Chapter 5: Making Friends

Chapter 5: Making Friends

Faith’s P.O.V

“Hi, I’m Deborah, but everyone calls me Debby,” a girl with dark brown hair and hazel eyes greeted me at the gate to the Science building, exactly where my aunt said I’d be able to find her. She was wearing a multicolored floral printed top that made her dusky skin pop and a pair of black shorts that reached her mid-thighs. There was a light dusting of freckles on her nose and cheeks that seemed to get darker when she smiled. “Katherine called me to help you adjust to your new college life.”

The ease at which she called my aunt Katherine by her first name was surprising. Back home in Michigan, I had never had the pleasure of calling any of my parent’s friends by their first names. It was an unspoken rule that I must add Mister or Misuses before their surnames and to not follow those rules where frowned upon. Any child in our community knew that elders should be respected and respect was shown not just by calling them with honorifics, but also by following the simple rule, ‘adults were always right’. Here, however, I noticed that things were extremely different.

“Hi,” I shook her outstretched hand a bit shyly. “I’m Faith.”

“Oh, I know!” Debora-Debby, gave me a wide smile. “I saw you at your parent’s memorial service that your aunt held last year. I wanted to talk to you that day, but you looked so sad and lost that I thought it wouldn’t be the right time. But I’m glad we could finally meet. Come, I’ll show you around.”

“I’m sorry,” I felt bad that I hadn't even noticed her that day. Come to think of it, that time had felt like a million years ago and it wasn’t until a couple months after my move here that I had finally started to break out of my shell and notice other people.

“I’m just…an extremely introverted person.” I told her now, wanting to make at least one friend this year. “I studied in a convent school for girls…so I was overwhelmed when I first arrived.”

“Ah!” Debby took my hand and began pulling me in the opposite direction of the Science building. “That’s why you’re so shy! Don’t worry; the first day of University is usually overwhelming for most of us. But we have a lot of International students, so you’ll find a lot of diversity here. I’m sure you’ll be making friends with everyone in no time!”

It was around one in the afternoon, so the first place that Debby took me to was the cafeteria. It was buzzing with activity and I once again felt a bit overwhelmed to see so many people, boys and girls, all sitting together and chatting like this was just an ordinary day and that my heart wasn’t pounding at the speed of sound, ready to burst out of my chest.

Debby took me to a table somewhat towards the middle of the room, where three other girls were already sitting with their lunches on the table. Two of them had dark caramel skin, big brown eyes and short curly black hair that reached just below their ears. Anyone could tell from miles away that they were twins and not only did they look exactly the same, they were both dressed the same as well; in a tank top, a sleeveless denim jacket on top and white shorts. I guess I was going to have a hard time distinguishing the two because even though I haven’t met that many twins in my life, I did know that twins did usually want to have separate recognizable traits, however, these two purposely didn’t want people to tell them apart. Both of them grinned and exchanged excited glances as we came up to the table.

“Faith, these are my classmates, Aurora and Aurelia Rodrigo, identical twins, as you can tell,” they both waved at me after the introduction and Debby turned to the last girl with short black hair, porcelain white skin and grey-blue eyes who was wearing what appeared to be some kind of a sports shirt in red with the number 11 and her surname in bold white and a pair of white shorts with red stripes down the side. “And this is Monika Scotts, Nik for short, from the women’s basketball team.”

“Hi,” I gave them all a shy smile, clenching my hands at my sides. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Nik gave me a warm smile as she patted the seat beside her. “Have a seat.”

I took the offer sat down between Nik and Debby, while the twins sat opposite to me. As soon as I had taken a seat though, Aurelia, the twin on the right, leaned forward with her brown eyes wide with curiosity as she asked, “Wanna exchange numbers?”

“Umm…okay.” I added a bit nervously. I had gotten a phone only after I moved in with my aunt, as my parents thought having one would distract me from studying; that’s why I was still getting a hang of the device.

We exchanged numbers and for a second, I saw the other girls stare at my purity ring with raised eyebrows, but they didn’t say anything so I kept quiet as well. “We should totally follow each other on social media. I’ll send you the link, okay?”

“Okay.” I nodded with a nervous smile, but so far, I had no idea what media Aurelia was talking about. But I thought agreeing and smiling would be the best answer, so I did just that.

“So, how was the first day?”

“I…um…” Jesus! What should I tell them?

But before I could figure out a proper answer, Debby came to my rescue. “Faith is very introverted, so she got overwhelmed and didn’t attend her first class. She’ll attend after lunch.”

“Oh?” Aurora tilted her head to the side. “Then where did you go? I didn’t see you anywhere…”

“It’s not like you can be everywhere at the same time, Aurora.” Nik rolled her eyes at the twins. “Give it a rest.”

“Come on! She’s new, we’re curious!” The twins grinned at me. “So? Where were you the whole time? Did you get lost?”

“She…” This time Debby looked at me for guidance. It was probably because she didn’t want to tell the others that I was about to run home like some little toddler in search of their parent. God! This was going to be such a horrifying thing to explain.

“I was hiding in the bathrooms, but…” I gulped, unable to complete that sentence.

“Holy fuck! Ten grand!”

Someone shouted from the back of the room and my attention snapped in that direction momentarily…only to find him sitting with a large crowd, as if nothing had happened this morning.

It was him…the boy who I saw in the bathroom this morning…the reason I almost fled school and lost my chain.

“Oh! Those hooligans again!” Debby sighed, sounding frustrated. “What trouble are they cooking up this time?”

“Who cares?” Nik rolled her eyes before taking a bite of her burger. “Don’t bother with them Faith, especially Brandon Wolfram. He’s a walking, talking disaster and a whore.”

“Yeah…I saw him…having sex…this morning,” I told them in a small voice, realizing too late that I shouldn’t have opened my mouth at all. Embarrassment making my cheeks turn red, but I couldn’t undo what I had already said. However, the reactions from everyone around me was completely different.

“That’s not new,” Nik gave an involuntary shudder. “It’s all the guy does, to be honest. That and fighting.”

“And where did you spot him this time?” Aurelia and aurora, however, sounded unusually excited as they leaned forward in the seats to listen to me properly. “He’s been rumored to find the oddest places.”

“Umm…” I gulped. “On the basin counter…in the women’s washroom.”

A chorus of eww’s and oh’s surrounded me as the twins seemed to have a completely different reaction to what Debby and Nik were thinking.

“You think the rumor’s true then?” Aurora turned to her sister in excitement. “About him getting back with J?”

“Must be, right?” Aurelia clapped her hands in excitement. “I can’t wait to Tweet about it! Hashtag…DonJul, back together!”

Rolling her eyes at the twins, Nik turned to me with a curious look. “Did you see who he was with today?”

“No idea.” I looked down at my hands on the table. “I think it was a blonde woman…or I might be mistaken.”

I gulped. I knew exactly how the woman looked, especially how her body looked flushed and drenched in sweat…Just thinking about it made me blush, but there was no point in telling them about such intimate details. I got this vague idea that the twins weren’t going to use that information for good. And besides, no matter how much I disagreed with what they were doing…I didn’t have the right to share their intimate details.

Earlier, I had seen the other girls look at my purity ring oddly, so this much I understood despite being more…inexperienced than the rest, that no one said it out loud but Brandon was hot topic to them. And why wouldn’t he be? I had seen him only a glance, but he looked like…a very handsome man. Extremely…handsome.

“Alright, enough with the chit chat.” Debby interrupted, getting up from the seat. “Faith, would you like to have something? Lunch is almost over and I think you have one class afterwards. Come on, I’ll help you decide. You got your student ID?”

“Yes.” I nodded, reaching inside my bag and taking it out to show her.

“Great.” She held out her hand with a smile. “Let’s go eat.”

Taking her hand with a grateful smile, I followed her to the serving area. There were a lot of options to choose from and all of them looked good. “Do I have to pay for these now?” I asked Debby.

“No.” She shook her head, pointing to a little machine at the end of the counter that looked like one of those subway card scanning machines. “You just put your ID there and it gets registered under your name. It’ll be included with your tuition fees.”

“Oh…” Looking at the options once again, I decided to go with something simple and picked out a chicken and cheese sandwich and a bottle of plain water and went to scan my card. My ID photo showed up on the scanner for a second along with a bill of $2.5.

“All done?” Debby asked, scanning her own card.

“Yes.” I told her.

But just as we were about to leave the serving area, a man suddenly stormed into the cafeteria, looking about ready to kill someone. And then he shouted, “Brandon! Come out here you scumbag!”

The entire cafeteria fell quiet almost immediately as Debby pushed me back towards the serving area, cussing under her breath.

This didn’t look good. This didn’t look good at all!

And the worst part was…we seemed to be in the way of an upcoming fight.