Send Me Roses

TWO

I groaned as the sound of the alarm woke me up. I rolled over and slammed my hand down on the snooze button. 7:00. The second alarm would go off in another fifteen minutes but I couldn't bring myself to keep sleeping. The sound of Zara's soft snoring meant that she was still asleep, Zara and her stupid twin brother. The brother that I ran into and the one that made me uneasy but not necessarily in a bad way. Unable to think about anything else, I got up and made my way to the small bathroom in our bedroom and turned on the water, letting it run, focusing on the sound so that I might be able to think clearly. I splashed the cold water onto my face, waking myself up and started to brush my teeth. Yesterday, Zara and I had an argument - a debate, more like it - about spearmint and peppermint, which was better. Peppermint, obviously. 

I stepped out of the shower,  blew my hair dry, tied it up into a bun and stared at the mirror. I had fairly narrow eyes, eyes like a fox, my mum would say to me. I grabbed my makeup bag from under the sink and started to line the shape of my eyebrows. Maybe you could tell by my last name or maybe you couldn't but I came from an asian background - Thailand, actually -  and it was hard being raised to behave a certain way and then being challenged to become someone else every time I stepped outside my house. Even though my family moved to Australia before I was born, my mum still held onto our background and customs and that wasn't a bad thing but it just made things more confusing. 

The second alarm went off and I heard Zara finally getting up, "Jasmine?"

"Yeah, I'm in the bathroom." I shook the thoughts out of my head and hung my towel up on the rack.

She walked in, rubbing her eyes. "Well, someone's been up a while." She looked at my half finished eyebrow and started to brush her teeth.

"I couldn't sleep, had too much on my mind I guess." I put my things away and put on a pair of silver hooped earring. You can never, never go wrong with hooped earrings. "How did you sleep?"

"Good," she said through a mouth full of bubbles, "I love your eyebrows by the way. Super on fleek." I grinned back at her and went to pick out an outfit. After spending about ten minutes choosing through different tops and jeans, I finally settled on a red tank top and high waisted jeans with a flared leg. First impressions were important, right? It was one of the things people remembered most about you and of course, Scott will forever remember me head bashing him on the stairs. Great.

I grabbed my phone and wallet, "Hey, do you want coffee? I'm going to the cafe." I called to Zara in the bathroom.

"Ooo, yes." She poked her head past the door, "An americano for me and a croissant."

"You seem like a latte person or I don't know, hot chocolate?"

"Don't get me wrong, I love a good hot chocolate but an americano is a classic. How else am I to stay awake?"

I shook my head and waved to her. The campus was fairly empty except for the few early birds who couldn't risk being late to class on their first day. It was only about 7:45, but the sun was already warming the grass. I turned a corner and was heading to the cafe Zara and I were at yesterday. There was also a Starbucks nearby but it was always busy and the line would take forever so we walked around campus and found this cafe and it was safe to say that I definitely wasn't disappointed. It was small cafe with a rustic design; rusted metal, tin and most of the furniture was made from planks of wood, benched filled with colourful cushions. There were number plates nailed onto the walls and small pots of cacti on the counter and window sills, it was just a really cool place to hang out but my favourite spot was the open study area that had a glass roof with pots of plants dangling down. 

"Hey, how can I help you?" The blue haired girl with tattoos asked me from behind the counter. "Weren't you also here yesterday with the pink haired chick?"