Vive sat on her bed, looking through the schedule she was meant to start following the next day. She had just one credit short of a full load, and was constantly going between worrying about class work, especially in her literature class, as she'd always been a slow reader, and being aggravated by that one credit keeping her from feeling like she was doing all she could. It was a topic she consistently liked to complain about, she she texted Alden. He had fought his own advisor the last semester so he could go over the cap, and she wasn't sure if she respected him more for it or if she thought he was insane.
She was bored. Looking at her class schedule could only pass the time the first 7 or 8 times she stared at it. At this point, it was just sad.
Ella was on the phone again, apparently with a family member. The fire she had the day before was gone, but so was most of the guilt. She half-eavesdropped on her, catching too little of the conversation to actually be able to follow any of it. If she had to guess, it had something to do with a cat. Or possibly her brother. She really didn't know.
It was early afternoon and she'd gotten nothing done except finally putting away about a tenth of her miscellaneous junk. The desk drawers were very unhappy with her.
She hadn't seen Alden since she'd walked back the night before. Therese had never shown up, but she'd texted him that she was home and wanted to see him. So they'd left together and parted at the top of the street Therese lived on. He'd seemed happy. He'd only woken up about an hour ago and then messaged her in every way possible, something she was generally used to. It went from texting from his phone, to texting from Therese's, to emailing her from the desktop in the kitchen, to messaging her on social media from who knew where.
After a split second of hesitation, she texted Ena.
She buried her head in the blankets piled onto her bed. It was getting hot again, and she was losing the motivation to move. She heard Ella shift on her bed, her words sounding suddenly emotional. She jumped off the bed, grabbed something, and left, letting the door swing shut behind her. And then, it was disgustingly quiet.
She picked up her phone and clicked on her favorite time passing website- it was full of people freaking out about different things happening in the world, in the form of articles. The newest one was about the ocean's water levels rising and how it would affect tropical birds. It was mainly alarmist, but she read the entire article, as well as the comments, which ranged from people freaking along with the author, and people calling everyone else idiots.
She continued scrolling through the site, reading every article she passed until, after clicking one titled "They Don't Want to Tell Us About the Swarms", she got a notification from Alden, saying he was back on campus and needed food.
She met him in the student union, sitting at one of the high tables with a questionable yet intriguing piece of cod before her.
"How's Therese?" She asked, as he flopped himself down with two gigantic pieces of pizza.
"Lovely as always," He said with a small smile. "She has a new housemate who's kind of a dick, but otherwise everything's good." He took a bite of one of the pieces. "Speaking of housemates, how's Ella?"
"She's alright," She replied. "She apologized about forty times for bailing on us last night, and I think her cat may have ran away, but overall I'd say she's holding up."
"So," Alden said, holding the pizza out like a white flag of peace. "Michelle is throwing a party tonight and it's supposed to be really great."
"Ehh, I don't really feel like going to another party- especially not right before classes start."
