I had my first class today.
Me, Hoodie, and Masky had exchanged notes and made copies of them so we each had our own, but even with the notes I struggle with keeping up in class.
The professor talked at such a fast pace that I could barely process what she said before she moved onto the next thing.
It was extremely stressful, to say the least. After the class was over, I heard a pair of footsteps approach me. My hand flew towards where I kept my knife and I stood up straight, though relaxed when I saw it was just Jack.
He had, once again, tracked my movement from my hand to my waist, no doubt figuring out it was a weapon of some sort. I hoped he wouldn't try and report it. I would hate to have to kill him.
"You still want me to paint your nails? I can give you some of the notes from the class while they dry. I know keeping up with this professor can be difficult at first," he offered generously.
I nodded and he led the way.
We ended up sitting on a table outside, the breeze ruffling through our hair. I had my jacket tied around my waist today. I couldn't do long sleeves right now, it felt too weird.
"Aren't you cold?" Jack asked me as we got settled, putting our bags on the table.
I just shrugged. I didn't check the temperature today so I wasn't sure what would be considered appropriate dressing for today. I pulled out my phone and saw it was 45 degrees.
Yeah definitely a jacket day. I had too much pride though and didn't put it on. I would rather get sick then admit defeat.
Jack pulled out a small container of black nail polish from his pocket, then gestured for me to put my hand on the table. I did as instructed and he opened the nail polish and started painting my nails.
It was a weird sensation at first but I got used to it, eventually ignoring it completely as I zoned out.
"What happened to your hands?" Jack asked, pulling me back to reality.
I looked down at my hands. I had forgot how many scars were on them from me biting at them.
"I chewed my hands a lot during breakdowns, I guess it left some scars." Some scars was an understatement, considering how half of the skin on my fingers was made up of scar tissue.
"Didn't that hurt?" Jack asked me.
It should of, considering I was ripping the skin off of my hands, but again, no pain.
"I have a high pain tolerance I guess," I said, shrugging again.
Jack just hummed in acknowledgment and continued painting my nails.
Once he finished, he took out his phone and snapped photos of his notes and sent them to me. I was examining my nails as he did that, liking how the polish looked on them.
"I like it a lot, you did a really good job," I said, ginning at him.
He grinned in return, "I don't think I've had a day within the last 3 years where my nails didn't have polish on them, I would hope it looks good."
"How old are you?" I asked him.
"19, I turn 20 in march."
So we were super close, age wise. That was sort of comforting. "I'm 19, turning 20 in april."
"Oh so our birthdays are super close, that's pretty cool," Jack said, tucking the nail polish back into its place in his pocket.
He stood up and grabbed his bag, "I have to get going because my next class starts in a few minutes, I'll see you later though?"
"Yeah," I confirmed, "See you later!"
I checked the time and realized I should be heading to my next class too. I groaned. I had to sit through another hour and a half long lecture. I couldn't wait for the day to be over.
The lecture went by super quickly, probably because I slept through it, but that is irrelevant.
I was stumbling through the halls, half asleep, looking for the cafeteria. I was twitching a bit more due to my anxiety from crowded places. It made me feel trapped in.
"Get out of the way, twitchy."
My eyes widened and I rushed forward, not even bothering to look back at the person who talked to me. My tics became worse the more I panicked. Not good. Not good.
I finally found the cafeteria and rushed in, relieved at how spacious it was.
I had calmed down enough to grab some lunch, flashing my student id quickly at the lady serving the lunch so I could get it.
She handed it to me on a paper tray and I made my way to the corner of the cafe, scoping out a place I could sit. Somehow, me and Jack made eye contact in the mess of people in the cafeteria. He waved me over to where he was sitting and I happily obliged.
He was sitting at one of the tables near the edge. I walked towards him, focused on his table. As I got maybe 3 feet away from it, someone bumped into me and dropped their tray on the ground, their food tumbling across the floor.
"Fucking twitchy bastard."
That was it.
I set my tray on Jacks table quickly and then turned around and punched him as hard as possible. He stumbled back a bit from the impact, hand covering his nose. I could still see blood leaking down his face.
"And now," I heard Jack mutter, "Is when we leave."
He pulled me towards the nearest exit. As we were leaving, I caught sight of Masky and Hoodie staring at me from across the room. Masky just shook his head a bit and turned away, walking to the nearest empty table and setting his stuff down.
We had exited into a courtyard. It was pretty big, with few people. Jack pulled me to slightly hidden corner and sat me down.
I just stared at the ground in front of me, my tics becoming more and more frequent.
It was that way for a while. Me ticcing, and Jack sitting next to me, holding my hand to try and provide a bit of comfort in the less than ideal situation.
Eventually, I calmed down enough to where my tics were much less frequent.
"I had a friend a while ago, she had Tourettes. She would tell me a lot about how badly tic attacks hurt," Jack said after a while. "Are you okay?" He looked at me, tilting his head a bit.
"My neck is sore and hurts," I lied.
"How about we miss the next class. You probably need some time to rest or calm down. We can go to the 8pm one, we share it anyways so I can help you if you need it," Jack suggested.
He was pretty smart.
"Sounds good to me," I said, smiling softly at the ground.
We ended up going back to my dorm, seeing as Masky and Hoodie were at their own classes right now.
Me and Jack ended up just laying on the floor, exchanging small talk occasionally. After a bit, I fell asleep.
I don't know exactly how long I slept, but Jack shook me awake.
"It's about 7:50 right now, we should start heading to class," He said, helping me sit up. I rubbed the sleepiness out of my eyes and stood up. I grabbed my bag from next to the door where I had dropped it earlier and then we were off.
The final class was doing a hands on activity today. It was a dissection that involved finding specific organs out of a cat.
It was a smaller class so there were smaller groups. Me and Jack had managed to get into a. group by ourselves, while most other groups have about 3-4 people each.
We had started out dissection. Jack seemed slightly impressed by how unfazed I was as he cut into the stomach of a dead cat.
"Have you done many dissections before?" He asked me.
I shook my head, "I just watch a lot of horror movies." I had done dissections before, but they had been mostly on people I had just murderer. That would be difficult to explain without earning myself a prison sentence.
Jack nodded before continuing his work.
After a short period of time, he gave me the scalpel. "You give it a shot. Aim to get a kidney, or both of them."
I accepted the tool and set to work, referencing a diagram near me to help me find them. I eventually located one, removed it, put it on a plate that was provided earlier, and gave the scalpel back to Jack.
He didn't accept it, so I held it out a little further, urging him to take it. I followed his gaze to where his eyes were locked on my hand. I froze.
There was a deep cut in my hand going from the base of my thumb to the base of my middle finger.
By the looks of it, the cut was pretty deep.
"How the absolute fuck are you not screaming in pain?"
"...I have a high pain tolerance?"