Chapter 7
Ember
He hates me.
It’s one thing to be a bit standoffish when you first meet someone, I could perhaps brush it off as first-day nerves. But when you actively leave the room when you find out I’m in the same group as you for a presentation when everyone else stays to arrange meeting up? That I can’t seem to ignore. He bolted out of the room so fast, that it looked like me when I immediately dart up the stairs after turning off the lights because I assumed that I was going to be chased by a demon. I guess in his case, I’m the demon. I could have sworn he even looked at me before he left as just a final indication of his terror. I was left standing there like an absolute lemon whilst everyone else chatted and my only other partner was fast asleep on the desk, fabulous.
“I just don’t get what his problem is,” I say to Poppy and Amy whilst we all walk and slurp on the caramel Frappuccino’s we got from the campus Starbucks. I was lucky enough that I only had 2 hours’ worth of contact time today, so I arranged to meet with Poppy and Amy in between their lectures and explore the campus a bit further, (and take the opportunity to rant to them about Arthur, because what are friends for if not for listening to rants?).
Poppy rolls her eyes, “Just ignore him Emb, some people are antisocial and hate any form of group work.”
“It’s true, I worked with someone in a group presentation for A-level English. He refused to meet up with any of us and did next to no work, so we ended up failing because of him,” Amy pipes in.
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better, how exactly?” I ask them, irritation filling my tone.
“Sorry, sorry, foot-in-mouth syndrome!” Amy says, “I’m sure it won’t happen with you. Maybe just give him time to cool off? Poppy’s right, he’s probably just nervous.”
It’s my turn now to roll my eyes. I get nervous just as much as the next person, but I wouldn’t literally run away from someone like they had the plague. I can’t contain my frustration, so naturally; I keep jabbering on about it to poor Poppy and Amy when we’re supposed to be using this time to chill. I make the active decision to shut myself up about it for now, I can’t do anything about it at this present moment, so I might as well put it to the back of my mind.
We are greeted with gorgeous riverside walks with swans and Georgian buildings as we continue to walk through the campus. I’m honestly so glad I chose to study here; the internet didn’t lie when it said Bath is one of the most beautiful places to live. Poppy and I laugh hysterically whilst Amy tells us about the fact that she walked in on Toby aggressively fondling a random girl in the flat kitchen earlier this morning when he thought no one was in.
“Oh my god. What did he say when he saw you?” I squeal.
Amy’s face turns pink. “He jumped a mile and hurled the poor girl off his lap. He then proceeded to frantically question why I was there and kept repetitively shouting ‘GET OUT!’”
I have to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from belly-laughing at Amy’s expense. That must have been mortifying.
“The audacity of him to question why you were in, you live there,” Poppy chuckles.
“It’s not even funny. I think I need to clean my eyes out with bleach. How am I ever going to be able to look him in the eye again? I’m going to have to move flats!,” Amy cries.
This makes Poppy and I howl at this point. Amy playfully slaps both of us around the arm, “I’m serious!,” but I can see the top corner of her lip twisting into a smirk.
“Let’s be real though,” I say, “at least we can be reassured that we all won’t see the girl again, this is Toby we’re talking about, it’s bound to just be a fling,” I pause before continuing, “…plus, we all know why he got extra riled up at being caught by you.” Poppy gives me a smirk and the cogs in Amy’s brain look like they’re beginning to turn.
“And why’s that?,” she questions.
“Well, from the first day of freshers, it’s clear who he likes to spar with the most. And you know what they say, teasing is the highest form of flirting,” Poppy chirps up, grinning.
Amy’s mouth forms into an ‘O’ shape. “Ew, absolutely not! One: he’s the most infuriating asswipe on the planet and I’ve only known him for 2 weeks and two: flatcest much?”
“Is it really classed as flatcest now you’ve already had a pre-show of his peen?,” I wheeze.
Amy sticks her middle finger up, and my cheeks genuinely ache from laughing so hard. It’s moments like these that remind me that I don’t need anyone else’s approval, the right people will love you for you and if anyone shows you any animosity, that’s merely a reflection of them. We’re just about to sit down on the grass and live our ‘ladies who lunch’ alfresco fantasies, (when in reality we’re just ‘girls who snack,’ eating a crappy ￡3.00 meal deal from the campus shop) when I spot something, or rather someone in front of the tree next to us.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
He’s sat with his back against the bark reading, wait for it, the presentation material. The one he is supposed to be reading and organising with me. Poppy and Amy must sense my dread, or rather catch my ginormous gulp and pissed-off glare.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Poppy says, her eyebrows raised.
“Don’t look now but that’s him!,” I whisper-shout. “That’s Arthur. The guy I was telling you about, who ditched me in that seminar.”
Almost in unison, Poppy and Amy immediately ignore my request and turn their heads, following my gaze to the handsome sandy blonde perched under the tree.
“What part of ‘don’t look now,’ didn’t you understand?!,” my tone more clipped this time. Why is it that when you tell someone specifically not to look in the direction of something, they do exactly that?
Poppy and Amy audibly gulp and look at one another, I recognise that look. It’s the same knowing look they shared during freshers the morning after the dreaded puke-gate and it’s not a look I like, at all.
I give them a pained expression, “For Christs sake, don’t tell me that one of you has shagged him or something?”
Silence.
“Wait, BOTH of you have shagged him?!,” I question, more desperate now.
I don’t know if its intentional, but both of them manage to stifle a huge inhale at exactly the same time. “Ember, that’s him. That’s vom-over-man,” Poppy says through an exhale.
The desperation starts to rear its head as I plead, “How do you know that’s him? You were just as far gone as I was. You could easily be misremembering what he looked like.”
Amy gives me an almost sympathetic look before placing a hand on my shoulder and saying, “True. However,we also drank about a gallon of water before bed, and voila, our hangover Houdinied. The holy water also clearly graced us with recollections of the night before.”
“And you’re about…40-50% sure, yeah?”, I practically squeak through a grimace.
Poppy gives me the look of a disapproving parent when they catch you under your duvet downing a whole bottle of rose that you’d stolen from your grandma’s wine rack on a school night, (ha…a completely and utterly objective scenario, of course).
“Is the Pope Catholic?,” she asks sarcastically before responding to her own question, a sterner expression crossing her face now, “I’m sure.”
As I stare back at him and process this new information, I have an epiphany. Now thatwould explain his stand-offish behaviour earlier. The way he made every effort to avoid eye contact with me during the lecture, the way he agreedwith me when I asked him if he could believe that was the second time that I’d made someone drop their phone because it was the same guy. The way he bolted out of the seminar to avoid talking to me. It all made sense. I need to clear this up, I can’t have his opinion of me blurred by an alcohol-induced vomit fest. I swiftly put my meal deal down on the grass and prepare to start heading over towards him when I’m quickly drawn to a halt by a firm pull on my right arm.
“Ow! What are you doing,” I squirm, rubbing my arm.
Poppy and Amy are back at it again with mutual looks of disapproval.
“You can’t just go over there. What exactly are you planning on saying to him? ‘Hi, sorry I puked all over you the other night and I know you made it abundantly clear that you were uncomfortable around me earlier, so I thought I’d make you even more uncomfortable and approach you out of the blue’?,” Poppy asks.
“She’s right Ember. Now probably isn’t the best time to go over. Just give him time to cool over and maybe you can have a chat with him when you have to work with him in the seminar group,” Amy adds.
Wow, Amy. Never thought you’d be my voice of reason.
Amy grins, “…you know, so he’s trapped then. He has no choice but to confront you about it because he can’t walk out.”
Okay, there she is.
I guess I could just casually approach him about it during the seminar. I don’t like the idea that his first opinion of me is such a negative one, it’s not even a reflection of the person that I am. I slowly back up to where we’re all sitting and sigh. They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and I’m worried that I might have well and truly obliterated mine before it’s even begun.