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Everyone told me making connections would be no problem in college. Join a club. Go to parties. Meet up with classmates.
Well, the clubs I checked out were full of drama and power plays, the parties were horror shows of drunken jocks with roaming hands, and the classmates I studied with seemed to be put off by some aspect of my personality.
I know I can be intense at times. I try my best to tone it down around strangers.
But still, at least I’m not the devil incarnate.
Goose bumps skitter over my skin as the evening air cools without the sun around to keep it at a comfortable temperature. I hook my thumbs in my backpack straps and quicken my pace, my dorm building coming into sight.
If it wasn’t for my grumbling stomach, I might have tried holding out for a bit longer to get The Chair. But I doubt the victory of outlasting him would have been as sweet with my insides aching from hunger.
I’ll just have to try again tomorrow. On Wednesdays, I can usually beat him there. Tuesdays and Thursdays, he seems to have a leg up. His professor probably lets him out early.
That’s never the case with mine. When I was accepted into the chemical engineering program, I knew it would be tough, but this is another level. My professors don’t waste a minute of their classes when they can use that time to stuff more equations and theories into my poor, overworked brain.
Lucifer is probably taking some filler elective, which he skips half the time just so he can get to The Chair before me.
Bastard.
Giggling mixed with deep laughter drifts through the thick metal door to my dorm suite, and it’s all I can do not to let out a groan.
Hasn’t my afternoon been filled with enough annoying people? What did I do to piss off the universe today?
When I push the door open, the exact scene I was expecting greets me—my roommate, Alexis, sprawled on the couch with her boyfriend, Mitchell. They aren’t doing anything inappropriate, like having sex in the middle of the common room. No, what makes me cringe is—
“Hey, Hannah! Whoa, look at that backpack. It’s as big as you! Why do you need so many books? I thought you were just born, knowing all that shit. Didn’t your parents teach you calculus when you were, like, five?” Mitchell laughs at his own joke, and Alexis snorts along with him.
“Yeah, no. I’ve got to study like everyone else.” My answer comes out flat, and I don’t linger.
Even though I power past them, his voice still follows me down the hall to the bedroom I share with his girlfriend.
“Yeah, right. Bet when you walk in the class, the professor takes one look at you and is like,Okay, automatic A!”
After close to two semesters of Mitchell’s jokes, I thought I might be used to them.
But no. Each one still makes my skin itch like his words are pepper spray. And they never stop. Pretty sure the only thing the guy sees is that I’m Asian. Like I’m not even a real person to him.
One time, I tried talking to Alexis about it.
It didn’t go well.
“He’s just making jokes! And he’s calling you smart! It’s a compliment more than anything.”
Yeah, right. I’d like to watch her repeatedly get boiled down to one stereotype and then ask if she sees it as a compliment.
Maybe I’d do better with it if he wasn’t around all the time. Our freshman year, Alexis and I were pretty close. We’d stay up late, watching TV and eating crappy food, complain about our professors, and gossip about the cute boys who lived on the floor below us. Then, at the end of the year, Alexis started dating one of those boys, and the tentative friendship we’d started to build got put on hold.
I hoped to find her on her own tonight, so I could ask if she wanted to come to the dining hall with me. But no way can I put up with Mitchell for an entire meal.
My bed gives a groaning squeak when I toss my backpack onto it, and I snatch up the newest fantasy novel my sister mailed me.
She’s always sending me books after she finishes them, expecting me to text her my thoughts when I’m done. Good thing we both like kick-ass heroines battling vampires, werewolves, trolls, and all manners of other mythical creatures. The spine is creased beyond recognition, so this must be a good one.
Knowing that I’ll get lost in the pages is the only solace I have as I slip out of the dorm to head to the dining hall, alone.
Again.
3
