Original Love

Episode Four

“Submit those papers on Monday before 5 pm. That will cover a big portion of your preliminary grades. Do you understand? I’m expecting you all to work hard. After all, saving lives is not just a task… It is a big responsibility.”

All of us mumbled a distinct yes at Mr. Foster as we stood and greeted him before he leaves the room. I sighed back and plop down on my own seat with a distressed look on my face. This week is getting much harder and harder. I wonder how the rest of us are handling the stress.

Maybe I need a drink or two tonight, just to forget all of these before I drain myself on doing the paper for Mr. Foster tomorrow. The essence of traditional medicine in modern technology. What a topic… I want to die now….

Ugh, college life is so life-drowning.

“Samantha, we need to leave now. The next class is about to occupy the room.” I hear Cassidy, the one I met back on the day I first talked to Bradley that night, tells me this as she gathers her stuff and puts them in her bag from the table two rows away from mine where she used to sit. I can already hear the mumbling of the other students from the next class entering the room.

I grudgingly oblige Cassidy’s instruction right away as I absentmindedly put my stuff on my bag as well and move around my seat to walk towards the door exiting the room.

“Samantha, wait up!” I hear Cassidy calls me out again. I stop and turn, looking at her with an anxious face.

“Wanna go have some drink first before going home?” she smiles at me, a hesitant look on her face as she waits up for my reply with patience.

On a normal day, I would have courteously declined her offer. But hell, it’s Saturday, and there are no classes tomorrow. I was feeling down and depressed too, so why not? I smile back at her and nod a yes.

“Great!” Cassidy beams at me as she moves and takes a grab of my shoulder while she drags us out of the room. “Call me Cassie from now on, okay?”

“If you say so…” I gave her a smile as we walk away.

I guess, drinking with some company might not be that bad after all.

****

 “I can’t believe being a doctor would be this hard!” I complained, earning a few stares from the people around us as I talk to Cassie who was also equally mild drunk as I am. We’ve chosen the nearest bar from campus tonight since it is much nearer to our dorms.

“I wish we could just stay in high school forever,” I tell her, gulping a large sum of beer down my throat in a loud way. “At least there, we could still enjoy our social lives, right?”

“Yeah, you bet it’s true,” Cassie agrees back, nodding, but the look on her face alone made it much more comical to watch as I grin at the entire scene. She was beet red but still tries to catch up with my drinking. How nice of her to join me with my distress.

“Don’t ya worry girl, we’ll have each other’s backs from now on,” I say to her, smiling sincerely as I pat her on the shoulder, “Just tell me if you’re having a hard time and I’ll help you.”

“You’re really nice, Samantha.  The first time I saw you, to be honest, I knew you’d be a great friend,” she replies to me, earning me a funny snort.

“You’re making me blush, girl!!!!” I laughed at her so loud, most of the people around us stare back at the two of us. I know…

I was already drunk, unfortunately.

“What time is it now?” Cassie asks me suddenly, frowning down on the glass she’d been holding by her hand, thinking it was probably a clock or something, “I think I had curfew…”

“Curfew?” I giggled at her, “College people don’t need curfew anymore, Cass. Come on and drink with me. We deserve to have fun, at least.”

Cassie giggles back to my statement as we call out to the bartender for another set of drinks. But before the guy behind the counter could even hand us our orders, a hand grabs my wrist and I turn to look up and see an extremely handsome guy standing beside the stool I’m sitting at.

“What are you…?” I asked the guy in annoyance but trailed off as I frown at him to get a clearer view of his somehow familiar face since it seems to appear so blurred to my eyes.

“Give them some water, instead. Please,” the guy said, in that very familiar voice.

Wait… I heard that voice before… Is he…?

“You girls need to get home now.” The handsome guy tells me and he looks at someone behind me and I recalled I was with Cassie too. Oh, Cassie, I forgot. I think she knew this guy. Is he her boyfriend? Crap… We’re dead.

“Cassie—“ I turn around only to see Cassie half-faced-down on the bar counter. Her entire body was immobile.

“Is she still alive?” I asked anxiously and I felt arms gather me by my side to help me stand.

“Jared, could you help me out here for a moment, please?” I hear the handsome guy shouts across the bar and another guy moves into my vision, trying to wake Cassie up.

“Hey, what are you doing? Who the hell—“

“Relax, Sam,” I hear the handsome guy tells me and I turn to him, only to face his incredibly good-smelling shirt. Damn, he smells so nice. “We’re taking the two of you home.”

“Do I know you?” I frowned up, shaking my head to get a better view of that handsome face again.

I hear the handsome guy chuckles back, our feet bumping into each other as he tries to move me out of the place. “It’s me, Bradley. You’re really drunk. What did you even drink?”

“Tequila. And beer. And Tequila… Then beer again, I think. I love them both anyway.”

I hear a car stops in front of us and I groggily watch Cassie being safely tucked inside the backseat of a yellow car.

“Where is she going? We still have to drink again,” I say, trying to move to follow her.

“No, Sam,” Bradley tells me as he holds me back and reaches something to the other guy who had helped Cassie. “She’ll be going home now. She needs to go home.”

“What about me?” I look up to him, frowning in disappointment. Damn, I still want to drink with her.

“You’re going home too,” Bradley says, as he mumbles a ‘thank-you’ to the guy who just helped him with Cassie, and then we’re both left alone outside of the bar, under the dark cold night.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you so nice to me? You should hate me. I know you hate me.” I ramble on without even really thinking while I nuzzle my nose against the soft fabric of Bradley’s shirt. Damn, if he just doesn’t smell this nice.

“I don’t hate you. I like you, remember?” I hear him replies to me, his voice creating ripples of warm vibrations through the thick fabric that is covering his chest while he speaks. I sigh back, immediately giving in to the pleasure of his smell and warmth. His arms felt so unnaturally comfortable. And surprising as it is to even admit… I suddenly feel like wanting to stay here forever now.

“How did you know I was even here?” I drunkenly ask him, pushing myself off of his chest while I sway on my own with a finger pointing up to his face. “You always appear out of nowhere… Are you stalking me, Bradley Evans?” I laugh at the thought and stop with a hiccup.

But the bastard just quietly looks down at me, smiling mischievously at my current state.

“Scratch that, it sounds ridiculous,” I mumble in a tired voice, feeling my head slowly going down on its own but luckily landing on a warm hard wall on my front.

“Sam, pull yourself together,” I hear Bradley whispers to my ear as he tries to stand me upright.

“How will I get home now?” I ask him out of curiosity, pulling away as I look around us but failed to see where I really was because everything just came out so blurred.

“I’m driving you to your place.”

“What?” I stare up at him, but the entire movement made me dizzy once more as I try so hard not to go into the darkness but it was already too late. I had lost sight of him. “What are you saying…?”

“Sam? Hey…”

And the last thing I only remembered before I lost my entire consciousness, was the incredible smell of Bradley’s shirt tickling my nostrils as I try to inhale it in.

It surely is the first thing, I think, I sincerely like about him now.

****

 “What… the… He…ll…”

My head hurts like hell. My eyes felt so heavy, I couldn’t even manage to open them up that much. I squint through the heavy sunlight, trying to figure out where I was, and was relieved to see I’m in my own dorm room and on my bed.

Whew, I thought I was in trouble again…

 But wait… I frown to myself. How did I even get here? I don’t recall taking a taxi back from the bar or calling Austin to give me a ride… Wait a minute… Something is off here…

I smell different. I move to look down my body and see myself in a pair of pajamas I surely didn’t wear last night with Cassie. And as I move around my bed, I smell an entirely new presence. In my own room… Someone is with me here. I don’t feel all alone. Someone is…

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!” I glare and shout at the big figure sitting on the chair next to my dresser, watching me with complete amusement.

“You’re awfully loud in the morning, Sam,” he tells me and smirks at my current situation, “You’re hair also looks so wild. Do you always look like this after waking up? Mind if you comb it first?”

How in the hell…?

“I’m driving you to your place.”

“You… You… last night?”

“Don’t worry, I just drove you back here and told your roommate to change your clothes. I didn’t do anything other than that, believe me. I went home after making sure you’re okay then just went back this morning to check up on you again,” he tells me, and I knew he was telling the truth. His face might be sometimes suspicious and superficial, but I already knew when he can be trusted.

This time, I knew he was being genuine.

“Well, thanks for all of that,” I tell him half-heartedly, still feeling embarrassed and annoyed at the same time. I couldn’t believe I pushed myself to my limits last night. It wasn’t like me. “You can go now, you know?”

I look at Bradley, who was still watching me in silence from where he sat and scowled. He doesn’t seem to hear my request.

“Bradley, guys are prohibited in the girls’ dormitory. You need to leave.”

“Don’t worry, the landlord knows me and she always lets me in.” he simply explains as if that would have made me feel much better. Well, to be honest, I don’t feel good at all with him here.

“Fine then, to tell you the truth, I really don’t like you here in my room. So leave,” I tell him with a deathly stare and he just laughs back at me. The nerve of this guy…

“This is not funny, Brad.”

He stops for a second and looks at me with that strange reaction on his face. He suddenly looks as if he had just discovered something that immensely pleases him. What? Did I say something wrong now? What is it? Why is he staring at me like that?

Bradley shifts on his seat and rests his arms on his legs as he looks at me with sudden interest, “You called me Brad. I like how it sounds.”

I blanched. Did I just call him that? Damn it, Sam. Wrong move.

“I love the sound of Brad from you. I like it. I want to be close to you, Sam.”

Ha?! No, I don’t like that. It would never do me any good.

I watch him stand from the seat and move to approach me. I nervously move as well and quickly push my body off of the bed, avoiding any reasonable contact with him. He’s contagious. That wicked flawless face is danger!

Bradley just smiles at my silly reaction and lets it go as he gestures to something resting above my dresser. “I brought you coffee for the hangover and some pills so you won’t feel any pain. You shouldn’t really do that kind of thing next time, Sam.”

I watch him stare at me in that deep set of brown eyes as he stood there for a second in silence. He looked so divine, with that serious expression on his face that I temporarily forgot that I don’t like him at all.

“Don’t ever drink outside without me by your side, okay?” He says in a very weird tone and gives me a little wave before turning around to walk out of my room. I stayed glued on my spot feeling too anxious and confused as I try to process what he just told me.

What is wrong with that guy?! Seriously, what does he want from me?