Graffiti Wars

three

Technically speaking, I only had 3 hours of class today. It was one of my lighter days in terms of in-class hours, but I also had a midterm coming up, an essay to write and I had a work shift later tonight.

I remember thinking to myself that less in-class hours meant more free time, but so far that hadn't been true, the amount of studying and homework outside of class made sure that was impossible. 

The bed in my room was looking especially welcoming today after not actually getting any sleep last night. I had put a foam mattress topper on the shitty old mattress the residence had given me and decorated it with frilly sheets and mustard yellow pillows. While it still wasn't as good as my bed back home, I'd gotten used to the memory foam and had come to love the few hours I had every night to lie there. 

Unfortunately, going to sleep now would throw off my schedule for the rest of the day, so there would be none of that today. 

My room was still a mess from the night before. Spray cans and stencil cuttings in a heap in the corner by the bed. Some clothes that never actually made it back into my closet were lying in a heap on my desk chair and the clothes that actually had made it back to the closet were decorating the floor. 

I stuck my headphones in, mindful of the people who were still trying to sleep and keeping the noise down, before cracking open my window for fresh air and quickly tidying up. 

After a quick shower, I grabbed a large coffee and breakfast from the dining hall, paid for by my meal plan, before shuffling back into my room to study.

As much as I loved my major and what I was studying, the monotony of it all always got to me. I woke up at the same time day after day. Attended the same classes. Saw and talked to the same people. Spending my time studying and going to bed. Eventually, it starts to feel like every day is just the continuum of one never-ending day.

Thank god for vandalism keeping me on my toes and keeping me sane between the weeks.

I plowed through a class reading before running off to my first class of the day. 

Nothing about today was very out of the ordinary aside from the whispers I was hearing about my anonymous art. Sat in the same seat I usually sat in, saw the same friends in my classes as I usually saw. It was at this point in the semester where most students stopped even bothering to show for classes so you got to know the people who actually did. 

It wasn't until after my intro to biology course that I ran into an out of the ordinary situation. 

It was the boy again. That boy again was in my biology course. 

It was a big course, held in the biggest classroom on campus, with a whopping 1,500 seats, so I wasn't all that surprised that I'd never seen him before. Although, I'm sure that if I had seen him before, I wouldn't even have noticed him anyway. He was attractive but in a very average sort of way. The same way that all bad boys looked with a cigarette hanging out of their mouths and cocky grins gracing their faces.

I really wasn't his type. 

You don't want to be his type anyway, Harley, I reminded myself. 

Class had ended and everyone was shuffling out the door. He was a few steps ahead of me, moving in the same direction that I was moving. If everything went smoothly, he wouldn't turn around and see me. 

The crowd kept moving through the halls towards the door, I followed along, when, much to my horror, he swept his hand through his hair and turned, sweeping his eyes over the room. 

He didn't notice me at first and I thought I was in the clear when his eyes went from looking at the crowd in the distance to the crowd right behind him. At me.