Curtain in 5, 4 . . .

Chapter Two

Take a class at nine, they said.

It would be easy, they said.

Peridot was ready to jab a hot butterknife into the next clod who tried to give her advice on what classes to take and when.

Take On Me carried over the instrumental buzzing of her cell phone beside her face, shining light into her eyes and earning a disgruntled hiss. 7:45, the screen read, as the song launched into the 1985 waggish melody that basically made a meme out of itself.

She struggled up from under the new covers, taking in the surroundings that seemed daunting and unfamiliar without the aid of her glasses. She could just make out her round lenses folded neatly on the desk at the foot of her bed next to her prosthetic.

Sadie had been very considerate when Peridot had rolled up her jeans to reveal the metal beneath. If Sadie was going to be living with her for an indeterminable amount of time, she might as well know that Peridot was an amputee. If she wanted to know how it happened, well, that was up to if Peridot was keen on telling the tale to a virtual stranger.

She usually wasn't. It wasn't exactly a fun memory.

The blonde scrambled out from under the dark blankets, curtly admiring her choice in selecting the bedspread that most resembled something outer-spacey at the furniture store, and crawled on her chest until she could grab her glasses.

She shoved them on before grabbing her prosthesis pin lock liner, rolling it swiftly on. After ensuring there were no air bubbles, she slid on the extra socks that would help fill out her shrunken limb's volume and slid on the leg itself. She dubiously slid out from the bed, waiting for the umbrella of the prosthetic to snap into its socket as she stood and let out a sigh of relief when it did.

She moved over to the mirror on the door, observing her sleep-riddled self with a flat expression.

She had on her Camp Pining Hearts Pierccy t-shirt, purchased off of RedBubble the moment her mother stopped monitoring her purchase history. She donned equally silly boxers, white with the same alien heads as on her suitcase.

Even with her biting and blunt demeanor, there was no doubting that there was still a dork slumbering away somewhere in the dark space society called a heart. Her alarm and sleep attire proved as much.

She gathered the clothes she'd shed aside the night before for her first class: multimedia software development. Technically not an engineering course, but developing software had always been like her secondhand option if she ended up hating machinery in the long-run.

Peridot trudged down the dorm hallway, stepping into the bathroom and rushing behind a curtain-covered stall. Unlike Empire, even the upperclassmen dorms had public restrooms. She would dearly miss the privacy of her own bathroom at her old college.

Nevertheless she didn't regret leaving it. Anything to get out from under the studious and ever-imperial eyes of her mother.

She threw off her pajamas and replaced them with a black crew-neck and her-she wouldn't call it signature, but she wore it more often than a few select politicians lied-green-checkered flannel. Worn blue jeans finished the look, with the extra rolls near her ankles disguising her leg with ease. When she approached the mirror waiting outside the stall, openly ignoring the giggling gossipers tucked into the corner of the bathroom, she gaped at her wild hair.

Now, by no means was her hair ever to be considered tame. The best she could do was streak it with spiking gel to make it seem more on purpose than natural. She fished said product out of her bag, wet her hands with the faucet, and styled into an almost respectable state.