I was late. I am always late. Well that’s how it always went. I was running behind schedule for my first BSU class of the Spring semester.
The air was dry, the wind chilly, and it was snowing. I was bundled up in my winter jacket from head to toe.
Oh Hell, the weather sucked and it made me never want to get out of bed.
That is right, I blamed the weather for my inability to stay on time. Unfortunately, that is the only excuse I have right now. I just hope that it will be good enough for my Professor of Psychology.
I had that tune from “Alice in Wonderland” stuck in my head as I ran down the campus side walk.
’I’m Late. I’m Late.
For a Very Important Date.
No Time to say hello, Goodbye.
I’m Very very Late.′
That movie always gave me the creeps growing up. A girl who fell into a hole, and took a trip of nightmares. She shrunk, got big, and met animals that talked. The cheshire cat with that devil of a smile. I shuddered at the thought of the animal disapearing leaving the grin behind.
Even with the thought of the movie, I continued to make my way to class. At this rate I would be close to fifteen minutes late. I would walk into the room and all eyes would turn towards me. I would become that person, and everyone would remember this moment for the rest of the semester.
If we were assigned to groups, they would start the greeting with, ‘Oh you were that girl late to class the first day’. I hate that my reputation would be the ‘late girl’.
I was always chastised growing up by my family. They told me if I ever wanted to make anything of myself, I would have to learn to be early.
This sucked.
As I ran through the freezing New England January weather, my lungs clentched. I felt the prickles of pain that could only be associated by breathing in such extreme cold air. It was hard to breathe, almost impossible to catch my breath. But I was determined. I would make this class before it ended.
I pushed through the pain, soldiering on. My body hated me so much right now but I couldn’t miss the first day.
I was a freshman, the only one in my family who had made it to college. I couldn’t let them down. I wouldn’t let them down.
My family was small with not a lot of money. I grew up eating soup and bread for most my life. It was my grandfather who raised me, while my mother worked three jobs just to support us.
Dad was not exactly a winner. He had been thrown into jail when I was at the young age of 4. Mother told me it was because he had an issue with obtaining drugs and then selling them.
I had no reason not to believe her, but at the same time I barely remembered him. He had been killed while in a brawl with a couple other inmates. Stabbed in the back was what i was told later on in life, when my mom thought me mature enough to handle that dark truth.
I stayed strong in front of her, but the second I was out of her sight and in my bedroom, I met my bed face on. I used my pillows to muffle my tears. I hadn’t known him, but he was still my father.
Out of my life when I was four, he still had brought plenty of stress to my mother and grandpa. I had been told
‘Your father is gone sweety. He has moved on to a happier, better place.’ and blah,
blah, blah.
By the time I was old enough to really know what that meant, I wanted to know the whole story. Why had he been there? What was the reason he was locked up? How had he Died?
I got my answers to these questions, and that had been when I ended up face first in my bed using my pillows for comfort.
Anyways back to the present.
As I ran, I tried my best not to slip on the ice. So far I had been very successful.
That was until I got to the bridge, which divided the west and east sides of the campus. My class was on the east side, the furtherest point from my dorm room.
I ran under the bridge and completely and absolutely did not miss the patch of ice that was placed so expertly in the middle of the path.
*Whoosh*
The air from my lungs was forceably removed as my back met the pavement at impact. Hardcovered books separated the two from a full collision course. But wouldn’t you know? It made it all the more worse.
I laid there and groaned in pain. I closed my eyes to drown out the wave of extreme embarrasement that flowed through me.
There hadn’t been many students wandering around. Most of them had already made it to there respective classes. Anyone else who was probably around was out getting breakfast, meeting with friends, or most likely they were avoiding this terrible weather.
But as my luck would have it, I had seen a small group of students at the other end of the pathway. They stood in a circle and talked amongst themselves. As I had run under the bridge, they paid me no mind.
I am sure that had changed when they saw a fellow classmate get taken out by a patch of ice.
“Are you alright? That was a pretty nasty fall you took,” a masculine voice said directly above me.
An Arctic chill passed overhead and was followed by a comforting wave of warmth that smelled of a spring days at the beach.
I slowly opened my eyes.
I guess it was a good thing I couldn’t breath at the moment. Otherwise, it would have been stolen away by this view.
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