Tale of Two

Chapter 4

It was Thursday morning, Cora woke up in her new bed for the sixth time. Well for the fifth actually, because she spent last Friday night at Harry’s. Her room looked much better now, filled up with everything she needed to have a nice and comfortable life, and nothing that would have reminded her of Will. The whole ex-boyfriend drama seemed surreal to her, between trips to IKEA, getting to know her flatmates and having the first classes at school, she didn’t really have time to cry about him, although she still went to sleep and woke up with his name on her lips.

It was more of a habit than an action driven by emotion. She was used to not sleeping alone in a big bed and she craved the warmth of another body. But she knew that it wasn’t the time for pitying herself as she rolled out from the bed. She didn’t want to be the girl who let the guy walk all over her. She could see now that one of her biggest mistake was to take Will back after he cheated on her. There is simply no excuse for that, but by giving him another chance she unintentionally communicated that he could do basically anything to her and still get away with it. And he did exactly that. He made a fool out of her and she wanted to beat up the whole wide world for that, she wanted to tear it to tiny little pieces, because she had some pride after all and it was brutally hammered, stomped into the ground.

“Positive thoughts Cora, positive thoughts...” she murmured as she walked into the kitchen, finding Melanie and Angelica completely dressed, eating their breakfast around the tiny table.

Her flatmates were a ridiculous pair who would have been tolerable if it wasn’t for their lack of basic human kindness. Judging from the look of their room, Cora thought they will be your typical tumblr girls, floating around their egos and floral print skirts, and in a sense they were.

Just not the popular ones.

It took about two days for Cora to understand that they were luridly censorious, non-stop gossiping about every single breathing soul around them. She couldn’t care less that their poor traits of character were probably the results of their insecurities. She had been really looking forward to having new flatmates, she’d so badly wanted them to be nice and cool, but instead she got two bitter creatures who very much reminded her of an uncompassionate spinster and her loyal best friend.

Nonetheless she decided to be the nicest she could possibly be and crack their code, maybe even become a part of their pitiful gossip club one day, just for the sake of a friendly atmosphere in the flat, but they weren’t too willing. They kept stealing glances when Cora walked out of the bathroom, a towel draped around her body and when she disappeared in her room, she could hear them whispering about how her legs looked.

She laughed it off, because she was one hundred percent sure when it came to her body and physical appearance. She was toned and pretty with curves and all while Mel and Angie were a bit on the chubby side. Nothing too serious, just enough roundness to get jealous of Cora’s firm body. She wasn’t skinny, she had enough meat on her bones, but she’d managed to maintain a good enough fitness over the years of training.

Her mother knew no joke about staying fit when she was a child, she’d been brought up to love and want physical activity, that was one thing on her parents side she was immensely grateful for. She had no problem with any body types, she just preferred to stay fit and refused to be harassed about it.

“Good morning,” she managed a smile, even though the two other girls were just staring at her with slightly surprised expressions.

“What are you doing here?”

“Well, I want to have uhh breakfast?” She was too sleepy for this.

“But it’s 8.40, aren’t you going to be late for your class?”