Recover: Book 2 of the Magic Mutations Series | ✓

7: Watermelon and Hibiscus

'Morning' and 'See you tomorrow' were the catch phrases that echoed between us over the following weeks. Olivia made an effort to always take the seat next to me in every class we shared—and we shared every single one. All four lectures. All four tutorials. And somehow we always gravitated to the library at the same time, taking the empty spots next to each other.

But it was always Olivia seeking me out. If she was in the classroom or library before me, I took a seat elsewhere. Then she'd gather her things and rearrange them next to me without anything more than a 'hi', 'good morning', or 'good afternoon', depending on the time of day.

And while she felt compelled to sit next to me, she seemed to have heeded my warning about not being my friend. Since that first day, she never tried to make small talk—not even on our class content. Everything came down to a mutual understanding that we both just needed to be near each other, even if we could never have anything more than that. The bond invitation remained active without us doing anything to make it glow more brightly or go dim.

A part of me was content with that.

Because I liked the feeling of safety that came with her warmth emanating from her shoulder that sat a few breaths from mine. I relished in the various scents that encompassed her body—from her watermelon and hibiscus shampoo to the rose fragrance in the perfume she spritzed on the hollow of her neck to the tinge of fruity notes encompassing the blood gushing through her veins underneath—a fact I learned when she got a papercut a week ago. And I was entranced in the ritual she displayed every time she sat down: pencil case to the right, notebook in the middle, pens to the left, laptop to the front, and whatever book she had pulled from the shelves of the library resting between the edge of the table and her lap.

But when the weekends came and went, a small part of me (okay, maybe it was slightly bigger than small) felt her absence in the days without her by my side. While she had never stepped foot in my apartment, being there without her felt empty. Trying to get the loneliness from my mind, at one point I walked the length of Hyde Park. But my eyes kept stupidly searching for her with every step I took, even though I didn't know if she had ever been there.

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February 2017

When I saw her on Monday morning, after a month of her having been in the background of my life, having just spent a whole weekend missing her being by my side, my eyes sought her out the moment she opened the door of the auditorium. Her gaze locking with mine, I allowed the smile to grace my face.

Eyes softening and corners of her lips also turning upwards, she took up the stairs, muttered the obligatory, "Good morning," and began her ritual.

And all felt right again. Our gothic literature class—this week on Dracula—came to an end. We forwarded off, this time walking side-by-side, towards the library, and spent the next few hours studying in each other's proximity, keeping our routine of not talking.

But then all of that changed once we started our Shakespeare class.

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"As you should all know," our professor started, "Your next assessment is a group presentation. Now when I say group, because of the numbers in our class, I've decided that will mean you will work in pairs."

A light chatter began to echo around the room, but my heart (and Olivia's, from what I could hear) began to thud a little more quickly.

"Before you get too excited... I've already picked the pairs over the weekend by placing all your names in a hat and drawing at random," she went on.