C3 Chapter 3

She jerked awake, the sorrowful, heartbroken feeling of pain yet to subside in her chest. Two drop of liquids dropped down onto her palms and when she felt for her face, her hands came off wet. She hiccupped and sat up, resting her upper body on the headboard as she drew her legs to meet her chest. She felt a conflicting mix of a cold and warm sensation in her heart and she took deep breaths to calm the riveting emotions rioting through her.

Casey knocked and open the door to her room. She walked gingerly into the room after noticing her depressed disposition and sat on her bed. “Are you okay? You look deathly pale”.

Lilith smiled weakly as she glanced up at her. “I should be. It’s just the aftereffects of a dream I had. It’s ridiculous that I feel so terrible given that I can’t even remember why I’m this way”.

“You also don’t remember this one? I’m sure it’s not a big deal if you can’t remember it. I mean if it was of any importance you would remember clearly what it was about”, Casey said, in an attempt to make her feel better.

Lilith smiled again at her to reassure her but she knew that it was important. The way she felt when she woke up was something that couldn’t have come out of nowhere and it couldn’t be faked. She closed her eyes and all she saw was a clouded face with a dark smirk and deep black eyes.

She sighed and dragged herself out of bed to prepare for her class and shooed her worried friend out the door. She hurried to get ready so she could leave for school with Casey. Casey was studying History and International Studies and they were both minoring in a Political Science course. Lilith was very grateful to have Casey around her when she needed help or a shoulder to rest and cry on and also to gist and gossip with. She pulled on a red turtleneck, navy blue trousers and a tote bag, leaving her long brown hair to cascade down her shoulders to frame her heart shaped face. Casey and her stepped out of their rooms at the same time and a disapproving look at her casual outfit was sent her way. Casey always looked her best when she left the dorm for classes and she was quite well known in her department. Today, she wore a flowery wrap-around dress that stopped mid-thigh and a pretty pair of pale pink gladiator sandals that matched the colors on her dress. She had on light make-up and her hair was twisted into a pair of French braids with little buttery hair clips adorning her hair.

Lilith pretended not to see her dark looks as she proceeded to lock the doors to their floor in the hostel.

“You’re never going to attract any guy if you keep this up”, Casey told her as they walked to the school.

“I don’t have any plans of attracting anyone at all. Not while I’m like this. I mean, do you think there’s any guy that’ll be cool being with a girl that can foresee his probable possibly near end?”.

“Quit being so pessimistic. You never know until you try. I’m sure you’ll be able to find a cute guy who’s into paranormal stuff and wouldn’t be afraid”.

Lilith didn’t want to talk anymore about her non-existent dating life which was honestly a bit too empty for a sophomore student in college so she changed the topic. “I ran into this really pretty girl yesterday and I didn’t see anything when she touched me”.

“How pretty was she? Did you get her number?”, Casey asked playfully.

“That’s not the point”, Lilith told her, throwing her a look.

“What’s the big deal? She’s just another odder. It’s not the first time you’ve encountered one”. Odders were what they called people whose misfortunes Lilith couldn’t read. They weren’t special, they just had a stronger mental stability than others.

“I know that but her eyes were different. They were beautiful and glowing. I’d never seen anything like it before”.

“So she has pretty eyes, that still doesn’t say anything else. You should give it up already, this thing you do of picking out random things in people because you want to believe their special too. You’re the only one and that makes you unique”.

No, Lilith thought, it made her a freak who didn’t even have other people like her to relate to.

“I guess so”, She answered with a smile. She didn’t want to dampen Casey’s enthusiasm.

As they walked into the class they caught sight of their other friend, Nicholas Parker who was a Political Science major and waved when he saw them. They stalked towards the seat he had kept for them and at that moment, the lecturer walked in.

Lilith felt a little awkward around Nick as he motioned for her to take the seat next to him before closing his eyes to doze off. He’d asked her out at the end of the previous months . She had rejected him in a rather stupid manner by saying a loud ‘no’ and running off and she’d been avoiding him since then.

She stared at the young man close to her in royal blue linen trousers and a pale grey t-shirt with his long legs sprawled out beneath the seat before him. They had met in their freshman year of college and they became fast friends. He was a complete opposite of her, just like Casey who was a social butterfly, he was jovial, funny, popular and friendly and within the first week of school, he was friends with everyone in his department and in the months that followed, even people from her faculty would gossip about him as they walked by about how they liked him and how cute he was.

And he was quite handsome, with his tanned skin, legs that seemed to go on forever, light brown eyes that seemed to sparkle whenever he smiled, golden hair that seemed to shine in the sunlight, thin lips tinged with a pale pink hue, strong muscular jaw and toned athletic build. He was perfect. He had a beautiful smile, a great personality and he was well into sports, a college girl’s dream boyfriend. But she never felt anything but friendship whenever she was with him, no stirrings in her loins or her heart, no butterflies dancing and tumbling in her belly, no rush of color to stain her cheeks, nothing. And so she rejected him. She couldn’t afford to string him along, not when she didn’t feel any romantic attraction towards him.

Maybe he felt her watching because brown eyes suddenly opened and met hers and he gave her a nice, open somewhat teasing smile. Lilith moved her eyes quickly to her hands which fiddled with her hair. She heard him chuckle lightly but she was too embarrassed to glare at him.

After the class ended, Nick held onto Lilith’s hand and gently pulled her out of the class while waving Casey off. “Ill be right back with her. I just need to speak with her alone for a bit”.

“Sure, take as long as you like”, Casey glanced at them for a little while and turned to talk to her other friends in room.