Heart for Three

3

Lily pulled into a spot and I looked towards the main building, spotting a familiar form leaning against one of the light poles by the entrance.

"Oh, I see Brandon! Thanks for the ride Lily!" She murmured a small "you're welcome." And I got out of the car.

Brandon smiled as I approached him.
"Hey! You look great!" He said, quickly throwing his arm over my shoulders. "You ready?" He asked, grinning down at me. I nodded with a nervous smile as he pulled open the door for me and lead the way inside.

There was nothing extraordinarily fancy about this school, it was much like my old school, just bigger.

Brandon led me through the halls, pointing out different wings that were dedicated to different subjects. It was still early so students were milling around, some still looking half asleep, some chugging Red Bull, and some with their nose buried in a textbook, probably cramming for a test they had soon.

"So, the only two real weird thing about this school is the way they schedule things. It's a lot like a high school schedule, instead of independent classes with breaks in between. If you ask me, I think it's better that way." I couldn't help but agree as we walked through another door, leading to a huge cafeteria. "Also, almost everyone here has known each other forever. Like, I think most of them went to elementary school together." I rose my eyebrows in surprise, usually college was like a giant melting pot of different people. But maybe things just worked differently down here.

"Hey, Brandon!" Someone called, drawing our attention to a small group of people at one of the tables in the corner. Brandon smiled at me and turned towards them, motioning for me to follow him.

I nervously patted down my hair as we approached them. There were three guys and a girl sitting there. They all smiled at the two of us and I felt myself relax a little bit.

"Who's this?" Asked the guy with messy brown hair, leaning around Brandon to grin at me.

"Guys, this is Ava. She just transferred here from Philly." He put his hand on my back, gently pushing me forward from where I was behind him.

"Ava, this is Dean," he motioned at the brown haired one who had asked about me, "Tyler," he pointed at the light skinned black guy who waved back and smiled in return, "Dylan," the raven haired one gave me a "'sup" nod, "and last but not least, "Maci."

She gave me a radiant smile and I couldn't help but smile back.

"Move over." Brandon said, squeezing in next to Dylan and patting the empty seat between him and Tyler. I dropped my backpack onto the ground and sat down.

"So you're from Philly?" Dean asked from where he sat across from me. I nodded with a smile and he grinned. "How do you say water?" I narrowed my eyes at him and pursed my lips, but when he kept grinning at me I couldn't help but grin back. Maci slapped him across the back of his head and he looked at her wildly. "What?! They have weird accents up there, I just wanna know!"

"How could anyone mess up saying water?" Tyler asked. Dean motioned to me and all their eyes turned in my direction. I felt my cheeks heat up and knew they were turning red.

"Water." I said quietly, my "Philly accent" making it sound like "wooder".

Tyler looked at me with wide eyes before laughing out loud. I was sure my cheeks were bright red at this point.

"Alright, leave her alone, will ya?" Brandon said, rubbing my shoulder with a chuckle. Maci gave me an apologetic smile and I felt myself relaxing as they switched topics, asking Brandon about his weekend at home, and including me in the conversation.