movie that was on until it was time for him to get ready. Hux had learned from little that the first day was the best day to wear the best outfit. He'd learned this from his dad, actually. Hux settled for a blue jean button down and some tan khakis. He combed and gelled his hair, washed his face and brushed his teeth. When he went back into his bedroom he saw that Millicent had fallen asleep on his pillow. He grabbed the cat food and refilled her bowl.

Hux made a bowl of instant oatmeal (his dad would've hated that he was eating instant oatmeal, but Hux didn't care. He ate it because he liked it and it was easy to make) and checked his watch. It was now 6:16.

Hux made a mental note to wake up at 7:00 from now on. He finished the Hallmark movie and watched a bit of the old Batman cartoons that was on the next channel until 7:00. Then he
grabbed his backpack, his project and his keys, then strolled out the door.

He followed the directions on the sheet of paper the Headmistress had given him earlier and reached the classroom where he would be spending 7 hours of his day 5 days a week for the next 9 months. He sighed, and opened the classroom door.

He nodded and waved at the Headmistress, who gave him a tight smile. Like the room wasn't full of responsible 18-21 year olds, there was a seating chart at the front of the room. Hux took a quick look at it and memorised his spot. He sat in a chair in the middle of the room and priced that the 2 seats on either side of him were empty. Hux guessed that the people who sat there just hadn't showed up yet.

As Hux set down his project on the floor at the front of the room with the others and took out the stuff he would need for class, he saw a blonde girl rush in just as the bell started to ring. She was tall (taller than him he knew for sure, but shorter than Ben) and she had a pixie cut with long bangs. She slid into the seat on Hux's left and wiped her bangs out of her face, sweeping her backpack off.

Hux listened as the Headmistress introduced herself (Hux thought it was pointless since everybody already knew her, but he listened anyway) and then gave a lecture on neurological diseases. Hux knew that for everyone in the class it was just a review (in order to go to Starkiller, you must know all the neurological diseases and the components of them- this was on the application).

Then the tiring part came. The Headmistress gave them a project and gave them some time to research in class. And by "some time" she meant the rest of the class period, which was five more hours. Hux thought he'd go mad. He took out his laptop as the Headmistress passed out papers detailing the instructions of the project. They had to do 2 experiments on at least 3 different neurological diseases. Hux was already feeling tired just reading the paper.

Then the Headmistress sorted them into pairs (which Hux also thought was ridiculous, everybody in the room was an adult. But he guessed that Starkiller just liked order). Hux was assigned the girl next to him who had nearly run in late. Hux nodded. If he could choose his partner he would choose Mitaka, who was sitting in the back and was partnered with a short guy with scruffy blonde hair. Hux turned around to face the girl next to him, who smiled.

"Hey there, I'm Ellen." She said. She had a very American sounding accent that sounded slightly formal. "Ellen Phasma. How are you?"

Ellen Phasma. Ellen Phasma. Why did the name ring a bell to Hux? He answered, "I'm Hux. Um, Brendol Hux. It's nice to meet you and I'm doing fine." Hux smiled a bit. The girl was nice but he was kinda grumpy and tired. Plus, he was wondering where in the world he remembered her name from. Ellen Phasma.

Ellen Phasma.

He remembered now. It hit him like a baseball. Ellen Phasma was his current boyfriend's ex-girlfriend.

But what was she doing all the way in England to learn neuroscience? In the same room that her ex's boyfriend was also learning the same thing. Ben never told him that Ellen was a neuroscientist in training. Yet again, he didn't have to, since the subject of her had rarely come up, if ever. Hux knew better than to let her know about their mutual "friend" so he just pretended like he knew nothing about the tall blonde sitting in front of him.

"It's really nice to meet you, Brendol." Ellen turned back to her own laptop, saying to Hux, "So we've got five hours to do our research. Where do you wanna start?"

*******
Hux had spent the rest of that day after class doing some more research. He had agreed with Ellen that he would do 2 of the diseases and Ellen would do the other 2. Then he caught up with Mitaka to go do some home shopping for both of them. When he made it back to his living space at 10 he realised that he hadn't really thought of Ben since that morning. He opened up his phone to see that there were 3 missed calls from Ben. One was at nine o'clock last night and the other two were several hours ago. Both at times that Hux wasn't available.

Then Hux realised that he probably thought that he'd be available and he might've been getting worried that Hux hadn't called him in five days, although he said he would. So he immediately called Ben, but after 3 rings, it was just his voicemail. He remembered that Ben was still in school. Hux sighed, shutting his phone off.

Right before he fell asleep he realised that he could call Ben at 11:15 his time, and it would be 3:15 or him and he probably wouldn't be busy. Hux smiled at his plan, hoping it would work, but then he remembered that he would probably tell Ben that he's doing a project with his ex. He wondered how Ben would react. As he was thinking about this, he started to fall asleep.

Millicent jumped up on the bed and next to Hux. He absentmindedly stroked her ginger fur as he said to himself, "Ben will be fine, won't he? Yeah, he'll be fine."

He fell asleep before he knew it.