Chapter 21: Chapter 21

“Have fun, sweetie!” I waved over my shoulder at my mom, as I got into the car.

I slid the keys in the ignition and turned on the engine before pulling out of the driveway. Switching on the radio, I searched for a good music channel to listen to while I hummed under my breath.

Was I nervous? Kind of. I mean, how different could it be to high school right?

If you can’t read between the lines; I’m amusing myself―just so you know.

Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect” filled my car and I stopped meddling with the radio and enjoyed the music while driving to the campus. I tried to refrain from thinking about things that might ruin my mood. I tried to keep my mind off Adam and off street-fighting. I’m sorry, you might think I was stupid for even giving the thought of street-fighting the time of the day but I honestly don’t have a death wish. I still need to win that stupid competition to ensure my loved ones’ safety.

Well, half of their safety I guess; with everything going on lately, I don’t think winning the competition is the key to everything. I still need to deal with psycho Dom and scowl-face a.k.a truck drive that crashed into our car a.k.a the brother-murderer. I could still remember the ugly scowl on his face that made me itch to buy him a princess tiara to make him lose it. In my defense, it was one ugly scowl.

After another 15 minutes of driving, I could finally see the rising building in which I’ll be spending the next 4 years of my education in. It looked great, better than my high school at least. I haven’t taken a look around so this will be a first and I hope I’ll like it.

I had to drive around the parking lot several times to find an empty space and when I finally found it, it was a pretty far walk to the building’s entrance. The sun was beating against my bare neck, my covered back and my head. I didn’t want to make a run for it and sweat even more so I tried speed walking instead. It didn’t work out so well either.

When I was finally inside, I tried to navigate my way through the halls. I used the map they emailed to me to find the room I’m supposed to be in. Aside from the map, they emailed me my schedule too. So, I simply needed to put my scout girl game on and try to not get lost in this forsaken building with its maze-like layout. I swear, it feels more like a maze than a university. It felt like whoever designed the place purposely made every turn identical to test the newbie’s patience and map reading skills.

Still, I stressed as little as possible and stuck to the plan: try to not end up in a deserted hallway that turns out to be haunted and get killed by the zombies living along it. Did that make sense? No? Oh well, people did say I have an imagination bigger than what’s considered healthy.

Five minutes into trying to make sense out of the drawings on the map, I finally found room 830. I was getting agitated. Why can’t this school make up something more creative? Why not use names of food rather than numbers to label out the classrooms? Section ‘Sweets’ has rooms ‘candies’, ‘lollipops’ and ‘chocolates’. Wouldn’t that be much easier to remember? Okay, I may sound really whiny right now but, Jeez people, the numbers are driving me to the edge of sanity.

You see, I have a grudge against numbers at this point; I’ve seen numbers 947, 805, 532, 490, etc. and I honestly do not see a pattern in how they’ve decided to number the rooms. How the hell was I supposed to remember where room 830 is located? Was I supposed to be depending on this overwhelming map?

When I entered the room, there were already a few people that were spread out throughout the room. There were enough seats for around 30 people. It wasn’t a hall but it wasn’t exactly a small class. I took the seat nearest to the board, in the very front of the class. I took out my notebook and a pencil case to get ready for the class.

Looking around, I set my bag down beside my feet. The walls were a pale cream and a projector hung from the ceiling, pointing towards the white board that was attached to the wall. A white screen was rolled up above the white board. The professor’s table was clean with no trace of paper lying around. A desktop computer, keyboard and a mouse was on the table along with what looked to be two remotes. 2 air conditioners were blasting cold air into the room from the wall opposite of the door.

The tables for the students to sit at were designed to accommodate 5 chairs at each table and there were 3 rows of tables and 2 columns. The chairs were white and plastic but they were fairly comfortable.

My classes end at 12 today and we were given the chance to look around at the clubs created by their student body offer at the fair that was being held. But we all know I got my plate filled to the brim with other things to do that are much more interesting than clubs.

Sounds arrogant, yes, I know.

I was fairly confident that I can get through the day without any trouble. Maybe make a few new friends. Maybe not. I have this stupid trust issue that really needs to be treated. I can’t easily trust people in such a huge campus. You can never be sure of someone’s background.

My main goal is to get through the year without:

a) dying

b) failing

c) expelled

I guess we’re going to have to tackle things one at a time. Until the next fight schedule comes up, I’ll have to focus on Uni life. Yipee.

I just hope that no one picks a fight with me. I don’t think I have a good grip on my anger with what’s been happening lately.

Once the professor came in, more students have already trickled into the room and the introductions flowed smoothly. The professor was a he, most likely in his mid 40s. He had greying hair, a pair of spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose, connected to thin chain connected to it that trailed around the back of his neck.

After dropping what little things he brought into the class onto the desk reserved for him, he took out a board marker and started writing down what I assumed is his name, “Prof. Walter”

The professor taught us the ropes on where to find the things we might need before outlining how the academic semester would go; including when the exams are going to be held and what he’d be grading us on. He doesn’t seem to be the teacher that acts like he’s being chased by time. He took his sweet time with going through the things that will help us get through the year. He joked about a few things here and there, and from that moment on, I decided that I liked this Professor. He’s laid back but he gets through the necessary points without boring us to death.

“I won’t start teaching today so feel free to look around. There will be stands on the field that’ll show you the clubs and communities that you might find interesting. Have fun!” He dismissed with a smile.

I took a look at the time from my phone and noticed that he only used 1/2 of the class time. That means I have time to stop by the place where the street fight competition base camp to check on the schedule. Since I don’t have Levy to send me texts anymore, it’s going to be up to me to keep track of my awn fights.

Seeing as I have some time to spare, I allowed myself to wander around the campus and check out the stands on the field to humor myself. I have no intention to join any of them since my time was being consumed by the fights anyways.

Looking at the students in the University, I found myself wishing that, maybe one day, my life would stop being so fucked up. Maybe I’ll be able to get a pinch of normal in my life then. The only normal thing in my life was my parents and they don’t know I’ve been street fighting. They were completely in the dark about the whole Adam, Dom, Levy, crazy psycho brother thing.

But looking at the bright side, at least I shook Sonia off my hide. I guess Maddison wasn't that big of a bitch anymore I don’t let people push me over anymore. I just need to treat my anger management issues and avoid snapping at people. I do miss Penelope, Jake and Monic though. Penelope got accepted in a Uni in the neighboring town which is around an hour drive away; and as for Jake and Monic, they’ve been going on strong, still in high school.

I shook away from my thoughts and tried to find my way to the field, it wasn’t hard since there were a lot of people walking in one direction. All I had to do was simply followed the crowd.

I found it much easier to blend in here than it was in high school. It was probably because no one here knew my brother. If someone was to go around terrorize people the way my classmates did to me, they’d probably be kicked out in a second. Uni implanted a great first impression in me. A calm life, away from the chaos.

There seemed to be dozens of stands on the field each representing a club ran by the students themselves. There were the choir, the crafters, the dancers, the IT geeks, the book club, the divers, the tree huggers, etc.

I walked around, watching people standing in front of their respective stands, trying to recruit new members with their flyers and their loud voices. Everyone had a smile on their faces and the whole place was swarmed with people looking around; some kept on walking, some stopped to observe and some signed up.

I was about to leave when someone tapped my shoulder. She was holding flyers and standing in front of a martial arts club. Her body was petite and it honestly shocked me that she was a member of such a club stand. Although I have seen girls similar to her figure fighting in the ring before, it still came as a surprise to see how slender her figure looked.

I raised an eyebrow at her, “Can I help you?”

“Yes, hi, I’m Megan and I’m from this club,” she pointed to the stand behind her over her shoulder.

“Yeah, I noticed.” I replied, looking pointedly at the flyers in her hands. She flushed a bright red; I smiled at her.

“Doesn’t it get complicated for the guys in the club when you guys spar? Don’t the girls get special treatment and a bit dismissed when it comes to fighting the guys?” I asked her.

Megan shook her head with a small smile. “We’re pretty open in the club, they teach us things that’ll come in handy for us according to our gender. The guys teach us where to hit where it hurts most and we teach them how to counter a dirty move. However, we rarely mix the spars between the guys and girls.”

I guess I looked a bit apprehensive at her answer so she continued.

“Here’s a flyer, you don’t need to sign up right away, just think about it. My contact details are in the flyer so you can reach out whenever you have any questions or change your mind.” She handed me a flyer and smiled.

I thanked her and walked away quickly. I do not like human interaction where it gets awkward because- well, because it’s awkward and uncomfortable.

I decided that it’s time to get out of there and head over to the competition is base camp to get the fight schedule. I walked back to my car and sat in the driver’s seat while looking down at the leaflet.

There were pictures of people sparring and a picture of the gym, probably where they train.

I slipped the flyer in my dashboard compartment and turned on the engine.

I've still got way too much on my plate to join a club like that. Maybe I’ll consider it when I can finally quit the street-fighting world.

With that thought, I went out of campus perimeters and went home to get my bike.