Yours

Chapter 4

“And that will be the end of this orientation. I welcome all of you once again and wish you success. The snacks are to be served in room number 3. Have a good day.” The man who addressed himself as Mr. Lee had finally finished his long speech after explaining to us about the campus, its courses and every other detail of the staff at the campus.

He nodded a smile to all of us and made his way out of the hall followed by all the staff members.

Justin and his friends restlessly move out of the hall pushing through everyone and others follow. I just wait for everyone to exit because crowds are very annoying to deal with.

A girl wearing a red checkered shirt, baggy blue jeans and converse approaches me.

“Hi, are you a freshman?” she asks me questioningly.

“Yes, I am” I say smiling at her. My legs kinda hurt from standing for an hour but I think walking would help ease the pain.

“Hmm, thank God! I don’t know what’s happening here” she says, sighing in relief.

“Don’t worry, it’s a chaos now but it will be fine in a few weeks or so.” I say and she just twirls her blonde hair in her fingers listening to me.

“Let’s go get some food, I’m starving” she says, holding her stomach.

***

“I didn’t catch your name” the blonde tells me, standing behind me waiting for the line to move forward.

“That’s probably because I didn’t say it” I say grabbing a piece of bread from the counter.

She giggles like a small little girl grabbing bread too.

“Aurelia Evans” I tell her moving towards the juice counter and grabbing a mango one for me.

“Cindy Mathers” she says giving me a very big grin.

“It’s really crowded here, so I’m going to head out and sit on the benches. You want to join me?” I ask her in attempts to finally make a new friend in this place.

“Yeah sure” she says following me out of the hall. We head towards the benches that are aligned on either side of the long stoned passageway which leads us to the grounds. We grab a seat on one of the yellow stoned benches.

Justin and his weird friends are sitting on the opposite side, great! Call this bad luck or what?

“So what subjects have you taken” Cindy asks me, unwrapping the paper off her granola bar.

“Psychology, maths, English and Statistics.” I tell her. “I’m really happy with my subject selection because it is my first semester here and these subjects are things I’m most comfortable with. What about you?”

“I’ve taken Psychology too! But otherwise I have Law, Computers and Physics.” She tells me.

“Do you like psychology?” Cindy asks me, trying to move the conversation ahead. I nod a yes to her.

“Oh good because psychology is the…..” she’s now rambling about how much she likes the subject, moving her hands in the air.

I take a bite from my cream puff and place it back on the plate. I’m trying really hard to concentrate on what Cindy is telling me but Justin and his friends are creating such a noise on the other side that I keep getting distracted.

I nod at Cindy once again, assuring her that I’m listening and look straight at Justin who is lighting his cigarette. He’s wearing black jeans with a black t-shirt like the one he was wearing yesterday and has a beanie on his head with his hair in the front. He’s sitting with his elbows pressed to his knees and his back arching front.

I’ve been staring at him for minutes now. Cindy has moved from talking about psychology to talking about her dog. “So he was really cute and puffy and I miss him so much. I wish I could talk to him right now but I can’t because my phone's dead” she says and I now doubt whether she’s still talking about her dog or her boyfriend.

In a quick moment, Justin looks up and catches me staring at him. I look away as fast as I can to avoid any awkward situations, but I can still feel his eyes on me.

I go back to listening to Cindy speak and interrupt her, “So do you stay in the dorms or you live around here?”

“I live just 10 minutes from here, the dorms are eww. I don’t think I can ever adjust to something like that.” She says flicking her hands in the air. “So anyway, coming back to puffy, he was 3 when I got him and I haven’t let him go since then…”

I look up from Cindy and move my eyes slowly to where Justin is sitting, he’s still looking at me and this time I look back at him. He’s kinda surprised by the fact that I’m looking at him too but if he can so can I!

He’s looking at me and I’m looking at him. The world around me at this point of time is a blur. I like how his eyes shine in the sun. It’s a game. I’m interrupted by Cindy nudging my shoulders.

“Are you even listening to me?” she says and I quit looking at Justin to look at Cindy who is sitting cross legged on the bench.

“Yeah Cindy I am. Umm, listen” I tell her, moving myself to sit cross legged so that I can face her.

“Yeah?” she says her expression changing as though I’m going to ask her out.

“Could you please look on the opposite bench and tell me whether the black t-shirt guy is still looking at me?” I ask her rather desperately but I really need to know.

She slowly moves from sitting cross legged to sitting straight. She slowly looks up at him and then looks back at me in a quick second. She’s damn good at this haha!

“Yeah he is.” She says, now smirking at me.

I nod and smile to her, “Ahan.”

“What’s the matter with the two of you anyway? He’s looking at you here; he was looking at you throughout the God damn orientation. You’re looking at him here. What’s up? You two got something going on?” she elbows me.

“Looking at me throughout orientation what?” I ask her, very surprised at what I’m hearing.

“Yeah, I was sitting behind him. So I could see his head not concentrating on the board but on something in the corner and then I arch forward to find you being the only one standing on that corner.” She says, moving her hands in the air again.

“No no you must have been mistaken. He must be looking at something else.” I say and stand up to throw our plates in the dustbin.

I walk straight up to the dustbin which is right next to Justin and throw the plates. He stands up immediately, to be standing only a few inches away from me and it's like I've been frozen in my position. He’s looking into my eyes as he throws the cigarette to the floor, stomps it under his converse and leaves giving me one last look.

I head back to our bench where Cindy is sitting and she looks at me with a huge grin on her face.

“What was that?” she asks and I just sit there looking at him walk inside the ground.