Chapter 2:
Start of Something NewThe clock stroke 7:00PM when I finally had the energy to unpack my belongings. I began first with taking out my wardrobe that my grandparents always detested, but thought of it as just a phase. I hung my sweaters in the wooden closet and hid my jeans and sweats in one drawer and shirts with my interior clothing in another. I proceeded to pull out my cheetah print blanket and fold it nicely above the twin mattress. Fortunately, it blended well with the theme in the room. I then coated my pillows with a dirty beige cover and placed them against the wall. I took out the picture frame of me with my grandparents in their backyard swinging on the thin sofa that hang from metal bars. Their lips were spread up to their ears; they looked young, healthy, and happy. It was hard to place those same features on the bodies that were found at the olden house lying helpless on the dusty wooden floor.
I took out a small picture of my mother that my grandparents had given me when I was thirteen. I never met her, but from the way she posed in the picture, it gave me a sense that she was someone who enjoyed every second of their life. Her smile was thin and bright, her skin soft and light tan, her ash brown hair twirled down above her shoulder, her eyes pure hazel outlined with dark eye liner and mascara, she was beautiful, an almost reflection of me, but older. If only I had the chance to know her, I wouldn't feel so abandoned. Another tear escaped from right eye.
"Can I help you?" a strong voice came from behind me. I spun around too fast that I dropped the picture frame with my right elbow. A tall girl with slick black hair down to her chest, white skin, light green eyes, and slimmed down body stood in front of me. She wore the simple skirt with black panty hose and the white buttoned up collar shirt, but she wore a black loose tie wrapped around in the inside of her collar.
"I'm Alexa, your new roommate," I replied softly picking up the frame.
"Ah, Ms. Bailey told me about you. I've seen you've made yourself comfortable," she said with a small smile.
"Not as comfortable as I wish I was," I replied with a half-smile. She made her way to her zebra print bed, climbed up and sat with her back against the pillows, legs stretched straight out, and her left ankle on top of her right one.
"It's always like that when you migrate somewhere new. You'll get used to it in like two weeks or so."
I sat on the corner edge of my cheetah print bed still holding my mother's picture. I looked out the window staring blankly ahead trying to think of something to say. It was quiet between me and her except for the loud laughing on the other side of the door.
"Talk about L.O.L," I finally said. I heard a chuckle come from the girl.
"That's Claudia. She's always laughing like a hyena for no reason. You'll get used to it too. Just try not to give her a reason to laugh, which is quite impossible, so try your best to avoid her. I'm Lexie by the way," She said calmly. I gave her a full smile this time.
"How long did it take for you to get used to all this?" I asked waving my hands everywhere like a maniac.
"It actually took me a full week. I owe it to Kayla."
"And Kayla is?" I motioned my left hand forward in a circular motion for her to explain.
"Kayla is my best friend ever since I showed up here three years ago. She came up to me on a rainy day when I was sitting by myself in the dinner room picking at the meatloaf they served that night. She introduced herself to me. Her dark brown straight hair fell past her shoulders, bangs split in half. Her eyes a beautiful shade of sky blue. She was very pale, still is. She's about 5'4, a thin almost curved body, and her smile a shade of pink. She's beautiful. I was surprised that she had spoken to me, but she's sweet. She introduced me to her friends and her brother. I finally felt like I belonged, and still do."
Lexie's smile grew wide as she finished telling me the story. I smiled also because there was a happy ending, cheesy, right? A happy ending is what I needed to hear right now, sue me.
"Speaking of Kayla," Lexie continued.
"I'm supposed to meet her and the boys at the rec. room." She hopped off the bed and fixed her thick bangs that fell over her right eye.
"There's a rec. room here?" I asked.
"Yeah, come on," she said like if it wasn't anything to be astounded about. She pulled my left arm out through the door, through the stairs, and out the building door. We walked for ten minutes. In the meanwhile, she pointed out the buildings we passed. There was a massive triangular long lengthen building with grey granite shades mixed with copper and windows that looked like the ones you would see in Chapels, it was the library. Then, we passed a modern abstract squared building that looked like they had sliced almost half of the top off sideways. It was a polished brown wooden wall on the top and white on the bottom, it was the science center. We had finally come across the rec room. It was a long rectangular building almost like the dorm.
When we walked in, the walls were pale white and red cottoned sofas were lying about. There were boys and girls in uniforms laughing and talking animatedly like if they were at a house party. We walked further in and I saw an immense plasma T.V. circled by red sofas that fit three people. Behind the plasma were cables that looked like veins coming out of the skull connecting to an Xbox 360 Kinect, Wii, or a PlayStation 3. There were also three air hockey tables paralleled to each other and behind was a large pool table. You could also see behind the pool table was another plasma T.V. but this one had two Dance Dance Revolution Mats like the ones at an arcade. It was a fancy kickback spot.
I noticed a tall dark haired girl making swift moves toward us. Her pink lips were spread wide showing perfectly straight white teeth. It was close to glistening like the girl from the Orbit commercial.
"Lexie, thank god you're finally here! The boys are chanting non-stop about how sexy lingerie makes a girl look hot even if they're not so decent looking! It's giving me a migraine, but it's also giving me a few tips on how to turn up the heat with Vlad," she fumed. She crossed her thin arms in front of her chest with a smirk. When she finally noticed me, her smirked transformed into the same smile she had on before.
"My apologies, I'm Kayla." She put her pale bony hand in front of me. I got a hold of it and my skin got Goosebumps. Her hand was Antarctic cold, but I pushed it aside. It's always cold in the U.K so I figured my hands were freezing as well.
"I'm Alexa," I said with a smile.
"She's my new roommate," Lexie added.
"Sweet, one more girl added to the group. Hallelujah," she praised. They pulled me, literally pulled me from my arms, to the three guys that were huddled around the pool table with long wooden pool sticks. Lexie ran up to a pale guy with shiny black hair that fell over his face. He was tall, about 5'9, thin but muscular. He was really cute. Lexie pecked him on his rosy pink lips and motioned me over.
"Alexa, Malik, Malik, Alexa," she said pointing back and forth. Malik nodded and I gestured a weak wave with a side smile. Kayla then pulled me by my left arm and introduced me to the other two guys
"This is my oh so loving boyfriend, Vlad," she said with flattering eyes.
"Vlad, this is Alexa," she finished.
"Hi," he said and put his pale hand in front of me. I shook it and it was just as cold as Kayla's. He was tall, about 6'0. He was also thin and cut, I could tell by his tightened long sleeve buttoned up shirt. His hair was soft, light ash brown. His eyes were a soft clear blue grey. His smile was also thin and pink like Kayla. He wasn't bad for a lad, especially with the double zero gages he had on his ears. It made him look bad ass, if I may say.
"This is my fraternal twin brother Mason." Kayla pointed to a guy leaning over the pool table. He was pale and muscular from what his uniform shirt let me see; his sleeves were rolled up to his elbow. He was tall also, about Vlad's height. His black short hair fell loose, his bangs sideways over his forehead. His lips were a rosy pink as well with snake bites clinging to them. But his eyes, his eyes were gorgeous. They were a shade of turquoise lined with black around them. They were bright and innocent, almost peaceful. I don't know how long I was staring, but I felt the blood behind my cheeks boil.
"Alexa, Earth to Alexa!" Kayla broke my trance. Mason's hand was stiff in front of me.
"I don't have coodies," his voice was soft and sweet.
"My apologies," I said shyly and reached slowly for his hand. I felt a spark of electricity run through my fingers like if I had just rubbed my feet against a carpeted floor, touched a metal bar and received a sudden shock. I quickly pulled my hand away, he did too.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Well, Alexa, do you know how to play pool?" Kayla asked.
"Just stripes and solids," I responded.
"Great, so let's make it boys versus girls."
"You sure you can handle losing?" Mason shot at her.
"You mean if I'm sure I want to let you win," Kayla spit back.
"You don't have to. With the lack of experience you have of holding the stick to point and shoot, it's just enough."
"That's not what Vlad says." Kayla smirked and winked at Vlad.
"Oh, gross," Mason said with burrowed eyebrows.
"It's not like if you don't say inappropriate things," Kayla spat.
"It's okay when I say it because I'm a guy. That's what us, guys do," Mason defended.
"It's still rather annoying," she responded.
Mason was about to say something else before Lexie interrupted him.
"Are we going to play, or are we going to watch another smack down between Ken and Barbie?" Mason and Kayla stuck their tongues out to each other.
"I'm taking that as a yes, we can start the game," Lexie said. The girls took their boyfriends pool stick and made them go get one for themselves. Mason took the first hit and made a solid ball go in the corner of the pool table.
"Beginners luck," Kayla said. Mason smirked and winked. By the end of the game the girls won as I half sat on the edge of the pool table with my hands behind my back holding the pool stick so I can get a better aim for the black solid 8.
"Holy shit, we actually won!" Kayla and Lexie screamed in unison. They began to jump around in a circle while holding hands in mid-air.
"In your precious face," Kayla shot at Mason.
"I agree as well. My face is precious," Mason retorted.
"Cocky Bitch," Kayla sneered.
"Fat Turd." Kayla gasped and threw a solid ball at him. I flinched when I saw it hit him on the shoulder but he didn't bounce back in pain. Hell, it hurt me just looking at him.
"Ouch, didn't that hurt?" I asked worried.
"Nah, Kayla has a weak throw," he responded. Kayla darted him a cold stare.
"That didn't seem weak," I said. He lifted his shoulders and shrugged.
We began to clean up our area since the clock stroke 9:30PM. Everyone walked out together, but dispersed as they said their good-nights, even Lexie, who I was supposed to walk with, but left in a different direction with Malik. I must have had a panicked look on my face because Mason turned to me and said, "Don't worry; I can walk you to your dorm. Lexie will lag it to show up to your room. And by the looks of it, you have no idea where to go."
I looked down at the ground and said, "If you don't mind please? I'd appreciate it."
"Come on," he said.
We walked with no words being exchanged. My cheeks felt warm and the atmosphere was awkward. It wasn't until we were around the corner that he decided to say something.
"Where'd you learn to play like that?"
"Whenever my grandma was in the study painting a mural, my grandpa always pulled me into this small room where he had a mini bar and an old pool table. He taught me some of his tricks and how to calculate my aim. I was never good enough to beat him, but then again he was eighty years old, and with a lot of experience." I smiled at the thought of me and my grandpa moving around the table examining the pool balls as if they were a corpse. He had a glass of scotch on his left hand and I had apple juice in mine. He would smile a crooked smile when he knew he had a chance to score two or three balls in the pocket at the same time.
"Sounds like you're grandpa is a healthy old man, full of life," Mason said.
"He was," I said, my smile disappearing. He noticed the change and spoke fast.
"I'm sorry for your loss," he said simply.
"It's not your fault. It just happened recently and I haven't been able to deal with it."
"Old age?" he asked trying to not say the wrong thing.
"No. I honestly don't know what it was. It's quite bizarre, if you think about it. But I'd rather not talk about it right now." We got to the dorms and Mason walked me in all the way up to my door.
"Thank you," I whispered.
"No problem. I hope you had a good time tonight. Probably it will help to make you feel a little more comfortable to the new scene, new people," he spoke.
"I hope so too, good-night."
"Good-night." He turned and walked down the red orange hall, disappearing through the stairs. I made my way in and found my mother's picture on the floor near the corner edge in where I sat before Lexie yanked me out of the room. I picked it up and caressed the picture.
"It's the start of something new," I whispered to her.