Perception

II

They got off at their stop and walked the last kilometre or so to the college building. Anna was actually a bit tense, now. Yes, she'd been a student here for two years, so she didn't have to flail around anymore, looking for the right building in a strange country where she didn't speak the language or getting lost in the big edifice with its strange signage, but still. A new year, an important year, with new faces and lots of people she didn't know yet.
Anna wasn't really a group person at the best of times, but she'd done alright here so far. It was a friendly place.

They walked into the lecture hall together and sat side by side in the third row, waiting for the professor to enter the room. Students were filing into the hall, most of them the familiar faces Anna had gotten used to last year. Amsterdam was a melting pot of many cultures, so the students came from all over the globe. Anna loved that. It gave her a feeling of freedom, of unlimited potential.
She said hi to a few fellow students, smiles and chit chat ubiquitous around her as everyone produced laptops and bottles of water from backpacks and set up, ready for the professor to start the lecture.

Suddenly, without warning, it was like she'd touched an electric fence. The shock flew from the tips of her fingers into her arm and her torso, settling in her stomach. Her eyes involuntarily shot back to the entrance.
A young guy with a dark mop of unruly hair and typical student attire was walking in, his bag slung over his right shoulder just like hers always was. He had a smiling, pleasant face. It was a face that seemed open but yet... yet she had the feeling there was a world behind those eyes. Those dark, dark eyes, dancing with the halogen lights in the lecture hall as he talked with some other guy next to him.
What?
She shook her head again. She was being weird today. She had never looked at boys much, she'd never really felt the need for one. She did just fine on her own. So why did her eyes keep being pulled back to this new boy in her year now?

She was almost literally saved by the bell as the professor turned on the microphone and addressed the class. She opened her Chromebook as well now, and turned her focus on professor Jansen, who seemed to be jumping right into the new year without any preamble. Anna really liked professor Jansen, who looked as Dutch and as professory as it was humanly possible to look with a  pale face framed in grey curls, and wearing his oversized slacks and a light button down shirt. He even tended to lose his reading glasses; Sarah had suggested a while back that they play a sneaky drinking game one of these lectures, having to do a shot every time he lost them.
Anna tried her best to focus, but she didn't seem to be able to find her normal concentration today, the weirdness finding her again, flooding her system, making it impossible for her to hear what the professor said.
For once she might have to rely on Sarah's notes, instead of the other way around.

The students filed out of the hall after the lecture, and Anna made very sure to keep her eyes firmly on Sarah. She had no idea what all that had been about, but the sooner this strangeness was gone the better, as far as she was concerned.
They walked towards the library automatically.
¨So! First lecture done, with no drama.¨ Sarah said in her eternally upbeat voice.
Anna smiled. She wasn't so sure about the no drama, but since she had no idea what was bothering her she wasn't about to say that to Sarah.
¨Yeah. First of many, hey? So...¨ she hesitated. ¨There were some new faces there, did you see?¨
Sarah looked at her in surprise, clearly interpreting her tone better than Anna intended her to.
¨Yeah, I did see. Anyone in particular in mind?¨
Her smirk was over the top, really, and Anna would have said something snappy back, but she didn't get a chance because out of the blue someone crashed into her, knocking the wind out of her.