Chapter 2

After a few more days, I realized I had all my classes with this same guy from the other day, whom I learnt his name was infact Georgio. He was always alone. He never really talked to anybody. Not until we had a group work and I got paired with him along with another guy called James.

After that class, I'd thought that he was gonna come ask me about this group work but instead he disappeared, again. James and I came together and decided to meet at the school's library later in the day.

Once it was the time, I was walking through the school and towards the library when I came across someone, forcing me to go into a stop. It was almost like he was standing there waiting for me, only coming out to block me as I got there.

I looked up to find Georgio standing right in front of me.

"Hey Katherine" he knew my name? I don't even understand why my heart skipped a bit just now!

"Uh....hi..what are you doing here?" I asked awkwardly.

"I'm here for the group assignment? James texted me" he replied, looking composed as he always is even when he talked. This was really getting annoying.

"Maybe if you had stayed behind you'd have known where we was supposed to meet up first hand" I didn't want him to know that I'm angry but I also couldn't hide it either.

"I'm sorry.....I had to take care of something" did he just apologize? Who would've thought this arrogant prick had a heart to apologize.

 As we walked down the library silently, I couldn't help wonder if I had misjudged him. If he wasn't necessarily an arrogant rich looking boy but merely a quiet person who didn't see a point in speaking much. Which wasn't entirely wrong.

James was already waiting for us at the library. We spent almost three hours working on the project and funny enough, Giorgio contributed a lot into it. I realized that he actually knew what he was doing. He wasn't some dumb kid who only cared about how he looked.

After that project which we got an A+ in thanks to his knowledge about it, Giorgio and I only said a few "hi" to each other when we see in class. Although he had become close to James, we were still a bit distant from each other. He was a mystery guy. He was always late to class, doesn't talk much and answered questions correctly when asked. He even scored 97% on the test one of our professors did for us. And I fucking scored 77%!

I began to watch him. I wasn't the only one watching him of course. Everyone became his friend. Although I noticed he kept a great distance from girls who wanted to be his friend and that kinda put me at ease. I wasn't a dork afterall. But how arrogant could he get?

One day, I was walking into the school when I saw him. He smiled at me and waved me to a stop. I wish I'd just ignored him and walked away but like a fool I stopped. And I would leave to regret not pretending not to see him and just continued walking that day.

"Hey good morning" he greets "heading for class?"

I nodded "yes" and walked inside. He follows right next to me and I realized that I was actually the first girl I've ever actually seen him walk into the school with. How wired could this guy get?

"Are you feeling good?" He asks and I turned a questioning look at him "I mean, yesterday I saw you in class, you had your head on your desk and when you left you looked like you were suffering from some pain or something"

I couldn't believe he noticed that. Yesterday I'd suddenly came down with a headache after the last class and had to go home straight.

"Yeah thanks. Of course I would've felt even better if I could go see Rihanna's music performance at LA but I'm too broke." I chuckled jokingly.

Giorgio smiles and pulled the door open for me, reminding me that we've in fact reached our class.

My heart kept racing as he sat right next to me. I didn't know about this. I was used to hating him from a distance and now I'm just gonna pretend he didn't get on my nerves because I thought he was better than me and that he feels too proud about that?

That night when I got home I was on the phone with my mom. She was asking me how school has been and I told her about it. But strangely enough I had this urge to tell her about Giorgio. But I refrain from doing so. My mother would insist I tell her in full details.

"I'm so sorry honey," she says "I didn't wanna tell you this but.....your father.....when he travelled, it wasn't for work honey...he..."

I put down the bowl I was lifting to get water on the counter in the kitchen and listened to what she was about to say.

"He said not to tell you but I just need someone to talk to, Kat." I could hear her voice trembling "your father has a prolonged COPD. And.... And.... it's been so hard that I can't even think, Kat. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be telling you. Elizabeth has been working her ass off to help raise some money, that's why I wanted to tell you that....for now we may not be able to raise your tuition money.... and maybe you can get a job on campus? But baby it's just for now okay? Everything will go back to how it used to be. As soon as your father gets better honey."

My heart torn into pieces and not just because my tuition couldn't get funded anymore. But because my father had been diagnosed of a chronic lung disease and I couldn't do anything about it. I didn't even realize when I started crying.

"It's okay mom...." I cried into the phone. "I'll see how I can help too. You shouldn't be on your own...."

"No my dear, I just need you to take care of yourself for us, Kat...."

"Mom please!" I wailed into the phone. This was harder than I'd thought. Now I understood why my mother couldn't drive me to school herself and why my father had to leave even knowing that I was leaving for college. Why didn't Elizabeth ever tell me? 

And now my tuition isn't funded, I suddenly realized that my younger brother's school payments are probably being cut short now.

I didn't know exactly what I was going to do. I watched my phone's screen until the lights went out.