Chapter 13
Ember
“I’ll buy you a bottle of wine. Wait, no, I’ll buy you two!,” Poppy frantically insists at the other end of my room.
“Honestly Poppy it’s fine, you don’t have to do that,” I chuckle. “I’m alive, aren’t I?”
She was grovelling because she thought I was mad about her ditching me the other night to go for another drink with Sam.
“But I broke girl code!,” she squeals.
I laughed, “You asked me if I wanted to come with you, and I was the one who said no. You gave me the choice. Therefore, if anyone’s broken girl code and owes anyone however many bottles of wine, it’s me.”
Poppy freezes as if she’s thinking intently about it. “Hmm, well you know I can never say no to wine,” the side of her mouth tipping upwards into a smirk.
“I’ll grab you a pinot later,” I tut, giving in.
She takes a seat down at my desk now and starts fiddling with my makeup tray.
“So,” she says, sliding the tube off one of my Red lipsticks before swiping a swatch on her hand, “was it awkward with Arthur after we left?”
I nodded at the lipstick, giving her the permission I could tell that she desperately needed to try it on.
“At first, yeah.” I grimace thinking about him practically diving out of the door to get away from me. “But then we ended up going back together on the same bus and it turns out that we found a common ground.”
“Yeah?,” Poppy asks through parted lips as she gently brushes the Ruby product over her mouth.
“Turns out he’s an Alien fan.”
She smacks her lips together before craning her neck round to face me, “a match made in heaven, both into things that don’t exist,” she grins.
I flip her the bird. “Like I’ve told you before, if you ever get abducted and probed, don’t come crying to me.”
“Anyway,” I sigh. “He started to seem more comfortable around me then, and apologised for being so offish with me since that night.”
Poppy’s mouth is agape right now, “he addressed puke-gate?!”
I nod, “We agreed to officially start over, shook hands and everything.”
“Did you spit?,” Amy questions, suddenly appearing at my door and quite literally walking into the conversation.
“Were you listening?,” I snort.
“I think you’ll find eavesdropping is the correct term,” she responds, positioning herself on my bed. “I didn’t get to come on the double date, the least you can do is let me hear the goss.”
Touche.
“So?,” she asks, “you didn’t answer my question.”
My brows deepen into a confused frown, “of course we didn’t spit into each other’s hands, that’s grim.”
“Seals the deal better though,” Amy deadpans.
Poppy flashes me the same look of disgust. This girl was really quite something.
Choosing not to broach the topic of bodily fluids any further, I continue. “You know, he’s actually quite funny once you get to know him.”
They both raise an intrigued eyebrow now. Maybe I’d regret saying that.
“No.” I say firmly, answering a question that they didn’t even ask, but didn’t need to. The smirks on their faces were enough.
Amy shrugs, “I’m just saying, funny men often get the girl.”
“Well, luckily for you there is no ‘getting,’ we’ve just agreed to start afresh so we can have a chance at actually getting on with this presentation without any awkward tension,” I clarify.
She grins, “You may be able to get rid of awkward tension, but never sexual.”
I playfully slap her on the arm, before looking at the time on my phone.
Shit.
Poppy and Amy’s trespassing had made me lose track of time, I needed to get to my seminar. I’d already had to do the walk of shame once after getting to campus late, I didn’t want to do it again.
Putting my arms around the two of them, I start guiding them out of the door like I’m a retail assistant who just found two distraught kids after being separated from their mum in a supermarket. “That’s enough therapy for today, I’ve got a seminar now.”
“With him?,” Poppy beams, turning around to face me as she reaches the door.
“Leaving now,” I roll my eyes, before immediately slamming the door on them. It would be the first seminar I’d have with Arthur since we broke the ice the other night and I was praying that it would be a little easier now. All our cards were laid out on the table now, there were no words left unspoken, and as far as I was aware, no more hidden grudges. We’d got on surprisingly well, and I could tell that when his guard was down, we had the potential to become really good friends. I just had a feeling. Not only was I ready to start afresh, but also, for some strange reason, excited.
◆◆◆
I arrived on campus in the nick of time, and when I say nick, I mean 1 minute to spare, nick. In a surge of adrenaline, my legs began sprinting up the staircase of commons, wet floor signs be damned. When I eventually make it to the room and come to a stop, I suddenly feel the horrible sensation of the damp wool of my jumper, sopping and clinging to my armpits. I didn’t have time to go and sort myself out in the toilets, so I pushed the door open and cringed when I realised that everyone else was already seated and scribbling away notes from the board. Eager much?
That’s when I noticed him, sitting smack bang in the middle of the table on his own.
Immediately feeling a twinge of guilt in my stomach when I notice that everyone else has sat with their newly found friendship groups and left him all on his own, I pull up the chair directly next to him and sit down. He gives me a warm smile, brief, but warm.
“Nice of you to join us Ember,” Jordan, our seminar leader says, sarcastically checking the time on his watch. I had one minute to spare; I wasn’t technically late.
“You’re at uni now, you need to curb things like lateness,” he says sharply, a far cry away from the chilled-out graduate I first met. He was clearly on his man period.
“Well, you know what the famous Julie Andrews once said, a queen is never late, everyone else is simply early,” I respond. This earns me a few giggles from the room, as well as Arthur, who I catch snorting under his breath.
Jordan rolls his eyes before turning his attention away from me and back to the board. “As I was saying before I was interrupted, you should all have an idea by now of who’s doing what in your presentation groups, so I don’t think we need to rehash any of that. Just make sure you’re all meeting up as frequently as possible.” He takes a sip from his ‘If it looks interested, I’m not’ mug, which was ironically accurate to his mood today, “So today, we’re going to switch our focus to the content for the essays.”
I watch Arthur’s eyes light up as one of the first essay topics flags up on the screen. Jordan begins waffling on about social conformity, and reading off key bullet points surrounding Milgram’s famous obedience study in 1963. I don’t know what happens, but Arthur turns into some sort of touch-typing machine, eagerly tapping away all the information into his keyboard without even glancing at it. He looked completely in his element; it must have been one of his favourite studies. I couldn’t even blame him, it was a pretty badass study, and although it sounded cringey, every Psychology student had a favourite. Mine was the Bobo Doll (1961) study by Bandura. Give me a bottle of wine and get me started on the topic, I dare you. That was the beauty of studying a degree that was all about people, you found yourself wanting to share what you learned to help others. It wasn’t something like maths where if you even breathed about Pythagoras’s theorem at a house party, you’d risk putting people to sleep, never to contact you again. However with Psychology, more often than not, people wanted to hear what you had to say. It was something that could be shared. Sure, you had a few outliers who insisted that you were ‘psychoanalysing’ them, (which was definitely not true…), but it was something I could talk about for hours.
“Right,” Jordan claps his hands together, “besides the Holocaust, can anyone tell me any other world atrocities that you think might support Milgram’s findings? You must use multiple examples to back up your points in an essay question like this one.”
Multiple hands shoot up in the air, but I notice that Arthur’s stay firmly planted down. His eyes were glued to his laptop screen. He then takes a deep swig from his water bottle as Jordan scans the room to decide who to pick. I knew that trick all too well. Poppy told me that she’d heard from someone that if you drank some water during any window of time where a lecturer was going to pick on someone, they wouldn’t pick you, as they’d realise that you currently had a mouth full of water. I thought it was just a silly myth at first, but I’d tried it in one of my lecturers the other day on multiple separate occasions, and miraculously, it worked.
“Arthur, you were jotting down a lot earlier. What do you think?,” Jordan chirps, clearly ignoring all the other raised hands.
Okay, the water bottle theory doesn’t always work then.
I watch Arthur shift uncomfortably in his seat and his face reddens. I honestly hate the concept of being picked on in a lesson, I didn’t believe it was right at school, let alone at university where you literally pay to go there. No one can force you to even attend your lectures, let alone force you to answer a question you obviously either didn’t know the answer to or weren’t comfortable answering. It pissed me off that this was the second time Jordan did this to him. Either he lacked the ability to read the room, (ironic for a psychology lecturer), or he just didn’t care, which would make him even more of an idiot.
“Uhm-,” Arthur swallows, frantically scanning his screen. “I thought maybe the Khmer Rouge during the Cambodian Genocide- Uhm- for some of them, it was a case of kill or be killed.” My heart tugs as I watch his discomfort, he genuinely looks like he’d rather die right now.
Jordan nods. “I hadn’t considered them actually. Good thinking Arthur.” He then turns his attention away to the rest of the room.
Arthur immediately diverts his gaze back to the safety of his laptop, although not typing anything.
“Penny for your thoughts?,” I lean over and whisper.
He lets out a reluctant smile, “I was wondering why he has it in for me.”
“I was wondering the same thing. Man period clearly,” I laugh.
This earns me a brief chuckle.
The remainder of the hour is spent with Jordan having a heated one:one debate with an auburn-haired girl called Heidi, who certainly lived up to the fiery redhead reputation. She was an international student from the United States who really thought she was the dogs bollocks. You could just tell by the way she tried to correct and nitpick every little thing that Jordan said, even going as far as to call him ‘ignorant’ and ‘uneducated’ in front of the sea of students who were currently biting their fingernails, eyes wide in anticipation. I’ll admit, it was a welcome form of entertainment.
Thankfully, Jordan was saved by the bell. Or should I say the blast of his mobile phone. It was so perfectly timed; you couldn’t help but think he had a secret earpiece where he was communicating with a hidden accomplice to rescue him from the Heidi debacle. It’s then that everyone charges out of the door, whispering and laughing about the fight they’d just witnessed.
“Well, that was awkward,” I’m surprised to hear Arthur say through a laugh, as we both pack our bags up.
Turning to him, I reply, “Fancy paying thousands of pounds to come to uni, let alone overseas, only to call your seminar leader ‘uneducated.’ He’s the one with the bloody bachelors, masters, and PGCE!,” I snort.
“I’m just grateful that I’m not in the same presentation group as her. I reckon she’d eat me alive,” he grimaces before letting out another laugh.
I smile, it’s nice to be able to chat with him without any hidden baggage or grudges.
“Speaking of presentations,” I add. “If you’ve got some free time now, we could find a booth and start figuring out what we want to do for our sections.”
He nods, “Sure, I’m free now for the rest of the day. What about Caleb though?.” I was so caught up in trying to push for Arthur and me to finally start working on this, that I’d forgotten that we had a third group member and let him walk past us. He’d long gone by now.
“Oh god I forgot about him!,” I shout, causing Arthur to smile. “Crap, I don’t have his number. Guess we’ll just have to work on our bits for now and recruit him in the next seminar.” That wasn’t for another week now, so here’s hoping that Caleb is the sort of person to take the initiative and start on it at home. Although, if the fact that he was fast asleep on the desk during the first seminar was anything to go by, I certainly wasn’t holding my breath.
“Sounds good,” Arthur replies. “I think there’s a free booth somewhere round there,” he takes the lead and starts gunning towards it at speed. I couldn’t blame him; the booths here might as well have been gold dust. We turn the corner and realise we’ve hit the jackpot as we find it empty. Perching our bags down, we take out our laptops, and start afresh, finally doing what we should have done ages ago.
◆◆◆
We spent the following 2 hours sitting at that booth, to the point where my bum has gone numb. The first hour was spent figuring out what sections we wanted to cover and doing some research. The second, however, was spent just chatting. We’d lost track of time and somehow the topic of social learning theory had quickly changed into topics of movies like Alien, whether we thought books were better than movies, flatmate horror stories, and a whole lot of other random spiel. Honestly, it felt good. He was so easy to talk to, which I never would have imagined if you’d told me that a few weeks ago. He had this refreshing wit and charming sense of humour that he hid away. Upon first impression, all people would see was the anxiety, which was a shame because he had this vibrant personality that was desperate to get out and be seen. We actually had a lot more in common than I thought, which made the conversation flow like a crisp white wine. It was strange, I’d always heard that sometimes you could meet people and it would feel like you’d known them forever, and this was exactly how it felt with him. He just exuded this sense of familiarity, I felt completely comfortable and at ease with him. As the conversation begins to fizzle, I briefly check my watch and realise I’ve got 10 minutes until I have to get to the other end of campus for another seminar. Timekeeping-1 Ember- 0.
“So sorry, but I’ve got to go,” I say, sliding my laptop inside its case. “I’ve got a seminar in 10 minutes up at Stanton.”
I swear I notice the corner of his mouth briefly droop down into a frown.
“Okay no worries,” he says.
“Here,” I say, passing him my phone and casting all embarrassment to the wind, “give me your number.”
His eyes widen in shock as I realise, he might have misunderstood what I meant.
“Oh,” I say shaking my head, “I meant like- give me your number - as in, so we can text each other to arrange when we can meet up next to practice the presentation.”
He seems to visibly relax now. Would the idea of me asking for his number really be that uncomfortable though?
I shake away the thought and decide not to take it as an insult. He nods and types his number into my contacts.
“All done,” he replies, passing me my phone.
I pick up my bags and binder and stand up before turning to him, “Don’t worry, I promise I’m not some weird stalker who will bombard you with texts in the middle of the night. It will just be about the presentation, I promise.” I fumble, cursing myself for my verbal diarrhoea.
He smiles, “I don’t mind.”
I can’t quite tell which part of my spiel he was referring to, but somehow, I believed him either way.