I still can't believe that I am at college. It's so surreal that I'm here right now. Aiden and I are on our way to the Student Affairs office to begin the orientation festivities. I'm excited, yet I'm terrified at the same time. I don't know what this year will bring but I'm curious to see how it will turn out.
The Student Affairs building is probably the beautiful building I have ever seen. It has large white pillars that extend the entire three stories of the building with cascading stairs that lead to the lawn below.
"Are you excited for tonight?" Aiden asks me as we walk up to the food area.
"I am. A little nervous but excited. Are you?" There are so many food choices to choose from, I don't know where to start.
"Yeah, I am really excited. This year is going to be a really good year, I can feel it," Aiden says. I watch as he piles pasta onto his plate. I like how he is so positive about everything.
"How's your roommate? Is he nice?" I ask.
"Yeah, so far I like him. I've only known him for a few hours so I can't really judge anything yet," he says.
As we get to the end of the table, Aiden scans the crowd for a place to sit. The lawn is littered with students. Aiden must have spotted a place because he motions for me to follow him. I follow him, weaving in and out of students as we walk to where ever he is leading me to.
"The looks like a good place to eat, don't you agree?" He sits down on the ground below a giant oak tree. It must have been here for hundreds for years.
"Yeah, this looks like a nice place," I say. We don't say much as we both basically inhale our food. Moving in today must have exhausted us both, especially Aiden, since he did it twice.
We sit in silence as we finish our food. As we're sitting there I look to my left and see something in the shadows of the building. It's just standing there and I can feel it watching me. Goosebumps arise on my skin as a shiver courses through my body. Whatever this thing is, it is becoming bolder. It used to only appear when I was alone or just with one other person, but there are hundreds of students here. I can't help but feel that this is some sort of warning, like it's telling me that soon, whatever is going to happen, will happen.
"Are you going to bonfire tonight?" Aiden asks me. His words pull me out of my foggy thoughts.
"Yeah I am. You're going right?" I ask. It's probably not a good idea though. The bonfire might be the place where this thing will finally get me.
"Yeah. I figured we could just probably go there from here. I think my roommate is going to meet us there," Aiden says.
"Cool, I look forward to meeting him," I say. I look over to the shadows and to my relief, it's no longer there; but it leaves behind a feeling of dread.
The students are starting to thin out. From what I can hear, they are all starting to head to the bonfire, which is held towards the perimeter of the campus by the school's lake. The lake is home to the school's rowing team and when they're not practicing, it is like a private beach for everyone else. It's smart to hold the bonfire there; if there's an issue, the vast water supply will be of good use.
"It looks like everyone is heading to the bonfire. Are you ready to head over?" Aiden asks.
"Yeah, let's go," I say. We both get up and toss our trash in one of the nearby trashcans. We follow the herd of students towards the lake. I'm hoping that I'm blending in enough so that whatever is following me, can't see me; at least for the moment.
"Do you want to go out sometime?" Aiden asks.
"What?" His question startles me. It was very out of the blue.
Aiden laughs at my response, "Do you want to go on a date sometime? Like maybe this weekend?"
I'm stunned. I was not expecting him to ask me that. "Yeah I would love that," I say. I don't know why but his question made me think of Chase. I still haven't heard from him and I have no idea where he is or what he's up to.
"Awesome," Aiden says.
"That was a pretty random question," I say.
"It actually wasn't, I've been meaning to ask you for a while now, I just haven't had the courage to do so." Aiden looks bashful as he's telling me this.
I grab his hand in response and wrap my fingers through his. If he had the courage to ask me out, then I have the courage to hold his hand as we walk. Aiden smiles as he looks down at our interwoven fingers.
We walk the rest of the way in silence. My mind keeps wandering back to the mysterious figure and for some reason to Chase as well. As we near the end of the pathway the lake suddenly appears to us; it's breathtaking here. The path leads up to the sandy shore but trees surround the other three sides of the lake. I feel at peace here.
"There's a lot more people here than there were at the dinner," I say. It looks like at a thousand people came here.
"Well the dinner is more for just freshman and new students, this is for the whole school. So more people end up coming," Aiden says. Since it's a party thrown by the school, there's no alcohol allowed but I can see a few students sneaking drinks from flasks.
"Aren't those people going to get in trouble for drinking?" I ask as I watch girl who doesn't look to appear any older than I am take a long swig out of a silver flask.
"I don't think so. My roommate, Neil, was telling me that the professors and school officials don't really look for people drinking. They'll only discipline those who are foolish enough to get caught. I think it's sort of a tradition," Aiden explained.
"Aiden, man, you made it," A guy a little taller than Aiden but more scrawny looking walks up and slaps Aiden on the back.
"Oh hey man. This is Charlotte. Charlotte this is Neil," Aiden says.
"Hi, nice to meet you," I say.
"You as well. So this must be the girl that you were telling me about earlier," Neil says. Aiden was telling someone about me? I hope good things were being spoken. I can feel Aiden tense up next to me; I'm pretty sure he was hoping that Neil wouldn't have said something but I'm also pretty sure that Neil has had some alcohol tonight.
"Um yeah. She is." He turns to me and continues, "Neil was telling me about this party that was going on after the bonfire and that there would be lots of girls there, but I told him I had other plans." Aiden looks nervous after telling me and starts to fidget where he stands. It's kind of endearing that he would react that way.
I wasn't sure how to reply with words because I'm not the most eloquent speaker so I do the next best thing I can think of – I wrap my arm around his waist and lean into him. I can feel his body relax next to mine.
I hadn't even noticed Neil wander off until Aiden went to say something to him. "I guess he found someone else to say hi to. I don't know how but he pretty much knows everyone here even though he's a transfer like me."
"I think there are just some people out there who can become friends with basically anyone by only saying hello," I say.
Aiden smiles in reply. We start walking towards the bonfire to get a closer look. I can feel the heat radiating off of the fire and something strange stirs inside me. I don't know what the feeling is but it's almost like I'm drawn to the flames somehow. The spot on my abdomen where the Hunter tried to steal my soul starts to itch but the more I try to scratch it, the worse it gets. I start to feel goose bumps develop on my skin; this means that whatever is following me, is near. At least that's what it meant the last time. I scan my surroundings but nothing. I start to just chalk it up to being tired but then I look through the flames, I can see that there's a person standing in the bonfire. I blink a few times to see if my eyes are just playing a trick on me but there really is someone there. I want to scream, to yell, and to get help but I look at Aiden and he is staring straight at the flames without a worry in his eyes. I look back at the fire and the person is still there. I try to concentrate on the figure to see if I can make out any features, but I can't. It's like a black silhouette of a person, almost like a shadow. The more I look it, the more I feel something familiar about it. Like I know who it is; I just can't seem to put my finger on it.
"It's peaceful watching the fire isn't it?" Aiden asks.
I'm startled by Aiden speaking and I look up at him like I'm hearing him for the first time. I look back at the fire but there's nothing there; only flames. Even though I'm standing close to the fire, my body shivers. Something doesn't feel right.
"Yeah, peaceful," I say. We both stand there looking at the fire a little bit longer. The crowd seems to start to thin out, as the night gets darker. People must be heading home or to other parties. I'm guessing more of the latter.
"What do you want to do for the rest of the night?" Aiden asks.
"I'm not sure. What were you thinking?" I ask.
"I don't know. I can take you back to your dorm unless you want to just hang out," Aiden says.
I definitely don't want to go back to my dorm. Whatever was standing in the fire is probably waiting for me back at my room. "What about that party that Neil was talking about?" Any place with lots of people is a better option than just being alone.
"Really? You would be interested in going?" Aiden asks. He seems a little surprised by my suggestion. I was actually surprised a little myself, but being a lone terrifies me even more.
"Yeah why not. We're in college. Once we graduate, we'll have responsibilities, we should enjoy it while we can. If the party sucks or is a little too crazy for us, we can just forget about it and leave. Deal?" I say.
"Deal." We shake hands and head off towards the pathway. As we near the pathway, a group of people in front of us talks about the party so we decide to just follow them there.
As we're walking down the path, the group in front of increasingly gets louder. I'm assuming it has to do with the soda that they keep passing between the members. I can't imagine that they would be passing it like that unless there was alcohol in it.
The walk from the lake to the house takes about 20 minutes or so and once we're there I'm shocked by the amount of people here. The house is in a pretty remote location with no neighbors. Aiden and I both walk up the front steps and onto the large porch and the moment we walk inside I am just overcome with the scent of alcohol. I think you need to be drunk before you get here so that you don't notice the smell. Aiden looks at me and we both just turn around and head outside.
"That smell was foul. Sweat and alcohol – not a good combination," I say.
"I know. I'm pretty sure we could both get drunk by breathing in there," Aiden says. He leads us to a hammock that is strung between two trees in the side yard. We sit down and just watch as people make idiots of themselves.
"Look there's Neil," I say and point to the porch where Neil is trying to talk with some girl.
"I think he's a little too drunk to talk to a girl right now. Look at his body movements, he can barely stay still." Aiden starts laughing as he watches the train wreck unfold in front of us.
"At least he won't remember this in the morning," I say. I feel bad for him, like we should go and help him but he did make the choice to drink and try and pick up girls, so it's really his own fault.
"Part of me wants to help him but a bigger part of me wants to just watch and see how this ends. I'm guessing it won't be good ending," Aiden says. He leans back on the hammock and relaxes.
"Yeah I have feeling this is not going to end well either." As soon as the words leave my mouth, the girl slaps Neil across the face and storms off in the other direction.
"That looks like it was pretty rough ending. I'm curious as to what happened," Aiden says.
"You'll have to ask him when he gets back tonight. Well probably in the morning. I doubt he'll be in any state of mind to converse tonight." I relax into the hammock. It's nice to just sit here and watch other people.
As we're sitting there, neither of us says a word. I think we're both just enjoying each other's company and don't want to ruin it by talking. I can see that Aiden is about to say something until we here sirens in the distance. At first we weren't sure that they were heading towards the house until someone yells 'cops!' and everyone starts scrambling to leave.
"I think it's time to leave," Aiden says.
I nod in agreement. We both get up and start heading towards the campus. We decide stay off of the road because we don't want to be out in the open where we could get caught. Chances are the cops wouldn't go after us anyway since we're probably the only sober people at this party, but we still decide not to risk it.
I don't know how we made it back to campus in one piece with all of the drunken people bumping into us on the walk back. I even almost got thrown up on a few times but thankfully Aiden was able to move me out of the way in time.
"Did you have fun tonight?" Aiden asks.
"I did. It was better than I was expecting. The cops showing up was definitely the highlight of the night," I say and smile.
"I don't know about that, I think Neil and that girl was a pretty entertaining show," Aiden says.
Aiden and I walk into my dorm laughing. I'm not even sure what we're laughing about but tonight has been such an amazing night. I can't remember the last time that I've laughed this hard.
As soon as I turn the light on in my room, I see a figure standing there. Aiden notices too and moves me behind him. At first I'm not sure what I'm seeing but then the realization hits. I know who that is.
"Chase?" I say andstart walking forward.