My Place- Randall Carpio Love Story

The start of something big

Remi paced the small space in front of Hamish and Randall as she mouthed the words to her presentation. Her eyes darted between from the cards in her hands to the space above her as she tried to memorize what she was supposed to say. 

She stopped at Randall's leg that he had propped up on the coffee table and turned to pace the other way. Her hands waved theatrically through the air as she tried to think of which words to put extra emphasis on to make her Powerpoint over "The Negative Effects of Silence Policing on College Campuses" sound the least bit interesting. 

She stalled a step as she forget the next statistic. She groaned and raised her notecard to jog her memory. "Sixty-seven percent of all people..." She muttered to herself as she went back to pacing. She reached the staircase and turned once again to head back to Randall's leg. "This is why I think it's important..." She looked up at the ceiling as she let her hands hang loose. She didn't want to overly rely on her notecards. The last time she did, her Criminology Professor deducted points from her score. She had to be careful or else she'd slip down to a B, and she was not about to get a B in Criminology. 

"Hey," Jack's voice cut through the delicate silence of the room. It made Remi jump and stop by Randall's leg. She teetered forward and pressed a hand against his knee to balance herself. 

"Sh," Lilith hissed as she typed away on her laptop behind Hamish and Randall. 

Remi gave Jack a pointed look before she turned and continued on with her presentation. 

"I thought we were going to fight evil?" Jack's whisper was almost as loud as his regular voice, but Remi tried to ignore it as she pressed on with her speech. She flipped to the next notecard and looked at it to know what to go on about next. 

"And we will," Randall didn't try for a whisper and there was something about his voice that made it nearly impossible for Remi to ignore. "When there's evil to fight."

"Until then, will you all please shut up so I can work on my essay?" Lilith snapped at all of them. 

Remi waved her hand back blindly at Lilith as she mouthed the script she had constructed for the speech. 

"What are you writing about?" Hamish asked Lilith as he continued to read from his massive book. 

Remi turned by the stairs and looked over her notecards at Hamish. Why did he have to ask her? She requested silence. He should have given her silence. 

"The feminist metaphor of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein."  She answered, although it was her that wanted complete silence. 

Remi narrowed her eyes and glanced over at Randall who dropped his book with a finger on the line he was trying to read. His eyes slid up to met hers, then he gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes. She bit into her cheek to try and keep in a laugh. She looked back down at her notecards to refresh her memory, then dropped them as she looked across the room to try and imagine an auditorium of students. 

"Let me guess, the monster's a clitoris." There was an absolute to Hamish's voice, almost as if he had heard the metaphor before. 

Remi let out a small breath as she looked over at the two. She caught the tail end of Lilith flipping him off before she looked back at her essay. After a second, she gave a begrudging, meek, "Yes."

Randall gave a soft chuckle as he went back to his reading. Hamish seemed satisfied too as he picked up his book. 

When Remi was sure they stopped talking she began her mock speech again. "Now, I know you all think silent policing revolves solely around drinking..." Her breathy words slowed as she thought through the next part in her head. In place of pacing she stood with her back to the stairs as she looked directly in front of her. Her eyes glossed over as she tried to visualize her notecards without actually looking at them.