Always waiting

Chapter 2

-Jenny-

And there he was standing there. Literally. Nice. "I'm sorry. I needed to get to class as soon as possible. It's too late, and..."

As he bent down, the corners of his lips turned upward into a smile. As he began to gather up my belongings, a fleeting sensation of wanting to cry came over me. I could feel the beginnings of a sob rising in my throat. I was pretty late at this point, and there was no way in the world that I could walk into that class on the very first day. Fail.

As I lowered down, I allowed my hair to fall in front of my face and shielded it with my hand before reaching for my pens. "It's not necessary for you to assist me."

"It's no problem." He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and then looked up. "The basics of astronomy? I'll be going in that direction as well."

Great. I would be forced to make eye contact with the individual in the hallway whom I came dangerously close to killing. "You're late," I said lamely. "You have my deepest condolences."

After placing all of my books and pens back into my bag, he stood as he returned it to me and handed it to me. "It's okay." That crooked grin expanded, exposing a dimple in his left cheek, but there was none on the right side of his face. "I'm used to having girls throw themselves at me," the other person said.

I blinked, assuming that I hadn't heard the blue-eyed beauty correctly, since I was certain that he hadn't said something as inane as that.

He had already, but he wasn't finished yet. "Attempting to hop on my back is something whole new, though. I have mixed feelings about it."

I came to my senses when I noticed a burning sensation on my cheeks. "I wasn't trying to jump on your back or hurl myself at you," she said. "I just wanted to talk to you."

"You weren't?" The crooked grin remained on his face. "What a terrible thing to happen! If that were the case, then today's first day of school would go down as one of the most memorable in school history."

As I hunched over with the heavy bag pressed against my chest, I was at a loss for words. Men in my hometown hadn't shown any interest in flirting with me at all. In high school, the vast majority of them had been too shy to even look in my direction, and of the very few who had, none of them had been flirting with me.

The attention of Blue Eyes's slid down to the piece of paper that was held in his palm. "Jenny Pinkman?"

My heart skipped a beat. "How do you know my name?"

As his grin broadened, he turned his head to the side and smiled slightly. "Do it when it's convenient for you."

"Oh." I tried to keep the wavy strands of hair away from my sweaty face by pushing them back. After he was finished, he handed my agenda back to me, and I promptly took it and stuffed it into my bag. As I fumbled with my strap, a whole lot of awkwardness landed upon the situation.

Blue Eyes introduced himself by saying, "Clinton Morgan is my name." However, most people refer to me as Clint.

Clint. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it. "Once again, thank you so much, Clint."

He got down on his knees and picked up a black backpack that I had overlooked. While he was straightening his posture, a few strands of his dark hair fell over his forehead, and he wiped them away. "Well, let's make our grand entry."

My feet were firmly planted in the ground where I stood as he turned and ambled the short distance to the door that led to room 205, which was locked from the inside. He waited while looking over his shoulder and reached for the handle of the door.

I couldn't do it. It had nothing to do with the fact that I had a head-on collision with the student who was widely considered to be the most attractive person on campus. It was impossible for me to go into the room and have everyone turn and look at me. Over the course of the previous five years, I had become exhausted from constantly being the focus of attention wherever I went. My forehead began to be covered in beads of sweat. As I took a step back, away from the classroom and Clint, I felt a knot form in the pit of my stomach.

He turned his head, the furrows between his eyebrows deepening as a bewildered look took hold of his handsome face. "Honey, you've got it all wrong. You're heading in the wrong direction."

It appeared that I had spent the better part of my life moving in the wrong way. "I can't."

What can't you do? He moved closer to me by taking a step.

And I bolted. I did a complete about-face and started running as if I were competing for the very last cup of coffee in the entire globe. I finally made it to those terrible double doors, and just as I did, I heard him shout out my name. However, I did not turn around.

As I dashed down the stairs of the scientific building, my face was on fire, and I was out of breath when I emerged from the building. My legs continued to walk till I found a bench outside of the library that was next to us and sat down on it. As I lifted my head and tried to close my eyes against the early morning sun, I found that the light was too intense.

Geez.

What an incredible way to kick off a new life, a new school, and even a new city with a bang! I relocated more than a thousand miles away in order to begin a new life, and I've already messed everything up in a matter of minutes.

At this moment, I had two choices: I could either let go of the failed attempt to attend the first class of my college career and move on to other things, or I could go home, jump into bed, and pull the covers over my head. I had a strong desire to go with the second choice, but that wasn't going to happen.

If my mode of operation consisted on fleeing and hiding, I never would have made it through high school.

I made sure the large silver bracelet that was on my left wrist was still securely fastened by reaching down and looking at it. I had a brush with death during my time in high school.

When I told my mother and father that I intended to attend a university on the opposite side of the country, they both lost their collective minds. They would have been all over it if it had been an Ivy League university such as Harvard, Yale, or Sweet Briar; however, it was not one of these universities. For shame. They simply lacked comprehension of the situation. They never carried it out. There was no way in holy hell that I was going to attend the college that they had attended, nor was there any chance that I would enroll in the school that half of the country club back home required their children to go.

I wanted to travel somewhere where I wouldn't see a familiar sneer or hear the murmurs that still flowed from people's lips like acid. I also wanted to go somewhere where I wouldn't run into anyone who knew me. Where people hadn't heard the tale or whatever version of the truth had been repeated so many times that sometimes I questioned what truly had happened that Halloween night five years ago. Where people hadn't heard the story or whatever version of the truth had been repeated so many times.

However, none of them were relevant in this regard. I was unknown to everyone. Nobody had any reason to suspect anything. On hot summer days, when wearing a long-sleeved shirt would be impractical, nobody knew what the bracelet concealed.

It was my choice to come here, and doing so turned out to be the intelligent thing to do.

The fact that my parents had threatened to cut off my trust fund was extremely funny to me at the time. Once I became eighteen, I was given my own money, which was money over which they had no authority. Cash that I had personally earned. To them, I had disappointed them once more; yet, if I remained in Texas or remained in the company of any of those people, I would perish.

I pulled out my cell phone and glanced at the time before pushing myself to my feet and slinging my bag over my shoulder. I wouldn't even be close to being tardy to my history class.

History was in the social sciences building, at the bottom of the hill I had just raced up. I cut through the parking lot behind the Byrd building and crossed the congested street. All around me students walked in groups of two or larger, many obviously knew each other. Instead of feeling left out, there was a precious sense of freedom in walking to class without being recognized.