Charlie's POV
After my nap, I spent the night organizing my room. I set it up kind of similarly to at home but with a few tweaks. I added string lights to the ceiling and put up more pictures of my friends and family. That's kind of the only difference. Tao and Isaac ordered pizza and we had a movie night in the common room. I guess no one wanted to spend the night in their own room so we all slept on the floor with a film only Tao likes.
"Charlie, can I use your shower? Tao is taking too long." Isaac asks while I fluff my curls in my bathroom mirror. "Yeah, go ahead. I am just messing around." I smile and get out off the way.
I go into the kitchen and make myself some tea and grab a small slice of the leftover pizza from the fridge to eat. Today is going to be a really long day. I see we have about an hour before we need to be on campus to find our orientation groups, so I make another 2 cups of tea for Tao and Isaac. I stand at the kitchen sink and look out the window. The view isn't that great. We just overlook the campus. If we lived on the exact other side, we would be looking at the surround city which I would have preferred. I look down at the parking lot and I can't help but think back to yesterday with my Mother. Why did she have to handle it like that? I didn't yell at her or anything... I feel my hand brush over my upper arm and I have to physically force myself to grab the counter to not pull at my long sleeves. "Do you think we will be in the same orientation group?" I am broken out of my thoughts.
"Mmhm?" I say and turn around from the window. Tao is wearing loose fitting pants that have a paint splatter patter on them and a black loose fitting, maybe even silky, button up polo. "Do you think we will be separated for our orientation groups? I really hope not. I do NOT want to be away from you guys." I grab one of the tea cups and hand it to him. "I think we probably will. I think I remember seeing that we have about 200 students in our Year. So I assume there would be multiple groups... I am sorry Tao." He sips his tea slowly, staring at the liquid before speaking again. "Thats not fair! Do you think we can have an option?" His words are getting closer together, his tone getting full of concerned. I just walk over and rub my hand up and down his upper arm and shoulder.
"Is that for me?" Isaac asks as he comes into the kitchen. I hand him the cup as a response. He takes it with his open hand, the other has a book with a few chapters started. I don't recognize the cover but the colors on it pop. "We need to go grocery shopping after orientation today. That okay? We can take the school charter bus to the local store. I looked into the routes already." Isaac asks. "Sounds great to me! We have nothing in here besides this pizza." Tao says, his face in the fridge. I shrug my shoulders and nod my head. "I can't wait to have a car next year!" Isaac says and claps his hand on the back of his book.
I look at my watch and see if I have notifications on my phone. "We should probably walk to campus now. It takes about 10 minutes to get there." I suggest. Tao chugs his tea and Isaac takes one more sup before we place the cups in the dishwasher. I grab my book bag off the kitchen table chair and sling it over my shoulders.
The walk to campus is not too bad, its kind of noisy with all the cars whooshing by. I think I need my headphones whenever I walk to campus for forms. We get to campus and follow the signs to the giant field in the middle of the campus. Thankfully the campus is in a circle so you really can't get lost. The field is called "The Green" and its the place you'll see the athletes play on for fun, people will just sun bathe when the weather is nice, if there are school events they will have them here as well. It's a nice area. It's about the size of a soccer field.
We walk to the table associated with the letter of our last names and are handed a packet by very pleasant students. Their name tags say what year they are and most of them are Sophomores or Juniors. Isaac and Tao make their way to a spot on The Green that has the fewest and I shortly follow. "What group are you in?!" Tao nervously asks us. "I am in Group E." Isaac says. I rip my packet open and scan the top paper. "I am in Group C." Tao doesn't answer us so we just stare at him. "Shit. UGH!" He shouts defeated. "I am in Group A."
"Alright Freshers! Listen Up!" A young woman with long black hair yells. She is standing on a table, overlooking our large group of people. "My name is Sahar. Welcome to Orientation Day! Today will be filled of group activities, placement and equivalency exams, and an evening Food Truck Festival. When I call your Groups, please follow your Orientation Leader." She loooks down to engage with people that are all wearing gray shirts and khaki shorts/skirts. They are even holding a clipboard with stacks of paper.
"Group A's you will be with Tara Jones!" A young girl raises her clipboard that has a giant, cartoon "A" on it.
"Group B you will be with Imogen Heaney-"
"Group C will be with Elle Argent-"
"Group D with be with Ben Hope-"
"Lastly Group E, you will be with Nick Nelson-"
"-I will see you all back here for the Food Truck Festival. I hope you have a fantastic day with your groups!"
I wave goodbye to Isaac and Tao before walking my way to my orientation leader. She is a tall, slender woman with beautiful hair and these octagon shaped glasses. Her clipboard has these little squares of artwork all around it, each one in a different artistic style. "My name is Elle Argent. I am a Sophomore here in the Arts. I am concentrating on painting and drawing. I also go by she/her/hers pronouns. I am just going to go through and read the lists of names so I can try to get a 'name-to-face' association." She goes down her list of about 30 names before she tugs at the papers on her clipboard. "These are the schedules for today. Unfortunately, our group starts with the exam portion of today... but that means we get the hard stuff out of the way first and then we can have fun and get to know each other after!"
Elle hands us papers and it has the itinerary for the day and the locations for the placement exams. She starts walking to a tall, maybe 10 story building, that has a banner saying "Good Luck with Placements!" As she is walking us, she is pointing out some of the buildings that is around like the gym, the arts building, science building, etc. "Alright, I will be back in about 2 hours. You will be taking a languages, maths, and sciences placement exams. They will be about 30 minutes each and you have a few minutes break in between. You will have to change rooms between each course so time is adjusted for that. I hope you all do great!"
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"Now lets head back to The Green and we will play a little orientation game!" Elle shouts excitedly as we start to walk away from the placement building. These games are the standard ice breaker games and I truly hate them. I do not like the be in the middle or ask questions or even really answer them. So I just stay silent and try to see if anyone in my group has something in common with me. The only one that I seem to have anything in common with is Elle. Everyone else is participating on the athletic teams here or performing in the uni plays.
Finally the ice breakers are done and its about 17:00 when we all finally are heading back to the Green where there are about a dozen food trucks in a circle. "Charlie!" I hear from behind me. "Your drum sticks fell out of your bag." Elle says taking longer strides to meet me. "Oh thanks. I must have forgotten to zip my bag up when we were sitting for the games." I take them from her hands. "I wanted to ask you, are those little art clips yours? The ones on your clipboard?" I ask enthusiastically. "Yeah they are! I spent the summer working on a paper-sticker combo that can use different art media to draw on. Thank you for noticing. Not even my friends saw it." She laughs. "They think they were done by someone else." She adds.
I smile at her while she shows me the 3 dozen or so small works of art on her clipboard. "Thank you for showing me Elle! And thank you for being a really friendly Orientation Leader. You made today very relaxing." I say, grinning a little. "Here." She grabs my packet and writes on it. "Thats my Insta. DM me. Maybe we can meet up and actually get to know each other. You seem like a really nice guy Charlie Spring." She hands me my packet back before walking away to the other Orientation Leaders.
"Charlie!" I hear from behind me. It's Isaac and Tao, literally talking in sync. "That was awful. I hate talking about myself." Isaac says. "I completely forgot we had to take placement exams and I absolutely am getting placed in the beginners classes. So upset." Tao says. "How was your day Charlie?" Isaac asks. "It was pretty good. I did not like my orientation group. They were all jocks. I did like my Orientation Leader. Elle! She gave me her Insta handle. She's really cool! I think you two would like her." I say, chuckling.
"My leader, Tara, was super cheery, I was not ready for it that early in the morning." Tao says. "It was already like 11:00 when we got here, Tao." Isaac says, making fun of him a little. "Mine was a rugby lad. Captain I think. He was giving serious Golden Retriever vibes. I think his name was Nick." He adds. "Are we ready to get our eat on and then go to the store?" Tao asks, patting both Isaac and I's shoulders. "I'm starving!" Isaac answers.
Tao and Isaac try every single truck's food and even went back to their favorites another time. I, on the other hand, only got some chips and ice cream. I wasn't really hungry. I am nervous about getting my placement grades back. I kind of want to be placed at the highest or even out of certain classes so I can focus on the courses under my dual majors.
"Ready to go?" Isaac asks, breaking me out of my train of thought. I nod my head. We start to library since the charter bus will pick us up there to take us to the store. "We can get more groceries tomorrow too since we probably won't be able to carry everything in one go today." I suggest. They agree. Right as we are about to get on the bus, someone calls out to Isaac.
"It was nice to meet you Isaac. I hope you accomplish your book reading goal by the start of classes." A young boy says. I take a seat on the bus and look out the window. The boy has ginger hair and has a very strong body build. He has the most brilliant hazel eyes that catch the last remaining sunshine in the sky. His jacket suits him in such a flattering way. His smile... Its literally taking my breath away.
I watch him as the charter bus starts to move. "Who was that Isaac?" Tao asks. I quickly turn my head from the window and lean forward to look at Isaac.
"Oh. That was my Orientation Leader, Nick Nelson."