A Pocket Full of Roses and Other Flowers

Chapter 1: DELPHINIUMS

_Anaya

Day 10 of university. And I’m already starting to get tired of it. Every day I find myself questioning my decision making, or the lack thereof. How and why did I ever decide to get enrolled in this medical university out of all the universities that were open to me? The call letter from King Edward University had remained on the top shelf of my cupboard and haunted me every night for the past few weeks till I finally decided to throw it away last night.

“It was my decision, I’ll make it work,” I reminded myself before tearing the envelope into two.

And yet today in the car ride to Rawal University, I again find myself stuck in the deathly hollows of ruminating about the world of possibilities that I had closed upon myself.

“Stop it, stop it!” I chided myself silently. “Today is going to be better than yesterday.”

But even as I said it, I slumped further down in my seat with the hopelessness of the promise. I wasn’t exactly miserable on campus, don’t get me wrong, I had already encountered a few people that I could call my friends and discounting the minor inconvenience of always running away from seniors to escape the much dreaded ragging, there wasn’t much going on throughout the day. But maybe that was the gist of the problem! There wasn’t anything going on throughout the day. Walking ,rather dragging, my feet from one class to the next and deliberately muting out the professor’s monotonous voice even while listening to him wasn’t my idea of freshers week.  I had hoped of being excited for my university every single day but really there had been nothing that had appealed to me so far…

“Who is he?” My train of thoughts was interrupted as the car jolted to a stop, narrowly avoiding hitting the guy who now looked straight at me through the windshield, his soft brown eyes slightly widened with shock.  My driver raised one hand in apology, and the man waved him off with a gesture of his own. He readjusted the strap of his bag on his shoulder and walked away without darting another glance at me, and I sat blankly in my car with a racing heart for a few moments before Bashir chacha honked loudly and asked me to get out.

“Here we go again,” I whispered as I entered through the metal gates.

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I sat quietly in the Physiology practical, absently drawing circles on my notebook when suddenly I heard my name being called. My head jerked up to find my friend, Mirha, standing in the doorway, signaling me to follow her out of the room.

“Come on Anaya, let’s go to the café before the class starts. I really cant keep down the growling anymore!” Mirha pointed towards her abdomen and I chuckled lightly at her devastated expression. This was the third trip we were taking to the canteen since morning cause apparently, Mirha had missed breakfast and had to compensate for that all day.

“Alright, I’m coming,” I gave a fake gesture of surrender and Mirha pumped her fist in the air in response. This was just why we’d gotten along so well since day 1, Mirha was as childish and crazy as I was and I genuinely enjoyed her company. In fact, she was the only thing that I actually looked forward to in my day. And luckily, she was with me in all of my classes.

I picked up my cellphone and wallet and walked hastily towards the door. Just as I stepped into the hallway, I collided with the rock solid chest of a man.

“Watch out,” he almost snarled and I quickly pulled away to apologize but the words stopped short when I saw who it was-the guy from the morning! The same brown eyes now looked at me coldly, his perfectly symmetrical eyebrows drawn in with exasperation, his strong hands still resting on my waist, steadying my small frame. I took another step back and he let his arms drop to his sides, shuffling a little closer to the wall to give way to the people passing us by. I contemplated offering him an apology but the instant I met his eyes again, I decided against it and instead decided to walk away, muttering a muffled thankyou as I crossed him.  I turned around once to see him give a quick shake of his head before walking into the classroom. “He must think I’m such a fool”, I thought with melancholy and raced to catch up with Mirha.

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"Darn it! The door's locked!" Mirha exclaimed and turned around to face me, making her angelic face look as rueful and apologetic as she could.

"Oh stop it,” I said, rolling my eyes at her. A part of me was really mad at Mirha, and another part was really mad at myself for listening to her. If only I'd steered her away from the cafeteria after seeing the long queue instead of giving in to her pleading, I could have saved us both the embarrassment of being locked out of our first class of the day. Great.

"I think we should just walk off now," I finally muttered and started to walk away.

"No way! I think we should knock, we're only fifteen minutes late after all," Mirha answered and pressing her hand gently against the laminated wood knocked twice.

"Mirha no!" I protested but it was too late. The door unlocked and one of the assistants gestured us to come in.

"See, told you it's going to be fine," Mirha winked at me before entering the class.

"May I come in, Sir?" She asked politely, putting on one of her brightest smiles. All the heads turned up in perfect synchrony.

"Yes," the professor replied, his eyes closely observing every gesture of hers as she gracefully made her way to her seat. I closely followed behind her.

"Where do you think you're going?" His voice boomed suddenly and both Mirha and I stopped in the middle of our tracks. "I didn't ask you to sit, did I?" He raised one eyebrow questioningly, his furious eyes digging into ours.

"Umm..n-no, Sir," Mirha stuttered and backed all the way to the door.

"I don't believe in second chances," he paused dramatically to address his audience before continuing, "so from next time on if any of you is late to my class you shall be debarred from it forever."

 "And that applies not just to these two valiant ladies," he said, pointing his finger towards us and all eyes shifted our way," but to each one of you. Am I clear?" He asked and seventy voices responded in unity, "Yes Sir!"

All eyes shifted back to him, except one pair of eyes that still lingered on my face. I turned my head slightly to see who they belonged to and there he was, the unnamed morning guy, again. He shifted his gaze as soon as I made eye contact but the slight upward curve of his lips clearly indicated his amusement at the entire situation.

Oh God please make this end already, I begged silently.

"Am I clear?" The professor asked again, looking straight at Mirha now. Her face flushed.

"Yes, Sir," she half whispered, half growled.

"Good. Now, get out, " he said dismissively and carried on with his lesson.

We turned our backs to sympathetic glances from some of our batch mates and scurried out of the class. Before closing the door, I looked back  once to see the now almost familiar brown eyes inspecting me curiously. I stood there for a second before closing the door softly behind me.

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