FIRST IMPRESSIONS
1066 Words
Chapter 2: First Impressions
I made a promise. But deep down, I wasn't sure I was capable of keeping it.
The thought followed me even after Ellie and Samantha gave me a few minutes alone to get settled. By the time I stepped back into the room, the earlier chaos had been replaced by an almost suspicious calm — Ellie perched on her bed like she hadn't just been caught red-handed, Sam very focused on a box of textbooks.
"Again, we're really sorry about earlier," Ellie said, not meeting my eyes.
"It's fine," I said.
Sam looked up and smiled. "Nice to meet you properly. I'm Sam."
"Ana."
"Well," Ellie said with an exaggerated sigh, "welcome to the world's most awkward first impression."
I laughed despite myself. "Could've been worse."
"How?"
"I could've walked in during finals week and found both of you stress-crying. This was almost charming by comparison."
That got a real laugh out of both of them.
Once the room settled, I finally took it in properly. Three neatly arranged beds against the walls, each with its own wardrobe and desk. Sunlight through a wide window beside mine. A shared bathroom at the far end.
Not bad, all things considered.
I unpacked slowly, arranging clothes in the wardrobe one stack at a time, grateful for something small and mindless to focus on. My hands still weren't entirely steady. It wasn't the roommates — that part I'd already half-forgiven. It was the alley.
Every time my mind went quiet, it went straight back there. The flat certainty in his voice. The way he'd looked at me like I was a problem he could solve later if he felt like it
.
You didn't see anything
.
I hadn't agreed to that. And yet some part of me had already decided to keep my mouth shut about it anyway, which annoyed me more than the encounter itself had.
Great start, Ana. One day in, and you're already picking fights with campus royalty.
I almost laughed at myself. Almost.
Then I reached for my phone, because moping wasn't going to get me anywhere, and there was only one person I wanted to talk to.
Diana picked up on the second ring.
"Ana! If it isn't the college girl herself."
"Hi to you too."
"So? Tell me everything. Campus, room, friends — and, most importantly, cute guys."
"Diana."
"What? Let me live through you."
I found myself smiling anyway. "Campus is beautiful, roommates seem nice, and I did meet an... interesting guy."
A pause. Then, predictably: "Is he cute?"
"That's not the important part of that sentence."
"Answer the question."
"Unfortunately, yes."
"Knew it."
"He's also the kind of person who casually threatens people in alleys like it's part of his daily routine."
That got her attention. "Wait, what?"
I gave her the short version — the boy on the ground, the cold certainty in Alex's voice, the way he'd said you didn't see anything like the world just obeyed him. Diana went quiet in a way that wasn't like her.
"Ana, that's not rude-guy territory. That's stay-away territory."
"I know."
"Do you, though?"
"Diana."
"I'm serious. Cute isn't a personality trait that cancels out scary."
I rolled my eyes even though she couldn't see me. "Noted."
We talked a while longer, drifting from home to my new room and everything since I'd arrived, until the ache in my chest from leaving eased, at least a little.
"I should go," Diana said eventually. "Call me tomorrow."
"I will."
"And Ana?"
"Yeah?"
"Stay away from Scary Alley Guy."
"No promises."
"Ana."
The line went dead while I was still smiling.
I stretched out and stared at the ceiling as the day caught up with me — the drive, the alley, the room, all of it pressing in at once. For the first time in years I was away from my stepmother's house, away from every quiet comparison to Kelsey.
I missed her anyway.
⁂
Loud voices dragged me back to consciousness. The room had gone dim, evening replacing the gold of the afternoon, Ellie grinning over my bed while Sam waited by the door.
"She's awake. Perfect timing — we're heading to the cafeteria."
"You're coming," Sam added, like it wasn't a question.
I rubbed my eyes, pushed myself upright. "What happens if I say no?"
"Too late." Ellie pulled me up by the wrist. "If we don't show you around now, you'll get lost tomorrow and we'll have to put up missing-person flyers."
I gave up any hope of refusing and followed them downstairs, laughing.
The cafeteria was loud and warm, thick with food smells and the hum of a hundred conversations. We found a table and settled in, and for a while it was just easy — trays, chatter, the ordinary chaos of a first day.
Then the room shifted — not dramatically, just a quiet drop in volume, like something had walked in that everyone registered without deciding to look up.
"What's happening?" I asked.
Ellie barely looked up from her tray. "Probably Alex."
"Alex Morrison," Samantha clarified, catching my face. "Campus royalty. Rich, gorgeous, and completely unbearable, in that order."
"I've met him," I said quietly.
Both of them looked up fast enough that I almost laughed.
"You've met Alex Morrison?"
"More like I witnessed him threatening someone in an alley this morning."
Ellie's fork froze halfway to her mouth. "You're joking."
"I wish."
Samantha leaned forward. "What happened?"
I gave them the shortened version — the boy on the ground, the warning in Alex's voice, the way he'd looked at me like I was a minor inconvenience he hadn't decided how to deal with yet.
"That sounds exactly like him," Ellie muttered.
"So he's always like that?"
"Pretty much," Samantha said. "Nobody really crosses him."
I was about to ask why when the room quieted further — not because anyone announced anything, just a stillness settling over nearby tables.
I turned. Dark hair falling carelessly over his forehead, the faint scar through one eyebrow, the same unreadable calm from that morning. Except now I knew what it could turn into.
His eyes found mine across the room.
Neither of us looked away for a second. Then his attention moved on, like we'd never spoken at all.
I turned back to my tray, heart still doing something I didn't want to examine too closely.
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