Heartbreaker

Chapter 3

"Freshman?"

Anna and Carmel were queued up in the administrative building to get their new timetables and lockers. Around them, students were bustling around the office, comparing schedules and sharing summer holiday tales. In the far corner of the room, right in Carmel's line of sight, stood a more docile group, huddled together like rabbits in a pen. The group was peppered with new faces, few excited, few grim, all eager to start a new academic year.

Carmel examined her perfectly manicured nails before casting a glance at Anna, cocking an inquisitive eyebrow at her

"You lugged me over here so you could spy on freshman?"

Carmel scoffed at Anna and unzipped her bag. "Hell no. Don't be daft, what would I want with a bunch of scrawny kids?" she replied as she dug around her tote. Pulling out her phone, she cast a cheeky smirk at her best friend. "Besides," she grinned, pulling up the Instagram app, " I've my sights set on a different set of pork chops."

Cringing at her friend's choice of words, Anna retaliated, "Okay, number one, you've got to stop referring to people as meat or like any other kind of food, that's just plain weird. Number two, what's so great about this 'fresh meat' of yours—"

Anna trailed off as she glanced at Carmel's phone. On the screen of her bedazzled iPhone stood a boy— not scratch that, a man, with the most dazzling eyes Anna had ever seen. They were the shade of the sea, a concoction of green and blue that reminded her of summer days and coconuts (for some odd reason). They stood out awfully bright against the jet black of his hair, ruffled messily in the wind as he posed cockily at what seemed to be a football tournament. He held a gold trophy in his left arm, a confident smirk flanked by two adorable dimples splattered across his face.

Anna raised her eyebrows at Carmen, thoroughly impressed. "Not bad, sis. Who is he?"

Barely able to contain her excitement, Carmel let out a small squeak of enthusiasm. "Well," she drawled, " you know how I volunteered at that soup kitchen last weekend right? So, like, there I was, helping out as usual, and suddenly came this guy, and I was like, who is this hunk of cheese, mamma mia —"

" You're doing your weird psychosexual food fetish thing again."

"— Oh, right, sorry. So as I was saying, this hottie comes up and it turns out that was his first day— which is why I've never seen him before— and then we got paired up together —thank the LORD— and I was like " Hey, I'm Carmel" and he was like " Caramel?" and I was like "no, CAR-MEL" and he was like "oh, what a shame, Caramel suits you better," and I was like "um what haha" and he was like "because you look good enough to eat" and I was like 'HOLY FUCK I HAVE SEEN WHAT THE LORD HAS DONE FOR OTHERS..."

Anna couldn't help but laugh as Carmel recounted her experience with her new flavour of the month. She guided the pair along the queue as Carmel had a tendency to get lost in her thoughts when she starts story telling. It was so like her best friend to fall head over heels for the next guy with cute dimples and a flair for cheesy pickup lines.

".... and THEN, he told me he JUST moved here and he'll be enrolling HERE!! Of all places, O-M-G, I am SO excited! Can you imagine-" Carmel suddenly trailed off.

"Imagine, what?" said Anna, who was grabbing their schedules from the clerk. She turned to face her best friend, only to find her slack jawed, eyes wide and fixated at the entrance of the administrative building.

Slightly beyond the polished glass doors of the admin building, was the man of Carmel's dream.

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hi guys, so i hvnt written in like five years but the quarantine has bored me into trying to continue this old story. Bear w me tho sksjsj this is bad af skdjsjs but i hope u enjoy xx