Starry Starry Night

Chapter 1: B

"I can't believe her," one of the girls whispered.

"The party last Friday, right?"

"I know right? Joey's with Hannah but she still slept with him!" 

"God, what a bitch."

What a bitch.

Bette scowled while trying to ignore the circulating murmurs, the judgmental glares, and rude stares. It was Monday for god's sake, couldn't there be anything more interesting to talk about? Like the fact that their quiz bowl team won another game, or something? 

Besides, it wasn't really all her fault! Joey was the real culprit here. She wasn't even remotely aware that he was in a full on relationship with Hannah Jones until the morning after. It wasn't like she was even trying to find out anything either; his phone was just blowing up with messages at 7AM!

Plus, there's nothing really she can do about it at this point. What's the point of apologizing when she wasn't the one who cheated? It wasn't her who was in a relationship with someone else. However, Bette can't help but hate the guilt that filled her stomach whenever she saw Hannah Jones. The poor girl was genuinely one of the sweetest girls that she's ever met, and the girl deserved way better than some loser from Delta Phi. 

This only intensified her disgust with Joey Burns. Knowing an act like that would scar Hannah Jones' love life for a while. Bette bit her lip. Although she knew, rationally, it wasn't her agenda to hurt anyone; Bette wished Hannah would at least send one nasty glare her way. Something to make Bette feel a little less like the villain of the story. But Hannah's too much of a golden girl to even do that. She's only ever glanced at Bette with her big sad brown eyes. 

And she only did it once.

But apparently once was clearly enough for Bette to feel like she needed to take the 'scenic' route to class just to avoid the poor girl.

Besides, it wasn't like she couldn't benefit from a little extra cardio. 

It just sucked because she was busting her ass in the cold to get to the Science and Engineering Building for her coding class. It was one of the few classes that she genuinely hated. One time she forgot to add a period to a stupid code consisting of a few hundred lines. It took all of her sanity and most Saturday to figure out where she messed up before she could turn that nasty piece of work in.

Plus, it didn't help that most of the people in the class were guys.

They weren't all terrible right away, in fact they seemed kind of cool. That was until she realized that they just wanted to get laid and she was one of the five girls in the entire class. It was insane how quickly half of them changed their tune once they realized that she wasn't into them like that. The professor wasn't any better, because he doesn't even try hard to hide his own sexist attitudes. 

It's like they forget that she's a living and sentient human being! Of course, she tried to file a complaint to the head of the department but the professor's in kahoots with the bigwigs. The worst professors always are. 

Needless to say it bugs the hell out of her every Monday and Wednesday morning when she has to spend ninety minutes with these jerks. 

So as she opened the door to the classroom, the day went from sucky to shitty.

"Goodmorning," the professor called out to her. "Make sure you meet with your assigned group because you'll be stuck with them for this project!"

Bette looked for her name on the list of groups.

"Is it really thirty percent of our final?" One of the students asked.

"Yes. As it says on the syllabus on page 9."

God damnit.