Arya Stark was positive that the universe was out to destroy her. Or at the very least it was conspiring against her to make her the butt of some cosmic joke. She groaned to herself as she tried to slump out of sight, which was damn near impossible considering the fact that the cause of her internal turmoil was sitting at a desk in front of her, facing her, completely oblivious.
Just over six feet tall with broad shoulders and messy black hair and fierce steel-blue eyes, Gendry was a grad student just a few years older than her. Unbeknownst to him though, he knew Arya from a long time ago. They had met briefly at an open mic night at a local café and she had fallen in love with his poetry and he called her voice magnetic and one thing led to another which led to a tangle of arms and legs and discarded shirts in the back room. She had seen him around campus over the years, but not once had they actually met face to face. The lack of actual physical presence in her life did not leave him absent from her thoughts. In fact she had developed an almost obsessive thought strand developed entirely to him.
"What's wrong wolf girl?" The girl next to her whispered. Arya glanced over at Adelaide Prior, one of her best friends.
"Remember freshman year open mic? When I disappeared?" Arya whispered back.
"Yeah? You wouldn't say a word about it."
"That's why I vanished," Arya hissed with a sharp nod of her head towards Gendry. Adelaide snuck a look over and gasped.
"Arya," the tone of the red-head's voice told Arya she was in serious trouble later. "Arya, he's gorgeous, what the actual flying frying pans!"
"Miss Stark, Miss Prior, perhaps you would like to share with the class what is so truly fascinating to the two of you," the professor said as he walked in. Arya's face lit up like Rudolph's nose at midnight as Gendry looked up from the stack of papers he was flipping through. They made eye contact and Arya wanted to shrivel up and die right then and there. From the rows between them, Arya couldn't be certain, but she thought she saw a glint of recognition in his eyes.
"No sir," Arya replied meekly. The professor nodded and launched into the lecture for the day. Arya looked down at her notebook and pretended to be taking notes, when in reality she was simply drawing one of what those who knew her called 'thought strands'. She drew bubble and then wrote her thoughts in them, drawing lines between the bubbles to other thoughts that were connected to them.
Gendry, she wrote in one bubble. Universal joke, in another. What the actual hell? Came the next one. She spent the rest of the class like this, looking up occasionally, nodding in response to whatever her professor said.
"Now, many of you have asked for extra credit," the professor sighed. "There is an open mic tonight at Wolf's Head Pub. Those of you who read there will get extra points, as many as my new TA, Gendry, sees fit. He will be there to listen and take notes for me. I have better things to do then listen to you lot read your mediocre poetry aloud." The professor, an older gentleman with a lilting accent, sighed and removed his spectacles to clean them off. "However, let it be known that I do not expect anything from any of you," he said with a sigh. "Now, Gendry will hand back your papers on your way out. I will see you all next class."
The room buzzed as students gathered their things and made their way to the door, stopping to receive their papers from Gendry's waiting hands.
"Arya, come on, we have to go get ready for the open mic," Adelaide pleaded. Arya shot her friend a look, dark brown eyes pleading for mercy.
"I can't look at him Addie, I can't even bare to walk up to him and take my stupid paper out of his hands!"
"Arya, you idiot, what happened between the two of you was years ago! You were a freshman! You've grown up now, you probably look different, hell you probably even sound a little bit different. Now come on, lets go! Just take your stupid paper and leave," Adelaide said in a huff. Arya sighed and got to her feet, casting a weary glance at the waiting Gendry, still oblivious.
"That's the thing though Addie, he probably doesn't remember but I've spent years obsessing on and off over it like a complete idiot. It's completely embarrassing and I can't believe I've been acting like a little git this whole time."
"You've been reading Harry Potter again," Adelaide said accusingly. "You said git."
"Loads of people say git!" Arya fired back indignitly.
"Yes, but most of those people live between the pages of a book and are usually made out of thin air and ink," a male voice chimed in. "Miss Prior, here's your paper."
Arya froze. She hadn't even realized that they had been moving and arguing at the same time.
"And Miss…Stark was it? Yes, here's your paper," Gendry said. Arya looked at him as he held out her paper for her to take.
"Thank you," she replied stiffly. Gendry's lips turned up at the corners and he nodded in response.
"Of course."
Arya grabbed a hold of Adelaide's hand and began to pull her friend away as casually as possible.
"Oh, and Arya?" Gendry called after the two girls. Arya stopped mid-step and slowly turned her head.
"I like the new hair cut," he said with a smile before he turned and walked back to where his bag was, all the papers having been passed out. Adelaide's jaw dropped and Arya could sense that she was about to say something horrendously embarrassing. Before the red-head had a chance to take another breath, Arya was down the hall and around the corner, power-walking like her life depended on it. All those years had gone by and she had cut her hair, changed her style, grown a little here and there and he still recognized her. Arya shook her head as she burst out of the building and onto the campus's main quad, slowing down to a normal walking speed so as not to cause alarm to anyone passing by her.
"Why me?" She asked, looking up at the sky. And even though she was looking up, she didn't see the football until it landed right between her eyes.