1
Iran through the halls as fast as my legs could carry me. The meeting was starting any second. Thank god I had settled on jeans earlier today, instead of the typical skirts and dresses I tended to love so much. My bag bounced against my back with every single stride, and I could feel my lungs growing hotter and hotter inside, burning up with how fast I’d been running.
I’ve never been late for a meeting before, and I wasn’t about to start today, especially not in light of everything that happened recently. The less attention I drew to myself, the better.
VIP College was huge, even considering the high-end, relatively limited student body it served. The buildings were gorgeous, like nothing I’d ever seen back home, but most of the campus was vast swathes of beautifully cultivated nature.
Unfortunately, this meant any time I wanted to get to a VIP meeting, I had to run across the entire campus if I wasn’t already nearby.
I slammed my finger down on the elevator button multiple times, tapping hard until the doors finally slid open. The moment I was inside, I hit the button for the eighth floor, leaned against the wall, and focused on my breathing.
I didn’t know what I was thinking last night. Or, no, I guess that wasn’t accurate. I was exhausted, up all day and most of the previous night, writing my latest feature for the paper. I wasn’t sure if it would live up to the standards I already set for myself, much less the entire school, but I was inspired.
The next thing I knew, it was late o’clock in the middle of the night, and I was dozing off at my monitor despite the massive amounts of caffeine I had been drinking throughout my writing haze.
Then I remembered thinking I’d go ahead and shut my eyes, take the night for myself, sleep in and relax, and not wake up until the sun roused me from my bed. What was the harm in that?
Plenty, as it turned out, when you somehow forget the regular meeting that happens every single week was taking place right on time, like it always did.
I woke up like a madwoman, slapping on my clothes as quick as I could, chugging a green smoothie down with one hand as I stuffed my laptop and my books into my bag with the other. I had five minutes to get into the meeting room.
Here I was, with one minute and counting, in the slowest elevator in the entire world, being carried up to the eighth floor VIP Lit HQ with absolutely no urgency whatsoever. I caught myself wildly considering stopping the elevator and taking the stairs, but I knew showing up out of breath would be even more conspicuous than being late.
“Breathe,” I whispered to myself through ragged puffs of air, staring at the numbers for each floor, watching them light up and take their sweet time before hopping to the next in line. “Just breathe. You’ll be fine.”
And I would be. It wasn’t like anyone cared if I was late by a minute or two. But after having my name slung around campus as the slutty new girl, the gold digger, the black widow in training, the last thing I needed was for any of my boys to start showing me favoritism where they would normally tease someone else showing up even a minute late.
Finally. Eighth floor. The doors slid open, and I tore through them at top speed, barreling down the hallway to the very end. Why did they have to be at the very end, at the top floor, in literally the furthest place from my dorms possible on this campus? I slid to a halt in my sneakers right in front of the doors, throwing my hair back into the messiest, sloppiest bun in existence. I desperately needed to comb this out, but people staring at me for my unkempt appearance was something I’d just have to live with. Though, really, I’d had enough staring and whispered commentary to last me more than one lifetime, and I’d be ecstatic to never have to deal with it again.
Breathe. Calm down. You’re going to be fine.
I closed my eyes, remembering my first day in these halls. It started much the way I was standing now, a fresh-faced girl with her eyes closed, taking a deep breath, squaring up her shoulders, and pushing the frosted glass doors open wide.
I opened my eyes. I pushed on the doors.
The familiar din almost immediately flooded me with comfort as I stepped inside. Since the very first time I set foot in here, I had fallen in love with this room, and nothing had changed in the time since. Still its perfect self, a massive, wide open space dotted with creative furniture of all kinds, some comfier-looking than others. It certainly was different for the headquarters of a literary club, not an old dusty room full of oak desks and bookshelves like a forgotten library. The room was alive, and electric. It had personality, and I loved every last bit of it.
I had been in the room for ten seconds before the call came out.
“Staff meeting in five minutes, everyone!” Cynthia shouted over the din.
I blinked. Five minutes? I looked down at my phone, tapping it to bring up the time.
Sure enough, five whole minutes until the meeting began. I glanced over to my wristwatch, annoyed with myself. Five minutes fast, exactly how I set it to make sure I’d be on time to class. Of course.
“Hey Aubrey, what’s eatin’ at you?” Cynthia said.
I looked up, startled at how quickly she was standing in front of me.
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just having one of those days.”
“I know what you mean,” Cynthia said, grinning at me. “You just wake up or somethin’?”
“Yeah, I did.” I grinned sheepishly. “It was a long night.”
“Ooh,” Cynthia said with a glint in her eyes. “A boy?”
“No,” I shook my head. “I wish I had the time. I’m working on my new piece for the paper, following up on some of the stuff I wrote in my last series.”
