pull me back | a drag me down spin off

【two】

Holding a bag of m&m's in my hand, I pop three into my mouth and take a seat outside of Cameron's media classroom. Since he's my ride home, I have to wait for him to finish giving his presentation. I'm sure he's crushing it, though. Cameron is an awesome businessman. Even though we're finishing college in a few weeks, his business degree will take him far.

I'm a criminal justice major, just like my mother once was. I really want to become a lawyer and applied to a few law schools since I'm almost done at UCLA.

My goal was to get into Harvard, but I think my application got lost in the mail. I know it's an odd chance of me actually getting accepted, so I made sure to also apply to schools in California and other parts of the west coast. I'm a sucker for warm weather and sunshine.

When the door swings open, a short man with white hair exits the classroom with a pleasantly pleased smile on his face. Cameron struggles to get his giant poster board into the hallway, so I automatically place my m&m's into my bag and rush to help him.

"Here we go again." I laugh, making my presence known.

"Gray, you're here." He huffs, pivoting the poster that I'm already growing sick of.

"Of course I'm here, you're my ride." I teasingly smirk at him.

"You could have just walked home." He shrugs.

I grab onto the other side of the cardboard and walk down three flights of stairs, praying that I don't trip.

"What kind of best friend would I be if I let you lug this thing down to your car all by yourself?" I laugh, mentally doing a happy dance once we exit the building. Walking to his car is the easy part, especially since he parked right in the front.

"How was your presentation?" I ask, shoving the nine pieces of tapped cardboard into the backseat.

"At first I thought I rambled too much, but I think it ended up being fine. He loved the graphs and statistics I included with it, and he said I'm a great public speaker. I mean, he isn't wrong." Cameron smirks and gets into the driver's seat.

"I knew you would do amazing." I happily smile and pull out peanut m&m's from my bag. "Here, this is your present."

"My favorite." His eyes light up in excitement before tearing the bag open and placing some of the chocolate sweetness into his mouth. "Thanks, Gray. What did I do to deserve a best friend like you?"

"Easy, you sat next to me in earth science. The rest is history." I reminisce on the moment Cameron and I met. It was the first day of school and he sat next to me, told me my aqua blue converse were sick, then gave me a piece of gum. We've been inseparable ever since.

Turning down the street, we pass the lacrosse field on our way out of campus. My eyes turn to look at the players warming up.

"Wasn't this morning weird?" I can't help but mutter.

"You mean when my poster crashed onto the floor? Yeah, that was so annoying." Cameron loudly groans.

"No, I meant Riker Sinclair."

"Oh, what about him?" He turns his head to look at me.

"He knew my name. We've never spoken before." I simply shrug.

"You don't question a guy like Riker. Every sorority girl talks about him, he's the big man on campus."

"Maybe I'll check out a lacrosse game." I smirk to myself.

"So, now you're interested in him because he knew your first and last name?" Cameron gives me a pointed look. "The guy is a real douchebag."

"That seems to be my type, Zack was also a douchebag." I bring up my old high school boyfriend.