To Dream Is To Die

Chapter 3-1

3Classes started today. I was taking mostly general education courses because I still didn’t know what I wanted to major in. Deciding your major was a big deal, and I wasn’t ready to choose but the classes seemed pretty standard. The only standout was one elective; I thought that I might as well dabble in computer programming since I loved technology. To my greatest delight, Erica was in two of my classes, and Aeria in none. Insert sarcastic comment here. Aeria took some of the same classes, but we were in different sections.

Getting up at seven was not fun. Erica had to get up at the same time, but all she did was moan and complain the entire time about how much she hated early classes. I had a feeling she would be taking a nap in most of them. Although she didn’t come home shitfaced like the night before, she did get back really late.

Thankfully, I hadn’t seen Damon again. So I was praying the pattern of him randomly showing up would break and he wouldn’t appear in any of my classes. Although I promised Aeria I’d be nicer to him, I hoped that I wouldn’t have had to fulfill that promise any time soon.

As if the universe heard my internal pleas, it decided to laugh and flip me off instead. With Erica bitching beside me, we walked into the classroom to see Damon sitting in the back row. It seemed like he didn’t agree with the morning either. He looked just as grumpy as Erica with his messy black hair covering his eyes. Thanks to him, though, I was going to have to sit in the front. There was no way I was going to sit near him or let myself drift to sleep around him. If he had seen me the other day, I didn’t want to risk giving him the satisfaction of being right in his theories—whatever they were.

When I went to sit down he didn’t seem to notice me, which allowed me to relax my shoulders just a little. Erica made her way to the very back, and I could hear her flop in her seat. I wanted to go to a small college because of the class sizes. One of the reasons I chose this place was because the maximum number of students allowed per room was about thirty. Now I was regretting my decision.

Throughout the class and the rest of the day, I simply sat up front and focused on taking notes. The last thing I wanted to do was accidently doze off in class and have Damon randomly catch me outside of my body. Although he was only in the first class of the day, Damon seemed to keep popping up randomly throughout the day. While transitioning between classes, I attempted to leave quickly, but a minor traffic jam of students in the hall forced me to pause. Damon stood directly behind me for what felt like an uncomfortable amount of time before I was able to squeeze through the group of students. Then, while in my last class of the day, he just walked in to hand the professor something. I would have thought nothing of it, except he looked right at me, expression blank, before he left.

He knew what he saw, and he wasn’t going to let it go. Whether it was with subtle methods or obvious ones, Damon wanted me to know he wasn’t going to drop it. It was obvious he and Aeria were at the very least friends, despite her glaring desire for something more. And Aeria was, so far, my only friend on this entire campus. If I wanted to keep said friend, I’d have to somehow make it work with Damon. Whatever she saw in him, I’d never know. I guess he wasn’t unattractive, and he had a boyish charm. Charm, she loved, but it was that charm I hated.

After Damon left the classroom, the professor said the words I loathed most of all: group project. She wanted us to work with the person next to us on a project that would last most of the semester. Considering my personality and inability to communicate normally with your average humans, this was one of my worst nightmares.

The guy next to me turned and introduced himself. “Hey, I’m Mike. Do you want to go ahead and exchange emails and numbers?”

Completely caught off guard by him even talking to me, I wrote my email and number down and handed it to him as I tried to speak. “Sure. I’m Brenna.”

As he wrote his information down, I decided to take a closer look at him. He was a little taller than Damon; his hair was very short and blond, and he looked a bit older. Mike seemed nice, but I didn’t want to let my guard down so easily.

Despite the stuttering and acting like a complete flake a few moments ago, he was the kind of person I imagined Erica would like. In her language, he was hot. I hated to think that way and give him that much power, despite the fact he wasn’t aware of it. His blond hair contrasted his soft brown eyes. They were lighter than mine, giving him a kinder expression. He wasn’t ripped by any means either, but he was still well built and muscular. It wasn’t anything special but, for some reason, I found him attractive.

He handed me his information, breaking my train of thought. “Here you go. So, what do you want to do for the project?”

I hadn’t thought about that yet. We’d only found out about the assignment ten minutes ago and my brain didn’t seem to want to work properly. “I’m not really sure. This is my first communications course”

Mike laughed. “I take it you’re a freshman? Don’t worry, these classes are fun. I’m a communications major. What if we did a project about the communication between college roommates? At least we won’t have to go far for research.”

I stifled a laugh. “That wouldn’t be too bad. We just have to observe our roommates?”

He looked at me as if I had offended him. “What’s with the laugh? You didn’t think of anything.”

That caught me off guard. “I wasn’t laughing at you—I was laughing about the irony—writing about our experience with a roommate when I don’t think mine will last very long.”

“Oh. Sorry, I jumped to conclusions there.” He said as his expression changed back into a smile.

I just shrugged, and placed my attention back on what the professor was lecturing about. When he realized I wasn’t going to say anything else, he turned to face the professor as well. The rest of class passed by awkwardly as I tried not to look in his direction.

After class, I ditched the classroom quickly and made my way to Aeria in the cafeteria. I escaped as fast as I could to not only avoid Damon, but also to dodge any more conversations with Mike. Until I could figure out how to speak like a normal human without feeling my guts twist, I’d rather stick to texting.

I didn’t see Damon when I arrived at the cafeteria. Aeria was sitting in the back, already eating her plate of food. Maybe the universe was finally going to give me a reprieve? I made my way through the line to grab a burger and some fries. When I turned to make my way to the table, I saw Damon sitting next to her. Flipped off twice in one day by the universe didn’t seem fair. Damon looked up to see me walking towards them. “What took you so long? We were almost finished eating.”

I wanted to smack him so hard. “The line for the burgers was really long, and that’s not my fault, smart-ass.” As soon as I said it, I regretted it. Aeria immediately looked at me, pleading me to be nice.

She tried to play off what I said as a joke by laughing. “You guys get along so well, at least save the sweet talk for later.”

Damon grunted. “So what are you guys doing tonight? I know there are some cool parties going on. The upperclassmen are throwing a back to school party.” I couldn’t help it, but as soon as he said upperclassmen, I thought of Mike.

Aeria seemed excited but hesitant. “How did you manage to get freshmen into those parties? You know they never let freshmen in unless they’re friends or siblings or something.”

“Exactly. I happen to know someone’s roommate who is in with a lot of the upperclassmen. She already said she would take us to some parties.” He grinned triumphantly.

He couldn’t have been talking about Erica? “If you’re talking about my roommate, that can’t be true. She doesn’t like Aeria, and to her I’m just the annoying roommate. Besides, we have class tomorrow.”

“If you have any sense of self-control, it will be fine. Believe it or not, she doesn’t mind you. I said I wouldn’t go unless Aeria went, so she’s in as well.” He beamed.

“Who does she know that’s an upperclassman already?” I couldn’t help myself.

“Some sophomore named Mike, along with a few others. She flirts with a lot of guys, not just me.” Damon said with a shrug.

The thought of Mike with Erica irritated me, but I stopped myself from the word vomit.

“That’s some trick you pulled: using the fact that she wants to get into your pants.” I commented without thinking.

Aeria looked at me with a hurt and shocked expression before shifting her gaze to Damon. “She wants to have s*x with you? That’s new information.”

He just shrugged. “To be honest, once she finds a guy, she’ll chase him for a week, either get him or not, then move on. She did it during orientation with a couple of other guys. She’s a bit adventurous, but at least she isn’t very persistent. What she really wants is someone who is into her right away and, so far, she hasn’t found it. She just seems lonely to me.”

That was weird. “How is it that you know so much about her when you’ve only known her since orientation?”

The corner of his lips turned up into a sly smile. “Of course I would know. I am always able to get information. You’ve heard her talk, she never shuts up.”

He had me there. “I guess you have a good point. The day I moved in she would not stop talking; I had to turn on the TV for her to get the hint to shut up.”

Aeria giggled. “I bet that was a slap in the face for her.”

“Possibly, but so far it doesn’t seem to slow her down. She’s still inviting me places.” I grunted.

Damon shrugged. “She probably can’t accept the fact that someone doesn’t like her. She’s used to being adored and treated like a princess. The little missy just finds you guys to be a challenge, but one way or another, she’ll get you to like her.”

“Well, isn’t that just fantastic.” Aeria cringed. “Brenna, I feel bad for you that you have to live with that girl.”

“As long as I don’t find her messing with my stuff–or laying on my bed again–I’ll be just fine,” I said as my attention moved back to Damon. “Why are you inviting me on this party excursion anyway?”

He shrugged again, seemingly unfazed by my question. “I want Aeria to go with me. I figured she’d want another friend around. Besides, you’re the one who has a problem with me, I personally have no problem with you—only questions.”

My eyes narrowed. “I see.”

“I’m going to head on out. If you ladies want to party tonight, just give me a call. Aeria has my number.” He said as he stood up.

Before either of us could respond, he walked off. I couldn’t see why Aeria liked him. He was an arrogant bastard; however, he was a bastard who was trying to get us into parties. And he was keeping my secret. “He can be very annoying yet nice at the same time… How does that even work?” I spoke through gritted teeth.

She was still looking towards the door. “I don’t know. It seems to work for him. To you he may be annoying, but he’s way more than that to me.”

I couldn’t help but raise a certain point. “So, it doesn’t bother you that he’s getting us into these parties using Erica?”

“He can use her all he wants, I just hope she doesn’t get the wrong idea. If she gets too close then I would start to get irritated. There’s no way he’d sleep with that piece of trash.” Anger came out of her voice with that last sentence.

I reached over the table and poked her nose. “Oh, jealous?”

She looked at me with a shocked expression. “No way! She’s a w***e who will do anything to get a little attention. He’s only messing with her mind so he can get into the good parties.”