Chapter 3

Christina felt great after a good night’s sleep. She smiled peacefully and pulled the comforter up over her head. The sunlight streaming through the curtains touched her exposed toes and she wiggled them gleefully. If mother nature could talk, she would certainly be telling Christina to stay in bed all day and accomplish nothing. Just as she was getting comfortable, her phone went off in a series of loud clangs and bells, and cut through her thoughts to force an end to her daydream. She frowned at the sound of alarm tone she hated and reached a hand to turn it off. I beat you to it you bastard. She brought the phone up to her face and idly unlocked it. 23 new messages, zero from the person she wanted to talk to. What a world. She stretched herself out on her mattress for one last time. On cue, her phone went off again, this time the second alarm caught her off guard. Son of a bitch! she mouthed at her ceiling.

The only daughter in a family of five, Christina perpetually wished she wasn’t the last born. It didn’t help that her two older brothers were identical twins. She had grown tired of trying to figure them out from each other when she was six. That they were jokers and switched places often to confuse the family only made matters worse. In time, their mom started calling them by a nickname; Seven. The genius of it was she cornered each twin and separately told them of the name and how they weren’t to disclose it to the other twin. It yielded excellent results… for two days. She merrily called out for seven from the living room one afternoon, and fully expected whichever twin was within range to come running to his dear mother’s aid. She hadn’t expected them both to walk into the room and confront her. She folded and revealed the reason behind it; she didn’t want to worry about figuring out which twin she was looking at and get past their silly game. “Mom, are we adopted?” they had asked, sending her into uncontrollable laughter. The twins were 13 then, and Christina, 5. Fast forward fifteen years and she was 20 in college with the twins off working different jobs in different cities.

She missed the twins, she thought as she got out of the shower. She made a mental note to call them after class. A quick glance at her clock told her she had to hurry to make it to class on time. Christina was energetic at 5’6. She had opted not to stay on campus and instead rent a place in town. It took 15 minutes to walk to school, but she didn’t mind—she loved the exercise.

A gate creaked loudly open. Ugh! She hated that damned noise so much. It was that of the old man who lived two doors away. She hurriedly dressed with an eye on the clock. Now would be a good moment for my time pausing ability to manifest. 7:45; she only had thirty minutes till class started. Slow footsteps reached her ears from beyond her window, a few metres behind the short wall, and she parted her curtains to see who was passing by. Ahhh, Mr. Full of himself. She giggled at the nickname she had come to call the guy by. He never seemed to be in a hurry, always had his hands in his pocket, and seemed to move to the sound of whatever song he was listening to.

Christina looked on as he came in full view of her window. Strange, he wasn’t holding any books, wearing his backpack or his headphones and judging by the speed of his walk, he wasn’t going to make it in time for class. They took the same class that morning, although she was willing to bet he would not recognize her. He usually sat apart from everyone in the back, and the minute class ended, the headphones were back on and he was off. Naturally he was a hot topic for gossip among the girls; with the opinions stretching from “I think he’s really rich and just shy” to “Maybe he’s in a cult." To be honest, he did seem rich, Christina observed the boy glide past. He was always neatly dressed and in possession of a really expensive-looking phone and laptop. He did not come off as a show-off, but when you are this disjointed from everyone else, these things tend to be said about you; especially when you have no friends in a small class of 30. She watched him move slowly, all the while looking down at the ground as he walked, as if punished by someone to do so.

For the two years they’d been classmates he had done nothing out of the ordinary, except make a hermit of himself. The class had been stunned to hear his voice one day for the first time. The lecturer announced an unfamiliar name as the top of an exam with a perfect score. When he asked who it was, the surprisingly firm and deep voice that had responded from the back of the class caused a stir in the class. Everyone turned to look at the boy who did not mingle, who walked alone—all different nicknames they had for him. He had frozen at the scrutiny he was getting and fumbled with his phone for a while. Christina gained some admiration for him that day. Seeing him react like a normal human make him somewhat more likeable.

He wasn’t too tall; he was just the right height and usually wore a large afro on his head. He didn’t look much the fashion type; judging by his predictable preference for black jeans and unbuttoned long sleeved shirts over an inner white or dark shirt, depending on the weather. Today he had strayed from his default setting a bit and wore black shorts and a red shirt. Interesting, he had quite nice legs, Christina thought, smiling.

She snapped out of her reverie. Her third alarm was ringing, signaling it was now 7:50. She had wasted precious minutes staring at the guy. A loud Crap! escaped her lips. The guy’s ears twitched at the sound, then he turned his head to look back and locked eyes with Christina in the process. They both froze. An eternity passed while the two gazed into each other’s face, through a very clean window. Then Christina remembered she was half naked and her face flushed with embarrassment. She hurriedly brought her curtains together, shoving Mr. Full of himself out of sight. She didn’t realize when she had fully parted them, or when she moved to another window to get a better look. She waited to catch her breath, before turning to peep out, to check if he was still there. He wasn’t. The jerk! Why hadn’t he moved his eyes away? She might have to change his nickname to Pervert. Her phone came alive loudly again, this time it was her ringtone. It was her best friend, Emma.

“Jesus! Chris, where are you!?” she roared soon as Christina picked up. “Hang on, I’m coming,” Christina said back. Damn that pervert hermit for making her late.