"Wanna come to religions class again tomorrow?" I turned away from the window to see Brandon with a sly grin on his face as he drove. It was after classes on Monday evening, and had been a fairly quiet day for once, which had suited me perfectly fine given how tired I had been from Sunday at work.
"Huh?" I said, taking a moment to process the question.
"Religions class," he repeated, "come on, man, it'll be fun!" I glanced at him again, he was still smiling.
"Same reason as last time, isn't it?" I grinned, and he nodded. "Yeah, I'll come... Thanks, man."
"Happy to help," he chuckled. "Come on man, enjoy yourself, smile a bit and let yourself have fun! Six months from now it'll be back to Toronto, that's the only reason I thought of the idea of you coming to this class. Who knows how much you'll get to see her after you leave again?"
I didn't say anything, the truth was that the realization had hit me earlier in the day about how, out of my sixteen-month spell at home, a little less than six were now remaining, and I was dreading leaving again for a few reasons. "Thanks," I said again, at last. "I appreciate it."
He waved a hand dismissively. "Don't mention it!" I got out of his van as he parked in the driveway to my house, and waited till he had left before I went inside. As I had two midterms later on this week, law on Thursday and sociology on Friday, I decided to spend a couple of hours looking over my notes before going to bed. However, after about twenty minutes of flipping back and forth between the same two or three slides, I gave up on studying, unable to focus, and occupied myself with thinking about what I could include in the next chapter of my story for Carrie. As if on cue, about half an hour after starting on this, she texted me, saying she approved of the chapter I had sent her yesterday. We talked for a little while, telling each other about our days, before I uploaded the completed chapter and started writing the next one in earnest.
The next day, I walked into the shared cafe at Nip at around five past noon to see Brandon and Quinn sitting at a table, along with some girl I didn't recognize. It was a four-person table, so I dropped my laptop bag on the ground beside the last chair as I seated myself beside Quinn. "Hey buddy!" Quinn said cheerily, slapping me on the back.
"Hey," I grinned back, exchanging a nod with Brandon, who was unable to say anything for a moment as his mouth was full with a bite of a sandwich he was eating. The girl didn't say anything, but started laughing at Brandon as he jerked his head in her direction, clearly trying to silently introduce her to me while he chewed.
"Great manners, Brandon, that's how to go about it," she said, shaking her head in resignation before grinning at me. "Hi, I'm Melissa. I was in a psych class with these two last semester, and I'm in yours this semester."
"Nice to meet you," I replied. "I didn't know you were in that class, but then again, I normally sit right at the front along with Brandon, so I haven't seen too many people in that class." I glanced at Brandon, who was still eating, and couldn't resist. "Brandon's a bit of an ass, isn't he?" I grinned, pointedly looking at Quinn and Melissa. Both of them began to laugh as we watched him furiously try to empty his mouth enough to formulate a reply.
"Yeah, you know, I always thought he's a bit of an idiot!" Quinn remarked loudly.
"You know, now that you guys mention it," said Melissa in a mock-serious tone, "I do see what you mean!" Finally having swallowed the huge mouthful he had been eating, Brandon scowled at all of us.
"You fucks had your fun?" he said, though even his face slowly broke into a grin. "Can't a guy eat his sandwich in peace?"
"Tell me you wouldn't have done the same thing if one of us had our mouth full," Quinn said cheekily. All of us laughed, we all knew Brandon would definitely have made a remark to the same effect if the shoe were on the other foot. "What are you doing here anyway?" Quinn asked me a few minutes later. "Don't you have today off?"
