Noah

Chapter 1

Noah
My name is Noah Garcia, I am 19 years old, and I have spent the last 147 days in prison (21 weeks). Let's just say I got involved with the wrong crowd and pissed a lot of people off blah blah blah, the usual. But I am NOT to blame. I mean sure I may have accidentally helped out with a serious crime (and by accidentally I mean I got told nothing about the crimes we were going to commit). They seemed like really nice people at first, I had no idea how conniving they were going to be. Let's take it back to the first day of college.

August 18th

Freedom at last, I thought. I took my first step onto campus to be greeted by a sickening sight of school pride. I'm just here to get my degree, I really don't give a shit about if the Bulls are going to beat the away team this Friday night. I rush to the administration office desperately trying to avoid anyone handing out invites to frat houses, chess clubs, and the football team. No thank you.

The queue inside the office was mildly small as I decided to get there early to be able to organise my dorm without my roommate disturbing me, whoever that would be. I got given the keys, room 204D, and hurriedly walked to my dorm. When everything was up and I was just about to put my bedding on a rather hench guy with tanned skin, dark brown curls and emerald green eyes burst into the room. "What's up bruhhhh!"
Oh great, I thought, I'm sharing a room with an egotistical imbecile.
"Yo bro what's good?" I said seemingly trying to fit in.
"Nothing much dawg. I'm Brody, and you?"
Of course he's called Brody, all the jocks are. "I'm Noah. I'm so excited to have you as a roommate", I said in a sarcastic tone, but of course he didn't catch on, all jocks are dumb.
"Same duuuude I'm like so totally excited yah. You coming to that welcoming party tonight? It's at NUPA frat house."
"Yeah sure bro I'll see you there." I replied. Now usually I'm not into partying and socialising , but if there's free drinks I'm always there.

At 9pm I arrived at NUPA frat house with Brody. I thought hey if I'm gonna be sharing a dorm with this lunatic for the next year or so I may as well get to know him. As soon as we walked in some girls attacked Brody like a pack of savage wolves and got him to drink with them. Now, I wouldn't say I'm the best looking guy ever, but I definitely have quite fanciable features.

I saunter over to the kitchen to grab a beer and make my way to the back garden which was ram packed full of idiotic teenagers all off their heads. Before long, a girl with beautiful silky blonde hair and huge hazel eyes danced my way. "Hey", she shouted, "I'm Hazel." What a coincidence, I thought.
"Hey I'm Noah. Is it your first year?"
"Yeah but it's not my first ever college party. I used to sneak in with my friends from the age of 15", she giggled.
"Usually partying isn't really my thing. I just came for the free drinks."
Laughing she said, "Well how about you go top up your drink and while you're at it you can get me one?" Casually, I walked back into the kitchen, went to the fridge, and took two beers from it. When I got back into the garden I couldn't see Hazel anywhere so I just thought she was probably chilling with some friends. I ended up drinking both cans of beer, and got some more and I didn't see Hazel for the rest of the night.

August 19th

Poom. Poom. Poom. I woke up to my head pounding and throbbing. Nice, I thought, I'm hungover, I may as well spend the day in bed since classes start next week. I close my eyes to block out the sunlight shining through a slither of the curtain in my dorm and next thing you know there's a knock at my door. Wow. Maybe if I just ignore them they'll go away? But of course they didn't so I forced myself out of bed to be greeted by...Hazel? I felt so disgusting and embarrassed that she's seeing me like this. Wait. Why am I embarrassed? I never get embarrassed. And how did she know my dorm number?
"Hellooooo earth to Noah? How are you doing buddy?" Hazel said with a wide grin on her face. God how is she always so bubbly?
"Wait what time is it?" I asked her, sounding croakier than a frog.
"It's 11am, and I'm taking you out for hangover breakfast so go get a shower because you smell like shit and I'll wait in your room."

20 minutes later we were in Hazel's ruby red Ford KA+ driving out of campus. Luckily I never feel sick when I'm hungover.
"Where exactly are you taking us?"
"You'll see when we get there!" She said excitedly. I thought to myself, this girl could be a serial killer for all I know, or a psychopath, I mean for crying out loud I met her like 14 hours ago.

She pulled up to a place called "Wacky Waffles" and man do I love waffles, but who doesn't? We got out the car and entered the restaurant and I was greeted by an overwhelming smell of sugar, batter, syrup, and strawberries. When we sat down a waitress in a red and white stripy pinafore came over and handed us each a menu.
"So tell me then Noah, why did you decide on the University of Michigan?"
"Well I know it's good for aerospace engineering and that's what I wanted to study so that's why UMich was fine for me."
"No way are you studying that because I am too! We're like totally going to be in the same classes." I was actually thankful that I'd have someone in my classes I knew, and I definitely didn't mind it being Hazel at all.

Our waffles came shortly after. I ordered the banana and Nutella waffle and Hazel ordered the strawberries and cream one. Whilst eating we spoke about how we are liking college life so far and what we want to do in the future. Turns out we both want to be aircraft manufacturers,which I thought was really cool.

Shortly after we finished our waffles Hazels phone rang and she picked it up straight away. She tried to keep her voice down and kept glancing over at me. Yep, she's definitely a serial killer I should probably leave, I thought.
"Yeah I'll be there in like 20 minutes. Uhhhh I'll tell you when I'm there I'm just with a friend right now. Yeah ok bye."
"What was that all about?" I questioned.
"Sorry my friend Sabrina needs me to go shopping with her. I'll see you later ok? Foods on me." She placed $20 on the table and paced to her car. With that, she was gone and left me on my own in a place I hardly knew. Well, that wasn't peculiar at all.

I decided to just get on a bus back to campus since I didn't really know Michigan that well and I left my phone in my dorm room. I was waiting for the bus for 15 minutes and it took 15 minutes to get back. I couldn't help but reminisce about what just happened and why Hazel kept looking at me strangely on the phone. Was she actually talking to her friend Sabrina? Was she actually going shopping with her? Many other thoughts also crossed my mind but I decided not to dwell on it that much as I know it's none of my business to pry.

When I got back to my dorm my phone was buzzing frantically. Five messages and eight missed calls from my mom. I opened the messages first; "Noah call me please", "please call we really need to speak", "Noah it's urgent", "why aren't you answering?!", "just call me back as soon as you get these". Panicking, I quickly dialled her back to wonder what all the fuss was about, and she picked up right away. "Oh Noah I'm so glad you answered I've been worried sick!" Confused, I replied "why mom what's up?"
"I got a phone call today about something. It just really scared me is all."
"Mom why what's happened? Is everyone alright? Are you alright?"
"Yes yes my love we are all alright. I actually received a phone call today from someone at your college saying that you needed to stay away from someone to stay out of trouble and that they couldn't tell you themselves because they'd know. Noah who are they and what kind of business have you been up to?!" My mom seemed very concerned, but I was just as confused as anything. I hardly know anyone at college and the people I've been hanging around with don't seem like criminals or some shit.
"Noah hello?"
"Sorry mom I got distracted. Thanks for telling me this, I promise to stay out of trouble. I love you, bye." I decided to not tell her that I had no fucking clue what she was on about because that would only make her worry more.

I thought that a nice stroll could help me to clear my head and maybe understand what the hell my mom was on about and who called her about me. The more I started thinking about it, the creepier it became. Not only has someone been watching what I've been doing, but they've also been able to find private information out about me and my family and call my mom. What the fuck...what the actual fuck?! Maybe it was a joke? Yeah a kind of sick, twisted joke, but surely that's all it is? I mean I've hardly known anyone long and they don't seem like trouble at all. Hell it was probably Brody, he seems dumb enough to do something like that. Yeah, it must've been him. Right?

I didn't do much else with my day, my mind was all over the place. I decided just to chill in my dorm room, and avoid practically everyone I knew for the rest of the day. And by everyone I mean the only two people I currently know; Hazel and Brody. But avoiding Brody is hard, you know considering he's my roommate and all. He came back to our dorm at like 6pm and he kept trying to make conversation with me, but I just wasn't interested. If I offended him then I really didn't mean to, I just couldn't seem to focus my mind on much else. Since my classes were starting in the morning I thought I'd head to bed reasonably early, at 9pm, but I struggled getting to sleep with all the thoughts racing around in my mind.