Chapter 25
When we got to the orientation in the School’s “Community” room, an old lady who looked about sixty, rushed over to us. “My, you young ladies look very nice. You need to go over to that table over there,” she pointed to a long table with many other faculty members, “and sign in. They will tell you where to sit.”
Katie and I looked at each other. Assigned seats? This was either really fancy, or one of those things where the school tries to do something cool, and just disappoints everyone. We walked over to the tables, and signed papers on clipboards, and put on some cheap nametags that said “Hello my name is…” after writing our names in black sharpie. As soon as we were signed in, the faculty member in front of us looked at our names, then at a clipboard in her hands.
“Okay, let’s see. Elaine Butler, you and your roommate, Gina, will be over there at table six. Kathryn Goldman, you and your roommate, Riley, will be at table eleven. Go sit, and have a nice evening.” She smiled perkily as we turned and started looking for our correct tables. The tables were all round with white table cloths and twelve seats at each. They had signs as the centerpiece at each, and when Gina and I found our table, there were already four people sitting there, two guys and two girls.
We sat down very timidly right next to each other, with a bit of a distance between our tablemates. “Hi.”
“Hi. I’m Rob,” one of the guys said. (The nerdy looking one)
Gina looked really shy, more than usual. “Well, that’s what your nametag says, so it must be true.”
The other guy smiled. “Must be. I’m his roommate,” he then pointed to his tag, “Ian.”
One of the girls joined into the introductions. “Hi, I’m Anna, and this is my roommate Tatiana.”
Anna was an average looking girl, with dirty blonde hair and brown eyes, and her face was covered in freckles. Tatiana was a really pretty African American girl with a heart shaped face and ringlets in her hair. The contrast between the two was so huge, it was almost funny. Tatiana seemed pretty quiet like Gina, but over the course of the night, I’d discover that she really wasn’t at all.
“Lainey, and Gina.”
People came over to sit with us, and we continued introducing ourselves. From what I could guess, they were having pairs of roommates sitting together, one from each dorm building.
After a few minutes I started to looked around, but when I turned my head around, I just got a view of a man standing in front of me. At first I was going to ask him to move over, but then I realized who this guy was. I stood up right away and gave him a hug.
“Where’d they put you?”
Caleb winced. “On the other side of the room. Table forty-two.”
I smiled. “Well, at least you got a number that’s the answer to everything.”
“Well, maybe not.” He kissed me on the cheek and went to take his seat, because right then, a middle aged man who looked to be forty stood up on the stage to speak.
“Hello, I’m Dean Harris, and I would like to take this time to thank you all for being here. Not just tonight, but for this semester. We appreciate all of you excellent students for choosing to come get your higher education here at Maryland University. I’d like to quickly thank the faculty and professors, by having them come up here to quickly speak to you all for about a minute about their courses.”
And that’s exactly what happened for the next hour. After all of that, people walked out, bringing Spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread. It was really delicious and flavored amazingly. However, I would have preferred non healthy pasta.
We ate for a while, and teachers came over to welcome us to the school. After another hour, our places were being cleared and they started bringing out Strawberry shortcakes for us. These were even better. They placed bowls of whipped cream, strawberries, and powdered sugar in the center of the table and placed little shortcakes on plates in front of us.
We ate those quickly and then another speaker got up on the stage with a microphone. “That meal was delicious, so a special thank you to the chef of the night…”
I sat through another hour of speeches before they finally let us leave. “Thank you all again for coming tonight. Enjoy your weekend, because classes start on Monday. Get plenty of rest, study your hardest, and have a good school year.” He set down the microphone and everyone stood up and started flooding out the double doors.
I joined Katie and our roommates and we waited outside the door for a while, waiting for Caleb.
While we were waiting one of the guys from our table came to talk to us, or more accurately, Gina. “Hey, Gina.”
She frowned. “How do you know my name?”
“We were sitting at the same table. I’m Ian, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Yeah. So I was wondering if you wanted to, uh, maybe hang out sometime.”
She frowned. “Not interested.”
He gave her a pathetic pout. “Oh, come on. I’ll pay for anything you want.”
He started walking a bit closer. “I said I’m not interested. Now walk away.”
I felt bad for him when he frowned, until he changed his facial expression to a smirk. Yes a smirk. Guys actually smirk in real life? “Alright, but if you change your mind, here’s my number.”
He handed her a small slip of paper and she took it, waiting until he left to tear it up and throw the pieces on the ground.
Katie walked right in front of her face to say, “hey, he was cute. Why’d you turn him down?”
“I wasn’t interested.”
“Why not,” Katie pried.
“I have a boyfriend.”
Katie looked at me in shock.
“Why so surprised? Am I that horrible?”
Katie started nodding quickly. “No, it’s just, you never said anything.”
“Well, he’s back in California anyway. He couldn’t go to college, so he’s starting work.”
“Oh.”
Suddenly, I felt hands over my eyes and I couldn’t see. I started to freak out, about to jab the person with my elbow before I heard a familiar voice. “Guess who. If you guess wrong, I will be really ashamed of you, just so you know.”
I almost sighed in relief before saying, “Okay, um, Taylor Lautner?”
Katie started to laugh and the hands remained on my face. “Guess again.”
“Okay, is it, Scooby Doo?”
This went on for a minute before I said, “Caleb, seriously?”
His hands left my eyes and I turned around to kiss him. We walked over to my car hand in hand and when I was in my seat he left to go meet up with his roommate and go to his dorm.
Later that night while we were getting ready for bed, I asked Gina about her boyfriend.
“Hey, so you have a boyfriend?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s his name? How long have you been together?”
“His name is Jason, and we’ve been together since the beginning of senior year.”
“You like him?”
“Well, I ought to, He’s my boyfriend.”
I laughed at myself. “Right, sorry.”
We went to sleep and when I woke up the next morning, Gina was gone, and I assumed at work.
I had most of the day off, and didn’t have to go in until four o’clock for a couple hours until closing at six.
I got out of bed and got dressed in a scarlet red t-shirt and old cutoff jeans; my average Saturday outfit.
I went to go outside but just before I opened the door, I heard a knock on it. I opened it and Katie was standing right in front of me in a lime green tank top and shorts. “Lounge, my good friend?”
She held out her bent arm and I linked mine within hers. “Lounge,” I agreed. We skipped down the hallway and up the stairs and walked over to get coffee first thing. Lisa was there and gave us our ‘usual’ order. I thought about that. Usual order. That sort of thing made you feel grown up.
We got to the pool table and attempted to play for a while, but when a game lasted an hour, we decided to just go watch tv.
My phone rang after a while and I knew who is was because ‘Teenage Dream’ by Katy Perry started playing loudly. It made sense for Caleb’s ringtone. Before he met me I was alright but things were kind of heavy and he brought me to life.
I clicked ‘accept’ and put the phone to my ear. “Hey, Caleb.” My voice sounded bright and happy, which was weird because it was really early on a Saturday morning. I was usually in a bad mood right about then.
Katie smiled and sat up straighter, putting the tv on mute so she could listen.
“Hey. So, you want to do something tonight?”
I smiled. “Sure. What did you have in mind?”
“Um, you’ll see. I’ll pick you up at six?”
“Uh, I don’t get off work until six.”
“I’ll pick you up from there.”
“Okay. See you then.”
“See you.”
I hung up and Katie smiled. “Date again?”
I laughed. “Yeah.”
“What are you doing?”
“Surprise, I guess.”
“So, what are you wearing?”
[A/N: Oh my gosh over three thousand reads! the best part about that is I'm finally beating this one horrible story that has almost as many reads as me :) I love you guys, and really want to know what you think, so comment and vote! also, I really want to get rid of this cover, so please enter the contest!]