"I miss you so much, Avery," claimed Tess. She’d made me promise to call her as much as I could. I called as soon as we got in and told her about our first day.
"I miss you too Tess. We're actually thinking of coming home this coming weekend, to pick up a few more things and to see you of course."
"Oh, sorry kid, but I have the International Home and Garden Show this weekend. Take a rain check? How about next weekend I come into the city and we'll have a movie night?"
"Sounds good, Tess, but I’ve got to go. Will should be here soon."
"Well, have fun. I’m glad that you guys made a friend so soon," Tess said, but I knew she was hoping that one of us would be more than friends with him. She was always trying to get us to date. She even set us up one time with one of her designer friend’s two sons. That was a nightmare. Turned out, they weren’t interested in us. But it wasn't just us; it was any female if you catch my drift.
Other than that, we had been on a few dates throughout high school and we had dates for prom, but no relationships. It's not that we were weird or anything, we just didn't find guys from our small town very interesting. Plus, Julie had her job at the bookstore and I was always doing minor art competitions and helping Tess out with her work.
I was taking the nachos out of the oven when a knock sounded at the door. I went to answer it but Julie came running, literally, out of her room.
"I'll get it!" she cried, practically jumping at the handle. I laughed and went back to the kitchen. A few moments later, she and Will entered the room. He had a bunch of rented movies.
"Hey, Will. What movies did you get?" I asked. I didn't want to scare him, but Julie and I were pretty hardcore movie buffs and we were picky over our movie night rentals.
"I got Kung Fu Kick Off and Terminator one, two and three," he replied. Julie shot me a concerned look. I returned one to her. She hated Kung Fu movies.
"Kidding." he laughed. "I got Across the Universe and Rent. Geez, you guys should have seen your faces." He laid the movies down on the island. "I'm going to run downstairs and grab some coffee, you guys want?"
I smiled and nodded. "Will, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," I replied jokingly. It's like he got us already, the nervousness had quickly dissolved from him, so I guess it was just from being around girls.
"I'll come with you," Julie offered. She grinned at me and left with Will to go downstairs. I could already see where that was going. I put the nachos on the coffee table and grabbed the popcorn from the microwave and the movies from the kitchen.
They returned with the drinks and some cookies from the cafe. We had an awesome movie spread. We sat and watched the movies and sang along with most of the songs while finishing off almost all of the food. Julie and Will shared the couch while I was curled up in the big comfy chair. The night ended when Julie woke me up from the junk food coma I’d fallen into.
"Hey you, bed?" she whispered. The television was off and the apartment was quiet and dark. I guess Will had left at some point during my nap. I sleepily got up from the chair and said good night as I slugged to my room, sick from all the junk food. I loved movie nights.
The next day at school was crazy. There seemed to be double the amount of people than the day before. We got there early and met Will by the coffee cart.
"So, what are you guys doing later?" he asked.
"Probably celebrating the fact that we got through our first day of community college,” I kidded.
“Cool, mind if I join?” he asked and blushed as he glanced at Julie from the corner of his eye.
“Sure,” my best friend answered with doe eyes and a flirty smile. I discreetly rolled my eyes. I wondered how long this was going to go on.
The bell rang and we all looked at each other with nervous sighs.
"Meet here for lunch?" I suggested. The three of us agreed and went on our separate ways to begin our first classes.
I made my way up a large staircase and down a long hall, passing about a hundred of my new fellow schoolmates as I did, before stopping in front of the doorway that I would enter every day for the next few years. With one deep breath, I entered the art studio that was now my classroom. I forced a smile as I made my way to a workstation in the far back corner right next to the beautiful French doors that looked out over the garden balcony. Perfect. I couldn't believe anyone hadn’t nabbed this seat yet.
The class was quickly filling up with students, I noted some of them gave me strange looks, and then that girl walked in, the angry one from yesterday. She eyed me and glared. I felt like crawling under the table or something. What did I do to offend her already? She strutted over to where I was, everyone's eyes moving back and forth from her to me.
"This is my seat," she simply stated with one hand on her hip.
"I'm sorry; I didn't see anyone's stuff here. I didn't know someone had it."
"I know, but it's clearly the best seat and I was planning on sitting here."
"So, you mean, it's not actually your seat, you just wanted it?" I confirmed. I couldn’t believe her. Who did she think she was?
"Look," she started intensely and leaned in toward my face. "You’ve obviously never heard of me. So I will let you off easy this one time. No one has chosen this workstation because it's the best and everyone knows that I always want and get the best. My name is Max Carmichael, of the Carmichaels. I want this workstation, so move."
I don't know what came over me. I didn't care who she was, and I’d never heard of the Carmichaels either. I suddenly wanted to put her in her place and tell her that she was a horrible person, pull her hair at the very least. That wasn't like me.
"Look, Max. If you didn't actually take this seat first then you can forget about me giving it to you. I don't care who the hell you are. The seat next to me is just as good, help yourself." I turned and pretended to be very interested in one of my books. I could tell that I was blushing terribly and could hear everyone gasp in shock, but I didn't care. It felt good to actually stand up to her, I could tell from her expression in the corner of my eye that she wasn't used to people doing that.
She didn't say anything else and reluctantly took the seat next to me. I was kind of hoping she would have chosen another one. Now I had to sit next to her. There went my idea of avoiding her.
The day moved by pretty fast. I met Julie and Will for lunch and he told me all about Max Carmichael.
"Wow, I feel so bad for you Avery. Max is a cold hearted bitch," he exclaimed. "I went to high school with her. She's something else. Her family is part of this rich group of upper-class people. I've never even known her to have any actual friends."
“If she’s from such a high profile family then why did she attend a public school?” Julie asked.
“I have no idea,” Will replied. “Everyone else in her family attended some fancy private school but Max didn’t.”
"Oh well, I’ll deal with it, I guess. I'm just going to ignore her best I can."
"Good luck, sounds like she's got it out for you," Julie added. "And you're competition."
I rolled my eyes and finished my coffee and muffin. I really didn't want this to be a big thing. Maybe Max would just grow up and leave me alone…or maybe not.
CHAPTER SIX
COMPETITION
Iron & Wine Page 7