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SEVEN: Don't be stupid

The dreadful sound of my alarm woke me up the next morning. I sighed tiredly and turned towards the noise in order to shut it off before it could wake others in the house.

I slowly rose from the bed, changed out of my pyjamas and into my clothes. It seemed a little chilly outside, to I also but on a jacket. Then I gathered all the books I got for my course and put them in my schoolbag. Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I proceeded to head downstairs.

Time for breakfast.

Kylie drove both of us to the university, where she parked the car in the car park. "I'll show you where you need to go, but then I have to get to class," she told me as we got out of the car and headed towards what seemed to be the entrance of the school.

I nodded in response and followed her inside. I was immediately overwhelmed by the amount of students that roamed the halls. Kylie greeted some people and then turned to me, "You can get your keys, map and schedule there." She told me, pointing to a door that said 'secretary's office.'

"Okay thanks. I'll see you later?" I asked anxiously. She probably noticed my nervousness, "Yes, and I'm sure you'll find your way just fine." She reassured me. With that she left me behind to do my thing, supposedly.

I slowly knocked on the door. "Come in," I heard a feminine voice call out from inside.

"Hi," I greeted the lady behind the desk located in an office in the entrance hall of my first real school. "I'm new here?" I stated with a doubting tone, smiling nervously, trying to come across as shy and vulnerable and already creating an inferior demeanour for myself. I was quite confident with the Canadian accent I built up over days of practice. However, it sounded a little American, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing if I wanted to be inconspicuous.

"Hello there! What's your name?" she asked all too enthusiastically.

"Emma Hawthorne." The name was drilled into my system after reading it for an awful amount of times. "Emma Hawthorne... Let's see." She scanned though her computer and after a minute or so she seemed to have found the correct file.

"Ah, so you're the new Canadian exchange student. Welcome to the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs!" she exclaimed proudly and I just mumbled some assenting words softly, not really sure how else to reply.

"Okay, so this is your schedule and here are your locker keys." She handed me said objects and I thanked her. I walked away slowly, heading for my new locker. It didn't take long for me to find it since I had been studying the map of the school during my flight here.

I stored some of my books inside and closed it. I only realised now that I would have to waste time doing actual homework.

This was going to take some getting used to.

***

A few weeks had gone by and I imagined my first time at university to be incredibly overwhelming, but it turned out that simply seeing so many people in one place for the entire time was exhausting. The schoolwork however, wasn't as bad as I thought. I finished most of it during the classes, barely leaving me with any homework, giving me more time to work on my mission and do some further investigation since I hadn't been able to do much the past three weeks.

I decided to go to the public library. According to google maps it was only a fifteen five minute walk from school. I sent a message in the group chat with the Stevenson's to tell them where I'd gone.

All throughout the day I'd been trying to find out who Nathan Carter was exactly. I knew he went to the same school, but I was not sure about anything else, such as age, relatives and current residence. He was a mystery. One that I was determined to solve.