He was Stranger

Late.

“You can borrow my pencil, if you like.”
I can’t believe I never recognised him.
“The answer is Hyperbole.”
He used to be so...
Nice.
The smell of rubbers with the mix of dust and books. Empty corridors and classrooms, the odd teacher would be working at their desk at this time. A line steam lifting from a cup lit up by the golden rays of the rising sun.
Could this show how dedicated I was to school?
Waking up at 6am, showering, getting dressed, eating breakfast and cycling to school getting there for 7:30am. I was the only student in school.
Well, him and I. Sat in the library. His hair parted straight down the middle and thick glasses helped his vision. He was always focused. Eyes glued to the pages of some sort of revision guide.
I always sat across from him the large table created a field of space between us. However, I never really noticed him.
I did acknowledge his existence. He sat next to me in many lessons and we would have the casual conversation. I realised he’d only really talk to me. He'd turn up to school sometimes with a black eye or bruises in other places.
I never questioned it. I didn’t think it was my place. Maybe if I did he would have ended up differently.
“Mia! get up.” I was shaken by someone “You’re gonna be late for class.”
I awoke and opened my eyes to see my roomate. Best friend of seven years. Liz. She was dressed in a black top and a green and navy pair of patterned trousers. Her hair was tied in a messy bun and her make up was on.
Even after a night of partying, her skin stayed unbroken. She was a flawless human being. Striking everyone with her dark hair and light eyed combo.
She had been my best friend since secondary school. I had a great group of friends throughout school and she was who I got along with the most we fought like a married couple we loves each other as sisters.
“I’m not even gonna bother as this point. Get up!” she smacked me on the head with a pillow.
I sat up slowly stretching my limbs.
“You’re about to be late for the first time in your life. You have a lecture at 10.” She said pointing at my alarm.
09:00 am
I started calculating, it takes 30 minutes on the train to uni, 15 minutes to shower, two minutes to brush my teeth that give me 3 minutes to eat breakfast and minutes dressed .
“Fuck!” I jumped out if bed and headed to the bathroom “Get pick out my outfit. Classic jeans white socks and a long sleeved shirt.”
I got into the shower and washed my hair the conditioning it I brushed my teeth in the shower the continued to scrub my body.
I spat toothpaste into the drain. The started washing the conditioner out of my hair.
I leaped out and started drying my body frantically with a towel. I ran back into my bedroom and started getting dressed with the clothes Liz had laid out for me.
Pants. Bra. I caught my own eye in the mirror my black curly hair dripped from every end.
I hopped around my bedroom. Pulling on my jeans and socks. I tucked in my shirt and buckled my belt.
Sprinting past Liz, she called me. I turned to her as I was putting in my shoes.
“toast.” She put a piece of buttered toast in my mouth slightly burnt just as I liked it.
“I love you see you at lunch.” I grabbed my keys, bag and coat and left quicker than a spark. I headed to the elevator. We lived on the top floor.
The doors opened and I hoped it wouldn’t stop and then it did. About 6 floors down.
A menacing guy stepped into the elevator. He was dressed in a motor bike suit carrying a black helmet. With gold spray paint of a crown around the crown of the shell. He was tall. Taller than me. His eyes were on the greener side but we’re hazel in a close examine. He was thin but his muscles looked lean. His thighs were thicker than his neck and arms. He had a brilliant physique.
His hair was dark and ruffled and his stubble looked liked a patchy Velcro upon the bottom of his face pulling his jaw into a sharp point. Well, it appeared that way.
However upon close inspection his aura gave me a feel of nostalgia. He was familiar in some way but I couldn’t place where from.
“Like what you see?” He spoke.
“Pardon?” I stammered.
“Did nobody ever tell you it’s rude to stare?” His voice seemed relaxed but intimidating and struck the feel of melancholy in my core.
Where did I know him from?
“Oh sorry,” I looked down “It’s just... I recognise you from somewhere do you go-”
“No. I don’t know you.” The doors opened and he evacuated the elevator.
I stood in thought for a moment. Wait, I’m late.
I rushed to the tube station. Skipping on to the next train that came. It was now 09:45 am. I wasn't even there yet, I looked to my watch again and when the doors opened I ran. Through the barricades up the escalator down the road straight to the doors of my university. I headed to lecture hall although it was on the other side of the campus.
10:05 am
I slammed the door open. The whole hall turns to look at me. I looked to the ground and sat at the first seat I saw. I look left and right on my right was my friend Scott.
He was in a blue bomber jacket and a white t-shirt. His eyes were an average blue and his hair was a dirty blonde but perfectly styled back with a comb. He looked like a 60s heart throb.
“This is unlike you, Missie. You’re top of the class and yet you miss five minutes of your lecture?” He shook his head. “I wonder how Leslie is going to punish you.”
“You may believe that I don’t mind however I am completely overwhelmed and disappointed in myself.” I whispered back to him.
“Good. You may have to treat me to one of your famous coffees to make up for it.” He suggested.
I quietly nodded and carried on listening to the lecturer on the stage ramble on about post war modern fiction.
I got lost in her words and her frequent hand gestures. The blonde lady spoke in full sentences and never stuttered as if she had been doing this for decades.
Her hair seemed to float all the way down to her bum. Her arms and legs also seem to stretch for miles. She seemed tall. Taller than me.
A link!
I started to think back to the stranger in the elevator. He seemed so familiar I scanned through all the heads in the room but none matched his hair. He was strange to me. He looked like a video game character with a tragic back story. I couldn’t wrap my brain around it.
By the time I thought the idea would come to me it was the end of the lecture. The large Hall would siv out of two doors. Scott and I walked out together.
I thought I could ask him “Is there someone in our class, who is the same height as you maybe taller. With patchy stubble, greeny-hazel eyes, ashy brown hair. And kinda dresses like a gangster?”
He paused and thought for a moment playing guess who in his head. He shook his head. “I think I know someone who looks like that but, he doesn’t go to this university,” he scratched his neck as we continued to walk “Anyway, why are you looking for this guy? Did you sleep with him?”
Oh that’s where I could know him from.
“No! I bumped into him in the elevator and he just gave me a deep feeling of melancholy. And I’m just trying to figure out why.” I looked ahead blankly. What was I going to do even if I did figure out who he was.
It’s not like I see him everyday. Maybe I don’t know him he didn’t recognise me. He even said he doesn’t know me.