The Itus Institute

Chapter 8

I'm not going to lie. I am a heavy sleeper. Like "oh there was a thunderstorm/hurricane of elephants last night at the same time that terrorists bombed our neighbours? Huh." heavy.

But that does not by any means allow you to wake me up by shouting down my ear.

James.

As it turns out, I had been asleep for longer than I had expected, evidently I was just exhausted from being constantly knocked out again and again (thanks again James) and my roommate appeared to have been awake and unable to move for the past hour and a half so I can kind of understand the need to wake me up. But still, rude.

I hadn't been dreaming or anything, I was just in a state of blissful darkness, completely unaware of my surroundings, or the fact that I had fallen asleep on top of James the previous night in a state of complete exhaustion. Awkward.

"Alycia! Wake up for goodness sake, you're a fucking log!"

And good morning to you too sunshine.

"Look they've given you- us the morning off but they want you in afternoon classes. You have to wake the hell up so we can actually leave in time to make it to at least one class. And I'm pretty sure you're going to be hungry, you've not had much of a chance to eat over the past couple of days."

My eyes slid open hopefully at the mention of food.

"Good you're awake. Now get the fuck off me and we can get dressed."

I groaned and rolled off him, my right shoulder stiff from the awkward angle it had been twisted at during the night. We both sat up and shuffled off the bed, moving blearily towards the suitcases.

We only paused for a couple of seconds today in embarrassment before James helped unbutton my pyjama top whilst I did the same for him.

I sighed. "I need to change my bra so just turn around and leave your left hand so I can actually move." James swallowed and his eyes went wide but he immediately turned away, picking up a polka dot bra from my suitcase and passing it to me without turning or saying a word. I took my moment of privacy to change my bottoms and underwear too, slipping on a dark grey pleated skirt over fresh knickers before hesitating with the complicated looking top.

"Uh, James?" he finally risked a peek at me, eyes darting down when he noticed I was in my bra. I sighed, "I cannot figure this thing out, I need help."

He was reluctant but quietly went about attaching the odd top to me, it had a stretchy vest thing that went around me and and bra-clasp like connectors which met at my right hand side, then what looked like a shirt was connected to it which simply wrapped around me and connected with an inconspicuous zip up to my right armpit. It looked like a real school shirt if you didn't inspect it too closely, I was fairly impressed.

Well I would have been if I hadn't been being held against my own will and handcuffed to a hormonal teenage boy.

Speaking of said boy, he quietly leant down and picked up a maroon jumper before slipping it over my head, zipping up another inconspicuous zip up my right side to my wrist.

"It's better if you wear a jumper." he said "the classrooms are freezing, especially at the beginning of the year."

I said nothing but set to work on getting him changed. I slowly worked through getting his top on, which was significantly less complicated than mine I noted with disdain, and then zipped his jumper up before turning away so he could sort anything lower than his torso.

Soon enough he was done and dragging me to what I assumed was the canteen, I wasn't in too much of a state to argue though, I was starving. In next to no time we were walking through a couple of old wooden doors into a beautiful, homely eating area. The ceiling was high above us and the walls were covered with wood paneling and beautiful paintings. The tables and chairs were very similar to the ones that had been in the conference room though they did not have quite as much grandeur. But the most impressive thing to me, at the time at least, was the buffet in the middle of the room.