In Tomorrow's Time

*Chapter 03 -Heather's Mind*

* Memory *

I was living in Denver at the time. The highway we were on was facing a harsh onset of snow; it was October, the white season. That day, my family and I were returning from a visit to a retirement home where my maternal grandmother lived. The next thing I knew, on that road, I felt the impact of the vehicle hitting something not too big, but we skidded a lot; we rolled over straight away. My body was limp, and I felt very cold, but I couldn't see anything, I couldn't even open my small eyes. The cold was painful, and the snow was soft, but it hurt me, I was fragile. No one came near me, at least no one in the car. My shivering seemed to intensify even more. I found it very difficult to open my eyes. I was a child.

I saw a silhouette, neither too short to be a child, nor tall enough to be an adult. I couldn't identify anything very well yet, but I could have sworn it was a boy. He took me in his arms and led me to the car, which, for some reason, wasn't so cold. I finally managed to open my eyes a little, and I could see who the person was. It was a young man, but I didn't know him, I had never seen him, but for some reason, he seemed familiar. As I opened my eyes, I noticed the rest of my family in the car, unconscious. The young man didn't say anything to me other than "Take care and see you later". Before disappearing into the snow, he told me not to worry because my parents were alive. Then he disappeared. That was all I remembered of that day. Now that I was an adult, I couldn't remember his face precisely, but I still felt that at some point I would see him again.

* Present *

A good night's sleep was all I needed to get rid of the thoughts of the day before. The song was still playing in my head when I finally got up. Every day my alarm clock played a little standard tune, and along with it came message notifications from groups of friends who woke up at the same time, or earlier. Most of us didn't care much about it. Definitely not. It was common for students like us to only worry about our studies, although it was a direct way of respecting our parents' efforts since most of us weren't so independent, which included me, in a way.

It was raining heavily when I left my dormitory. Walking through the corridors, I could see the number of students who, like me, were carrying their transparent umbrellas, a common sight for any Seattle citizen.

It wasn't common to miss college, in fact, you'd hardly see anyone spending their absences, especially at the big universities. We all knew the weight of leaving a place like that.

Running discreetly along parts of my route to the university, I could see, from a distance, the figure of the boy I had been looking for the night before. I was surprised that he was wearing a black umbrella and not a transparent one like most people. I tried to run to him, but when I finally reached the entrance, he had already disappeared. I looked around, trying to find some familiar faces from the site to try to locate the classroom where I could finally find the boy, but I was unsuccessful. I had my own battle to fight.

My classmates were sitting in a group when I finally arrived. I was a bit out of place, so I just followed the vibe of the other students. The class went on as normal, and I took small notes, as usual, but my mind was racing. The boy was disturbing me, his face was so clear in my mind that I hadn't even noticed that I hadn't seen him in person, at least not so clearly, but he seemed all too real to me.

"Are you going?" asked a familiar voice. The class was over, and I hadn't even noticed. What was happening to me?

"What? Where?" I asked, pretending I hadn't been rambling to myself minutes before.

"Post Alley. See that disgusting wall and stuff?" said Sophie, maintaining eye contact. It was coming—another one of those questionable dates that university students liked to go on.

"The gum, again?" I asked, completely forgetting the number one rule of the poor bastards on campus, "Always be present at all parties". Sophie stared at me for a few seconds, and I noticed that other members of the group did the same. I considered completing the sentence before it could be misinterpreted, but I was interrupted before I even tried.

"We're seniors, Heather," she began. "It's like an obligation to pull the freshmen in. Just think, several courses, several faces, and several beautiful men. Think positive, we're free, and we can have fun," she finished, flashing a mischievous smile, which, with the red lipstick she was wearing, contrasted well with her apple-red hair. Sophie was too pretty to be a psychologist. I mean, anyone would be afraid to send a boy to see her, the chance of the session ending in kisses and a broken teenage heart was high, especially if any of her girlfriends noticed how beautiful, charismatic, and slightly provocative she was. The worst part was that Sophie was very interested in the clinical field, so we in the group already knew that heads would roll in a few years, maybe even literally. Some of us made fun of the possibility of having to find a case that she was involved in if we graduated in the legal or criminal field. Senior students had a lot of inside jokes, and this was one of ours.

"Freshmen? From all courses?" I asked, curious.

"If that's what you need to tell me you're going, yes, freshmen from all courses," she laughed. "It'll be later, around 7pm. Most of us are already getting ready, we're just going to meet on the wall, have a few drinks, and then, you know, dubious adventures, s*x, drugs, and everything else that Seattle promises," she roared, getting up from the table, accompanied by me and the others.

"In the rain?" I asked, feeling an almost instant look of disapproval. "I'm not denying it, I'm just making sure it's all right for the crowd," I explained, defusing the situation.

"It's Seattle. If we wait for it to stop raining before we have fun, we're screwed," mocked Josh, one of our classmates who hung out with us and lived in the same dorm as me. "We'll decide about the cars later, it's a 10-minute drive, or 25 minutes if you take the subway. I can drive on the way there, but don't count on me on the way back."

"He'll drink too much and make one of us drive to his house and sleep there," Sophie joked, laughing. It was one of our inside jokes to tease Josh for doing that, and he always did, but for some reason, mentioning it was always amusing, and I really enjoyed myself at times.

"You love it," he said, wrapping Sophie in his arms and giving her a medium-length kiss. Sophie and Josh were ex-boyfriends who finally understood that being friends would be more profitable for both of them, who were apparently incapable of not cheating. In my first semester, I was one of the girls who stayed with Josh, consequently, one of the girls who had to leave him slightly drunk at his house. That night, we had s*x, but neither of us ever finished, it was too horrible, and I didn't want to have a bad memory of s*x. I wasn't a virgin anymore, but I couldn't say I liked having s*x either. For some reason, every time I did, I felt like there was something wrong as if I already knew what good s*x was, but I'd never had any. My body and mind had been playing tricks on me forever.

"Right, our schedules are a bit different now, but we're going to Gorditos again, so whoever's interested, meet us at the usual place, same time," said Sophie, leaving with Josh and two other colleagues from the group.

I walked down the corridor, thinking about the meeting. Every semester, people would go and look at the gum on the wall and try to stick more. The veterans were thrilled with the idea, most of whom I'd never met, especially since Seattle received so many students from other places. Before starting college, I hadn't seen Post Alley, but I wasn't surprised when I visited it at my first freshman party. It was as if I was seeing something I had already seen and feeling everything I had to feel. The fact was that I had an appointment and had to go.