Gene Survivor

Chapter 2

Rainy days had become a given now, it was much more surprising to wake up to the sun peeping through the curtains than it was to hear the rain pounding the windows. On the few days that there was sun it would be intense sun, the kind that you burn from within a matter of hours. It had changed a lot since I could remember, the rain more severe and the sun more harsh, not as pleasant as the summer days I remember as a child. It's not just the weather that's changed, who would have known that 3 years after getting into my dream university I would be sitting here in the deans office, dropping out papers in hand.

'Brianna, I know things haven't been easy for you since-'

I could feel my face reddening. 'That's not the reason'

The dean shook his head at my interruption. 'Nevertheless, dropping out is a big decision, and not one to be taken lightly, you have 3 years - 3 very good years under your belt, it would be such a shame to see you waste them'. 

He couldn't say anything to change my mind, I had thought over this long enough, there was no point now, I'd lost the passion, and wasn't willing to spend anymore painful hours attempting to gain it back. 'It's the decision I've made'. 

Staring at the clock was unfortunately not making this meeting go any faster no matter how hard I willed it.

'Well then...have you decided to stay on campus for the time being, I understand you will have your accommodation until the end of the academic year?' The dean seemed intent to stretch this conversation further, he obviously didn't share my uncomfortableness or at least couldn't sense it.

'I haven't decided yet'

'Well it seems the great Brie Blackwell doesn't have everything figured out then'. 

His sudden joking nature caught me off guard and I cringed at his use of my nickname, the conversation obviously wasn't as serious to him as he was making it out to be. It hit home that I really wasn't important to him, just another drop out that couldn't hack it, and he was done trying to convince me otherwise, and that stung.

Finally he was shaking my hand signifying that it was over and I could now leave the sweat box he called an office. 

My halls are just a short walk through the university quad, but no matter how fast I walked it always seemed to take forever. The quad was basically a large field with a few trees and benches, an area that was rarely used other than by passing students, running to get into the surrounding buildings, but today, of all days, the sun was at full force, meaning everyone from students to teachers were taking the opportunity to make the most of the short lived sunshine. 

Today it's full of people stripping down to as little clothing as possible without it being inappropriate, frisbees being thrown around whilst an amused crowd pretended it was a real sport, and certainly no one walking faster than a leisurely stroll, other than me of course. The sun was shining for everyone on one of the worst days in my very short university life, and just to fully make sure I knew it was a bad day, the aforementioned frisbee made connection with my head, 'Ow, for fs sake!'. 

The surrounding crowd proceeded to erupt in silenced laughter as a quiet voice shouted sorry, to which I threw the plastic devil disc back at him. Piss off to the frisbee, piss off to the dean, piss off to the whole bloody universe.  

I have no one to be angry at, no one caused me to have such a crap day, which unfortunately just makes me even angrier because I couldn't blame it on anyone. The world was usually my general target of verbal abuse, but then it has more reason than me to be angry at mankind. My brother used to laugh when I would curse the world for something then apologies for it after, but I couldn't help it!