Suicide Note; Chapter 02 (Part II)

Mar 08, 2006 19:18

Long day, a lot of studying and stuff.

Still, I managed to get a little done.

Suicide Note
Chapter Two
Sharon (continued, part II)

Ten in the morning...

Laura glanced at the alarm clock radio. Amanda had long gone to class and she was sprawled out on the sheets by herself. The sickly overcast skies coalesced into a veil of grey over the campus. She lay there in the cool bedsheets, staring off into space, feeling restless and exhausted at the same time. She barely got any sleep the night before, waking up every few hours to think about Sharon.

I have to find her, talk to her, seduce her, Laura thought as she untangled herself from the sheets and headed for the shower. Her muscles had been permeated with the chill and she had to shake off a nasty shiver as she stepped into the bathtub. The hot water purged the cold from her body. The entire dorm was very drafty and the thin windows and spaces under the doors didn't do a thing to insulate. Whenever the weather turned cold, it'd be freezing in White Hall before the heat would be turned on by maintenance.

She had class today, but perhaps it wouldn't be worth to go. She was too distracted to concentrate and spending a few hours in lecture with her mind racing would probably be a waste of time.

Did she have a regular schedule? Did she work out on the same days of the week? Were there others who knew her name or where she liked to go?

It's not as if it was a big campus where one chance would be all she had to strike up a conversation. It would only be a matter of time before she would see her again.

Laura took a deep breath of the fragrant shampoo she lathered into her hair and closed her eyes as the water cascaded down her shoulders and onto her back. Only a matter of time, she thought. When she finished with her shower she dried herself off and dressed herself in a brown sweater and a black dress then headed out, picking up her grey wool coat by the door.

The campus was considerably cooler as she hurried across the paths, clutching her coat against her body. What traces of spring had been there the past few days had succumbed to a cold front that brought a frigid drizzle as she headed to the cafeteria. She had been so distracted that it didn't even occur to her that the track would be closed to practice and joggers on a foul day like this.

There'd be no way she'd be at the track today, Laura thought as she decided to turn around and sneak in late to class. She was at her overlook, the winds had tipped some of the chairs and leaves had permeated the grating of the tables. Her hair whipped against her face, shivering.

What started out as a gentle drizzle soon became a biting rain that started to soak through her coat and forced her to duck into the library not far from the cafeteria.

Inside the library was drafty, just like with her dorm no one had expected it to get cold so quickly and the heat hadn't been turned on. Laura shuddered as she took off her coat and sat down at one of the computer stations at the front of the library. The freezing rain was streaming against the glass; she was stuck in here for the time being lest she catch cold in this terrible weather.

“Laura?” a voice caught her by surprise as she had logged in to check her email on the terminal. She turned to see Tina standing over her.

Tina was a tall blonde from her advanced fiction writing class. She had a slender build and long flowing blond hair she kept in a pony tail, and perhaps a little boyish in her build and mannerisms. Her grey sweatshirt and jeans were streaked with water down the front, she had run in from the rain just like Laura had.

“Hey,” Laura said as Tina sat down beside her.

“What are you doing here? Don't you have class?”

“I wasn't in the mood,” Laura said. “So I decided to go for a walk but got caught in the rain.”

“Yeah, me too.” Tina turned to rummage through her wet backpack and dug out a USB drive that she plugged into the computer. “I actually came here to do some work for my Biochem class. My computer is acting up.”

Tina was premed and planning on going into Nursing. Yet she had a passion for writing and poetry that made her cross paths with Laura on numerous occasions in the creative writing courses of the English department.

“We have midterms Friday and I still haven't gone through all of the lecture notes,” Tina said as she brought up the power point presentation. “Don't you have any exams?”

“Not this semester,” Laura said. “I have some essays and papers due, but that's more towards the end of the term.” The school had already switched from quarters to semesters, but some of the teachers still liked to give midterms to evaluate performance in the middle of a course.

“Must be easy,” Tina said as she flipped through the slides.

“I guess,” Laura said. “It seems like I have to put out an A quality essay every week or so while working on my fiction project. I'd like some multiple choice exams to breeze through at this point.” She did have a French Revolution midterm on Thursday, but she was more than prepared for it, having read the required text several times over. “I don't know what's worse, writing all those papers, or being the poor teacher who has to read all of that crap...”

“I don't know,” Tina said. “I'd like to be able to switch places with you sometimes.”

The door of the library suddenly opened to the rain and wind and brought with it a freezing draft that rustled loose papers inside. Laura didn't pay attention to who it was, but Tina immediately stood up.

“Sharon,” she started off. “Oh no.” She hurried over to the person who had come in from the cold. Laura turned with interest to see the girl she had seen just a day before soaked to the bone, standing in a puddle of water by the doors. Her blue running jacket and her black shorts clung to her body and her bare legs were trembling. Water droplets beaded on her long hair and fell to the floor.

Laura was captivated, she stood up and followed Tina but kept her distance, stopping at the first row of bookcases.

“You're soaked!” Tina said.

“It's fine, really. I wasn't expecting the rain to pick up so quickly-otherwise I'd have waited for the tram,” Sharon laughed, trying to brush the water off of her clothes.

“I'm sorry for dragging you out in this weather!”

“Ugh, well it looks like we're stuck here for the time being. That storm doesn't seem to be getting any better,” Sharon said, clutching her arms over her body.

Tina took off her sweatshirt and handed it to Sharon. “Take off that wet jacket,” she ordered.

“Don't be so worried,” Sharon said. “I'm used to getting caught up in crappy weather when I go for a bike ride.”

“You're shivering!” Tina snapped.

Sharon, Laura thought. What a beautiful name. She couldn't help smiling as Sharon took off her jacket. Her shirt was soaked, too, clinging to her large breasts and Laura could see her black sports bra pressed against the fabric before Sharon quickly put on the sweatshirt.

“Is that any better?” Tina asked, concern in her voice.

“Yeah, a bit,” Sharon said. “Thank you.”

The wind howled outside and rain battered against the windows.

“I have a spare set of shorts in my backpack. I think I'll go change in the bathroom,” Sharon said. She left Tina beside the puddle she had made on the floor.

Laura took this as a chance to approach Tina. “She's very cute. Who is she?”

“That's Sharon deAngelicio,” she replied. “She's in most of my premed classes and helps me study.”

“Is she smart?”

“Very. Almost as smart as you,” Tina said.

“Really,” Laura said, her smile broadening. “Does she come here often?”

Tina nodded. “Just about every afternoon. She barely spends any time in her dorm...”

Laura stared off to where Sharon had gone, as if tracing the path of her ghost. An excitement made her heart race and a blush spread across her face. “I think I like her,” Laura said.

“She's single, if you're interested,” Tina replied, winking. “Is she aware of her secret admirer?”

“Not yet,” Laura said. “But I plan on letting her know how I feel very soon. I just want to watch her from afar a little longer-to see if she's right for me.”

“And you're not worried about someone stealing her away from you?”

“No one has ever stolen a girl away from me,” Laura said. “Be a dear and don't tell her about our little conversation.”

Sharon, Laura thought. I like that...

Sharon had returned from the bathroom changed into dry clothes with her jacket, shorts, and shirt folded up in a wet parcel. Laura left her to Tina, stealing the occasional glance over her shoulder as she headed out of the library. The rain had turned back into a nasty drizzle by the time she opened the doors. A bitter wind hit her face and made her eyes water.

Her heart continued to race as she hurried down the stairs to the small covered tram stop. The plastic windows had faded over the years and were plastered with multicolored flyers. Cigarette butts littered the ground around it, even if the campus was a nonsmoking one.

A fleet of white shuttle vans ran along concrete trails that crisscrossed the campus. Laura didn't have to wait long for one to arrive. The double doors opened to show that there was only standing room inside the stuffy vehicle as most of the other students were as reluctant to walk through the rain as she was.

The humanities building was along the route of the shuttle, and after being lurched back and forth in the stifling interior, pressed against other warm bodies, Laura began to feel very sick. The swaying of the suspension and the diesel fumes didn't help, either. She staggered out, feeling light headed. She waited out in the cold at the tram stop, breathing the cold fresh air until her pallor faded and she could walk into the building.

Laura made it to her French History class just in time to catch the review session for the midterm. She took a seat in the second floor auditorium near the back and next to the window. She watched the rain ravage the campus outside instead of listening to the lecture. Trees swayed violently in the wind and a black umbrella bounced across a gravel path, the fabric torn from its metal skeleton.

suicide note

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