Until Now (Harry Styles)

Chapter 2

 I was woken up by the sounds of fire trucks rumbling down the road. Their sirens blared loudly through my bedroom window. I had gotten so used to the quietness of home over the summer that I had forgotten the annoyance of alarms waking me from a dead sleep. But, I had to laugh because of the unfortunate students who had to crawl out of bed this early in the morning because of some girl or another trying to straighten their wet hair. No. You cannot do that. I’m sorry, but no. Dry your hair first.

I rolled out of bed lazily and checked my phone for the time. 7:51 A.M. Dammit. I had and alarm set for eight. Those few minutes count when you are kept up by a noisy, although, by god, attractive upstairs neighbor.

I dragged myself to my bathroom right outside my room and plugged my straightener in. My blonde hair was more than dry enough to flatten. No fire trucks for me. No sir. After about thirty minutes or so of pulling at my hair, the curls disappeared into curtains of flat blonde hair. “Yes. Good.” I told myself, nodding at my nicely laid out hair. I flipped the mass over my shoulder and took a look at the deep circles under my eyes. After failing to make a straight line with liquid eyeliner, I wiped off the messy line and decided to go with the “natural” look by applying some brown eye shadow, mascara and then some foundation. I looked good enough when I checked my whole appearance in the mirror in my bathroom. I pulled on some jeans and a simple shirt before I checked the time and I still had an hour before my first class, so coffee it was.

Any budget-smart person would just invest in a coffee maker and make their own coffee each morning, but one, I was too lazy, and two, the coffee on campus was too good to pass up. I frequented the coffee shop on campus the year before. I got in my car, a small four door, silver Prius. Who cared if my car was “prissy”? I’m saving the earth while driving down the road.

I pulled into the commuter parking lot that was just near campus. My first class wasn’t that far away, so I could enjoy my coffee for a bit before having to sit in a class and listen to all the first day business. Here is your syllabus. Here is the book you need. Here is this. Here is that. Blah Blah Blah.

I set my phone on the small table I claimed for myself and the screen lit up mere seconds later. I was receiving a call and I smiled when I saw whom it was from. It was my adorable, geeky friend, William Hills.

I answered it almost as soon as the first ring was over. “Will!” I shrieked. It took a few seconds for him to respond, most likely from the ear bursting volume of my voice. “Will?” I heard his chuckle on the other side of the line and I could just imagine his squinting brown eyes when he smiled.

“Calm down, Ash. I’m still here.”

“Good, because you’re on my list of people I need to see right away. I already saw Nicks yesterday. How was your summer?” I wished he were sitting there across the table from me so that we could talk without pressing electronics to our ears. I wanted to be in his presence. He was like my brother in the aura he gave off. He was my best guy friend that I could speak to about anything.

“Same old. Same old. I got a place in town. You know on the north side of campus, with the rest of the guys.”  I assumed he meant his fraternity brothers. Will always did like to be surrounded by people and fraternity life suited him well, although it took up a lot of friend time from all the philanthropic events. “I heard you got a place at Village Heights right?”