In theory, college shouldn't be hard for me. I went to one of the best high schools in all of the country (whether the rest of the country knows that or not), I battled enough Circle members to dismantle or at least lessen their inner hierarchy, and half of that I did in heels no less.
College should be a breeze.
Except, for when it wasn't.
Except for when your two prior Cove-Ops instructors suddenly became professors. Except for when one of them happens to be your stepfather.
Except for when half of your high school student body became your classmates in Undergraduate Studies. Except for when all of the students tried to take a breath of fresh scholastic collegiate air before joining the real world of Field Studies, and it turned out that the major of Human Intervention at Georgetown University was not so much a normal major, no less a major open to the public.
Except for when you've only learned this after stepping into your first lecture hall of your freshman year, and Joe Solomon is scribbling his name against a chalkboard in yellow chalk that seemed to last ten seconds before disappearing, a Liz special, I might add.
"Wait, what?" I heard myself mutter out loud, as my eyes circled the students sitting in the lecture hall watching me analyze the room.
"Cameron, so glad to see you. Now, please take a seat, as learning waits for no one."
"Uh, okay." I mumbled, before stepping into the first open chair I found which happened to be next to Tina Walters. Mentally kicking myself, I sat in silence as I listened to an hour long lecture from my step father about the importance of hiding in plain sight and ignoring Tina's thirty two (!) attempts of questioning me. To put it bluntly, I didn't have an answer for her, but if I did, I definitely wouldn't have told her anyway.
When class ended, my head was spinning for sure. I took one last look at Mr. Solomon before heading through the heavy oak double doors of the lecture hall, and felt like my head was stuck in a cloud through my way back to my dorm room.
"He quite literally helped me move in, guys." I pouted, flopping backwards onto the top of my twin sized bed once I got back to my room.
Liz's nose was buried deep within an Experimental Biophysics textbook, her newly shoulder length blonde hair tied behind her neck in a low bun. She looked like she was being swallowed by all of the throw pillows she covered her hot pink and turquoise covered bed with, and I'd laugh if I wasn't so irritated.
"Why do you think he didn't tell you?" My best friend and roommate Bex chirped from the en-suite bathroom. One of the perks of committing to a four person dorm freshman year was having your own bedroom. Honestly, that was the very least they could do, considering we could barely all move at one.
Bex Baxter had this innate ability to get me spinning off the rails if I was upset enough to. She was like the fuse to my current, the gasoline to the fire burning inside of me. She didn't mean to, but it had something to do with her british accent mixed with her angry personality.
"I don't know, Bex. He quite literally said, 'See you for Thanksgiving break.' I swear...sometimes, I really think I will never understand this man. I mean, how can one person be so complicated?"
Almost like clockwork, my boyfriend was barging into the dorm room as I finished my sentence. He cocked an eyebrow at me, pointing to himself inquisitively and puffed out his chest a little farther. I immediately jumped off of my bed, facing towards the front door he was standing in.
"Gallagher Girl, you've got to stop with this. You literally know everything," he deadpanned, standing there awkwardly with a singular white rose in his hand. He extended it to me, looking now more like a peace offering than a kind gesture, but I still took the rose anyway.
"For once, Zachary, she isn't talking about you." Macey McHenry retorted, snorting over her shoulder as she was currently sitting on her knees on her bed, trying to tape some of her photographs to the brick walls behind her bed.
"Oh."
"Thanks for the rose." I smiled as he made his way past Bex and Liz's adjacent beds, coming to press a soft kiss to my lips before pulling away at the sound of Bex's fake-vomit noises.
"So he's back, huh?"
"Don't tell me you knew," I challenged Zach with what I hoped was one of my angriest glares yet. Immediately, his demeanor softened and he dropped his now free hands to my shoulders.
"Cam, I would've said something if I knew. This whole thing, between all of us at the same University learning our skills quite literally in the blind eye of the general public, to Joe teaching an upscale Cove Ops class. I had no idea."
Content with his answer, I sighed and shrugged my thin shoulders. Over the summer, I had finally gotten content with the fact that this family I now had was going to be far, far away from me. I finally was comfortable leaving my mother again, this time with her permission of course. I could write a list of all the things I wasn't expecting to happen this week, but unfortunately, that list would say "everything".
I was told Bex was going back to England to train under her parents. I was told Macey was going to follow Preston wherever he went, and that she'd start handling more of her mother's cosmetic company's responsibilities. Liz, well, Liz told me she was coming here, so that wasn't a shock. She was more cut out for the lab life anyway, but I needed at least another year of school to make up for my last year where I pretty much was anywhere but inside the classroom. And after my senior year, Zach pretty much refused to leave me alone, so he was going to be here regardless of anyone else.
"Guys, this is legitimately the best bloody test we've ever taken, do you understand?"
"No, Bex, how is that so?" Macey drawled, and I don't know if Bex didn't sense the sarcasm dripping from Macey's tone or if she was just so excited she ignored it.
"We are literally continuing to learn how to be spies in the public grounds now. There's no more Gallagher Academy with big stone walls to separate us. Joe is trying to teach us how we're to blend in, when it's time for the real world. We're doing Cove Ops in room twelve, when in room fourteen they're learning the anatomy of a sea turtle. Is this not bloody cool to anyone else?!"
When Bex put it like that, it was almost hard to ignore. This was the ultimate test, four years of learning how to become even more Chameleon-like, with the most judgmental grouping of people possible. If we couldn't blend in here, we stood no chance in the real world. All of a sudden, I heard a book slam shut and make a thud noise on the desk.
"So, where do we start?" Liz asked the four of us, and I couldn't even begin to explain the light her blue eyes reflected. She was ready, we all were.