His Harvard Girl

Chapter Twenty-Seven

ELLE

College classes were nothing like school. For starters, nobody had was dressed in that horrid yellow and blue uniform. At college, students wore skinny jeans and band t-shirts, or oversized singlets and sweatpants. Some of them had insanely coloured hair, which absolutely would not have been allowed at school.

More than that though, the difference that caught my attention the most was the fact the teacher really didn't care if we weren't paying attention. "You're all adults. You can choose to fail if you so wish," they'd all said on my first ever day.

That sentiment was certainly true now. In front of me, two students scrolled their Instagram feeds while blatantly ignoring the teacher's voice. Beside me, Lincoln's laptop screen lit up with the familiar Super Mario game that Lee and I used to play all weekend when we were younger.

Behind me, I could hear the faint sound of music pouring through someone's headphones. And, in front of me, the teacher was blabbing on while absolutely nobody listened.

Like I said, college was nothing like school. The only similarity? Classes felt never-ending.

After the allocated hour and a half, the tutor threw up his hands in defeat, told us all to do the work online, and dismissed us. I met Lincoln at the doorway. 

"Ready to go?" He asked.

I nodded my head as he led me down the hallway. "Um, I just have to check something with you," I said slowly.

He turned to me with a raised eyebrow. "Everything okay?"

"Earlier, when you said it's a date," I started.

He dismissed me with a wave of his hand. "It's a figure of speech, Elle," he said. 

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank God. Because if you thought it was actually a date..."

"It's not a date unless you want it to be," he said.

I felt my heartbeat quicken. Why did he say that? Wouldn't any normal person have stopped by now? I shook my head. Maybe he was just being nice. Either way, I had to cut that conversation off.

"I have a boyfriend," I blurted out, somewhat loudly. A few students turned to me with raised eyebrows as they walked past us in the hallway.

I cringed internally, noting I had a habit of saying awkward things in public. Cue the memory of that time I said my boobs are breathtaking in front of an arcade full of children.

Lincoln laughed, pulling me from my awkward thoughts. "I know," he said. "Noah, right?"

I nodded a bit too eagerly. "Yeah. Noah Flynn. Do you know him?"

Lincoln shrugged as he led us out the doors and into the sun's subtle rays. "You mentioned him last time in class. He's also a bit of a football legend."

"Really?"

He nodded his head. "A few of my friends have talked about him in passing. Apparently everyone was really surprised he barely played last year. It seemed like had other things on his mind."

A pang of guilt struck through me. It was true that Noah had barely played football last year. He was too busy visiting me, hiding me in his dorm, or busting his brains trying to keep the both of us happy throughout our long-distance relationship to have much time for football. I tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach as we trudged through campus.

"He's at football camp at the moment," I said. "So, it's not really a big deal." I was trying to reassure myself that I hadn't gotten in the way.

"Maybe," Lincoln said. "He probably has a lot of catching up to do. Come on, it's this way."

I tried to shake the feeling of guilt as I followed Lincoln off campus and into the small village just down the road. Noah and I had escaped to this cinema once before, but I couldn't remember what we'd watched. We actually spent most of the movie making out in the back row; something I wasn't particularly proud of, and something I definitely wouldn't be doing this time around.

Lincoln paid for the tickets, and I paid for snacks. Lee and I had always done things that way, and it only seemed fair to do it even though Lincoln had offered to cover the lot. I made sure to refuse on the basis that him doing so might constitute this being a date after all, and there was no way I was going to let him think that...even if I was just being paranoid, and he didn't think it was a date either.

I made a mental note: I overthink things.

Half way through the movie, I made a further mental note: never watch movies with Lincoln. 

We were only ten minutes in when he asked the first question. Twenty minutes when he asked the next. We were over halfway through when he asked why Nick Fury didn't have the eyepatch on, and I realised he had no idea in which day and age Captain Marvel was set. 

On top of asking too many questions, Lincoln also chewed obnoxiously loudly. By the end of the movie, I was just about ready to swat him over the head with my half-full box of popcorn, but I managed to restrain myself. 

As we walked out of the cinema that afternoon I realised there was nobody better to watch movies with than Lee. There would be no better friend to me than Lee. I realised that in the absence of both Noah and Lee, I was so dreadfully, completely lonely.