The Wall and the Flower

Chapter 3: My Match-maker Running Partner (Claire's POV)

The next morning I woke up to the blaring sound of an alarm. I groaned loudly and rolled over in my bed, pressing the end of my pillow against my ear to drown out the noise. News flash: it didn't work. I opened my eyes just a little bit, peeking over at my roommate's side of the room.

She sat up and stretched, her shirt rising just a little bit exposing her stomach and she sighed. She ran a hand through her hair on her scalp, not trailing them down as it was tied in a messy braid and stood up. I groaned again, though softer this time, and flopped my head down and tried to go back to sleep, but a soft voice pulled me out again.

"I'm...I'm sorry I woke you. I should've said something...about me being a morning person."

She lowered her head and grabbed her shower caddy and a towel and left the room. Feeling sleep leave me, I sat up and rubbed my eyes, running my hands from my eyes and down my face. Sighing, I got up and got dressed, pulling on a running t-shirt, black yoga pants and my sneakers, pulled my hair into a ponytail, and grabbed my phone, headphones, and ID and left my room.

The campus was quiet as students tried to get a few more days of sleeping in before classes started next week, which I wasn't looking forward to. Plugging in my headphones into my ears and starting my running playlist, I shoved my phone into the pocket of my pants along with my ID, and took off running in a random direction, not really caring where I ended up. That's what I did when I was bored: I ran. I loved running, but for some reason, I hated doing it for a competition. So, I pretty much hated track and field.

I remembered my breathing exercises and practiced them as I pushed myself to run faster. The beautiful morning scenery of campus flew by me in a colorful blur, not that I was looking. My eyes were focused solely on the path in front of me, so I didn't have time to process when a tall guy wearing a blue athletic shirt and black running pants with light blonde hair ran in front of me, throwing me off my rhythm, causing me to stumble. I thought I was going to fall, but to my surprise, the same guy that cut me off caught me and saved me from a few bad cuts and scrapes. He steadied me and looked at my face and smirked at me.

"You didn't see that coming, did you? You should probably watch where you're going. You don't want to hurt yourself. Or others," he said, his smirk growing. I furrowed my brow in frustration, feeling my anger coming to the surface. I stepped closer to him and stood on my tippy-toes and jabbed a finger into his chest.

"I should watch where I'm going? You're the one that came out of nowhere! You watch where you're going."

He was quiet for a moment as he looked me up and down, still smirking. Finally his smirk turned into a smile and said, "You know you're cute when you're angry." Which did nothing to help dissipate my anger. "I'm Pietro. What's your name, beautiful?"

I scoffed and started to walk away, but something about Pietro made me turn back to him. Staring into his light blue eyes, I gave him my best intimidation look—which made him smirk again—and placed my hands on my hips, leaning to one side.

"Wouldn't you like to know."

"I would. I would like to know very much," he replied quickly, not missing a beat. He really thought he was being so smooth. He had no idea how much of an asshole he was sounding like right now. I debated strongly on whether or not I should give him my name. I mean...what was the harm in giving it to him? I had a pretty common name and I could guarantee that there were multiple people on this campus alone with the same name as me, so it's not like he could find me or something. Plus, he didn't know where I lived, so I'm pretty sure I'm safe. Bicky would probably say otherwise, but who cares? He's not here. I folded my arms across my chest and smirked back at Pietro who was waiting patiently for an answer.