Chapter Two
Edith
“Ugh. Is it really Thursday already?” I whine, sitting on the lounge chair in one of the study alcoves with Aiden and Shelby. My voice is muffled from the book I left open over my face, using it as a mask.
“Yeah, it is.” Shelby closes her makeup compact and stands up in front of me. From under my book, I can see her neon pink TOMs shoes and her curvy jean-clad legs.
“What?” I remove the book from my face and, half-sitting up from the chair, I look at my two closest friends. I keep the closed book mashed up against my head, praying the formulas and numbered equations stay put in there today.
“I’ve told you osmosis doesn’t work, Edie.” Aiden laughs, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses and going back to his own book, highlighting bones and muscles in his biology tome.
“Edie, when was the last time you ate something other than those gross ramen noodles and watered-down orange juice?” Shelby keeps looking at me like I’ve grown a second head.
“Awe, Shelby, are we really going to have this conversation again? Ramen is a nutritious staple food to the transitional college diet.” I push my statistics book to the floor and pull the elastic band from my hair, attempting to pull it up into a simple ponytail before Shelby stabs me with her eyes.
“Yes, we are. Sit in front of me.” Shelby takes a brush from her bag and brushes out my hair, fixing it into some intricate braid that is likely to fall out the minute I leave her presence.
“Are you still going to the clinic next week?” Aiden asks me with a pointed look.
“Of course I am. Oww.” Shelby pulls a lock of my hair tight, making me sit straight as she rhythmically weaves locks of hair in and out. She has a way with hair and, depending on her moodiness, can either lull me to sleep or scalp me bald.
“So how about we go for burgers after class then? You can meet us at the Grease Lounge by the bus stop.” Aiden shuts his own book and tosses things into his leather messenger bag that I envy. My own bag has been sewn back together several times since my freshman year of high school. It’s one of the few things I have from my grandmother who encouraged me to stay in school. I used patches of whatever fabric I had to keep the damn thing together. If I had the money, I would have bought a new pretty brown leather bag. I figure if it’s lasted this long, it must be a sign from my grandmother to keep going.
“Edie?” Aiden asks again and I drag myself back to the conversation. Shelby is quiet and focused on braiding my hair, gently pulling and weaving, lulling me.
“Um, okay. I’m sure I could use the protein before I donate to the vampires, earning me my big twenty dollar gift card.” I hear both Shelby and Aiden snort in their cutesy couple language that just screams they don’t approve of my money-grubbing habits. Luckily for them, they will never know what that is like. Neither of them have to worry about making it on their own and hording an emergency account of money just in case my scholarship money is late or discontinued each semester.
“Okay, I’m all done. Tie?”
I hand the elastic band to Shelby and she secures my French braid, or what I think is a French braid. We grab our stuff and go to our separate classes…Muscular Biology for Aiden, Sculpting for Shelby, and Satan’s Statistics for me.
I walk down the hall and walk into the classroom. Trying hard to remain obscure, I sit in the back closest to the door. It’s the easiest route of escape if we are going to have another shitty pop quiz my already stressed brain can’t handle. If I had known what a dick this professor was, I probably would have saved it for the spring semester instead of doing it now. My rent on my studio apartment was due, and I was a little behind on my utility bill because I keep forgetting to buy stamps. The only disorganized thing I probably do, because I hate having to track down stamp machines, or go to the post office. They won’t let me pay online, which would be freaking cheaper to do if the jerk-holes at the energy company updated their technology infrastructure. It doesn’t help that I refuse to have a computer of my own, just using the 24-hour computer labs on campus. I already cut my cellphone down to just texting because there is no one for me to call that can’t reach me via a simple 144 character text… sue me for being cheap. I sit down and see that annoying TA, Daniel Munson, taking attendance, but no professor yet. Maybe, just maybe, we’d luck out. It is an unspoken rule, if there is no professor twenty minutes after the start of class, all of us responsible students would bolt for the door. We still have twelve minutes left, but who’s counting? Looking down, I pick at a string on my already worn jeans, trying to blend into the lecture hall scenery.