Page 12 of Clichés & Curses

It was a little over 10 p.m. when I started reaching my tipping point for the night. It had been nice seeing and catching up with people after the summer break, but I could already feel the last of my social battery being drained out. There were days when Icould continuously talk to everyone and hang around until hours passed midnight, but there were also days when I just wanted to go home early and be in my bed.

That night was one of the latter.

I was standing in the corner of the living room, my place of solace for the last fifteen minutes, when Nina came up to me after finishing her round of beer pong.

‘Hey, you okay?’ she asked, with concern in her voice seeing the tired expression on my face.

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I gave her a small smile. ‘But I’m reaching my limit for the night, so I think I’m just gonna head back to the apartment.’

‘Oh, sure,’ she said, her eyes looking around the room. ‘Let me go find Claudia and—’

I cut her off. ‘You should stay. You deserve it after this week’s training.’

‘Are you sure?’ she asked, hesitantly.

‘Hundred percent,’ I reassured her. ‘Go and have fun; I’ll probably head straight to bed once I reach the apartment.’

‘Okay,’ she replied, her tone still contemplative. ‘But promise you’ll text me the second you step foot inside our apartment.’

‘I promise,’ I told her, holding out my pinkie finger.

She laughed when she saw what I was doing, but sealed the pinkie promise anyway.

I went to search for Claudia and Lily, along with the members of the track team I was familiar with, to tell them I was leaving. I hugged each of them goodbye before heading to the front door of the house.

Blurting out numerous excuse me-s as I squeezed my way through the crowd of people blocking the way to the entrance, I finally emerged victorious on the front porch of the house, taking a deep breath to recompose myself.

Even though the girls and I had taken an Uber to the party, the new apartment that I shared with Nina wasn’t too far. Our last apartment building was merely a few streets from our new place. It was barely a thirty-minute walk, twenty if I walked at a faster pace. I was pretty sure I had already sweated out all the alcohol from the dancing, but my skin still felt a bit warm. The cool night air only made it more inviting to walk my way back to the apartment.

As I was walking down the front yard, willing my mind to recall the route back to my place, I didn’t realize I had barely been focusing on my path until I accidentally bumped into something.

Or, rather, someone.

A hand immediately reached out and grasped my arm, steadying me from a fall.

‘Oh sorry. Didn’t see you there,’ I apologized to whoever it was, my mind still reeling from the collision.

‘Clara?’ the person asked, in a voice that sounded oddly familiar to me.

But that might have just been my mind playing tricks with me.

I finally looked up to see who it was.

And turns out, my mind was, in fact,notplaying tricks.

The person standing before me, was none other than the star athlete himself, and my potential partner for ASL class.

Colton Reed.

Chapter Four

‘Clara?’ Colton asked once again, confusion written on his face.

I didn’t realize I was plainly staring at him, while my mind went off in a turmoil over what could have possibly led me to end up in this situation.

How did I manage to run into Colton twice this week?

‘Colton. Hey,’ I greeted him.

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