Common Ground (The Common Ground Trilogy Book 1) (4 page)

“How can you take two religion classes at once?” Annie asked in admiration as we headed back to the UC to meet our leaders.

“I just signed up for the first one on a whim, it seemed interesting enough and I’ve never had the opportunity to learn about it,” I shrugged. “It won’t be too bad. How about you, I thought you were going to pass out back there.”

“Oh shut up,” she spat. “Why did he have to gang up on me in there? I don’t know anything about religion! Oh man, I’m going to fail out of this place, I know it. You’ve gotta help me!”

“You’re nuts,” I laughed. “You tell me to get more confidence and I’ll get any guy I want, but you can’t even take a Professor asking you for your opinion? Of course I’ll help you, but you’ll figure it out on your own pretty quickly I think.”

Annie playfully shoved me as color slowly returned to her cheeks. We had finally reached the stairs of the UC which stood just yards from the stream. Any energy I built up from class had quickly extinguished, as I just wasn’t prepared to deal with meeting Liam. Annie on the other hand seemed to get extra pep in her step as we arrived. Luckily, there was only one leader standing at the steps of the UC and she was not a man. The maroon t-shirt she was wearing with a large, gold Spartan head in the middle was completely overshadowed by her downright homely appearance. Her ebony face was somewhat deformed with deep scars on her cheeks and heavy acne. Long, dark braids spiraled all the way down to her waist, which was covered by a long pair of tan colored shorts. Her clothes hung loosely off of her thick frame. She wasn’t smiling, but her brown eyes looked quite focused and attentive. Annie gave me a look of hesitation as we cautiously approached, following the lead of our other uncertain group members.

“If you could all gather around please and take a seat,” she spoke in a surprisingly soft, sweet voice to the seventeen freshmen that surrounded her.

“My name is Simi Miller and I’m one of your Orientation Leaders,” she said with a wide, friendly smile that came out of left field. Pearly white teeth just illuminated her face and made her seem much more pleasant. “If you guys could just sit around here in a circle, that’d be great! Your other leader, Liam Talbott, should be here any minute. I know that we are both so thrilled to see you here. I hope you’re enjoying your first day!” Most students timidly nodded in approval. 

“The first thing I want to tell you is that we all hate being called orientation leaders. We prefer you call us Orlies.” Everyone looked at each other nervously, not sure they wanted to actually ever say that word aloud.

“The second thing is that it’s our job to make sure you guys get two vital components of campus life, your ID cards and a campus tour. Since Liam isn’t here yet to help with any of that, I’d like to tell you all a little about myself, and if we have some time, you can go around the group and introduce yourselves” she said as she looked around at all our faces. At that moment, my stomach began to do cartwheels. If there was one thing I hated more than being in the spotlight, it was speaking in the spotlight. Sweat started to build on my brow as Simi gave us a quick rundown of herself.

Her personality was extremely likable and energetic. She spoke of her academic accomplishments, as well as her hours of volunteer work in the community. As she spoke, the anxiety I had about public speaking seemed to melt away. The tone of her voice was very reassuring and comforting, which seemed to loosen everyone else up as well. But, the kindness of her words seemed to offset the harshness of her appearance.

When she finished, Liam still hadn’t arrived. There was a slight trace of impatience and frustration that passed over Simi’s distorted face as she glanced down at her watch. She quickly shook it off, regained her smile and started asking the students in our group to introduce themselves. As each student spoke briefly about themselves, the line quickly approached me. After Annie’s surprisingly lackluster introduction, all eyes turned to me as I was the last member to speak.

“Um,” I said, my voice shaking. “I’m Zoe.”

I couldn’t quite figure out exactly what to say as my silence started to make things quite awkward.

“Where are you from Zoe?” Simi asked pleasantly.

“Seattle.”

“Oh cool! So do you and Annie know each other then?” Simi asked. I glanced over at Annie whose eyes were scanning the campus. She was sporting a rather eager and expectant face.

“Yeah, we grew up together,” I said, my voice regaining some strength. “She’s my best friend.”

“Awesome!” Simi cried. “So what do you do for fun Zoe?”

My nerves rapidly began to subside. The butterflies that were tickling my stomach originally had faded.

“Not much really,” I said. “I love to read, but that’s about it.”

Everyone around the group still had their focus on me. Nobody had laughed or turned away to make jokes, which was quite different than my past experiences in high school. A small smile lit up my face as Simi continued to talk.

“That’s cool, I love to read too. Did you play any sports in school?”

‘No. I used to own a bike, but that was a while ago. My parents never really let me do those kinds of things. I guess you could say I’ve had a pretty sheltered life,” I shrugged.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Simi said sweetly. “Besides, here you’ll be able to do whatever you want to do. That’s the beauty of this place. I think you’ll really find a whole new world here that you never even knew existed!”

“Sounds fun,” I replied.

“Is there anything else you want to tell us about yourself?” she said, looking down at her watch.

“Not really. I’m a pretty boring girl,” I joked to a small round of chuckles from the group.

Simi smiled and stood up.

“Well thanks everyone. It’s great to finally get to know you!”

She peeked at her watch again as a small frown encompassed her face. “Liam appears to be running later than I thought. Seeing how late it is getting, we should probably start the campus tour now so you can all get back to settling in, or for some of you,” she said, turning towards me with a small wink, “studying”. I smiled back at her as she started to gather everyone around her.

The rest of the group didn’t really seem to mind much that Liam wasn’t there yet, as they all nodded and smiled.  But studying Simi’s frustrated look, I started to feel somewhat angry as well that this guy couldn’t make it to the first day of his own Orientation group. On top of that, Annie’s once excited demeanor had deteriorated to a look of boredom and disappointment.

As we all got up and started walking away, a guy came walking out of the UC clapping loudly, wearing a pair of slim silver sunglasses and an extremely smug smile. Immediately, my gaze shot towards both Annie and Simi who were sporting two completely opposite looks. Annie’s face was lit up in excitement while Simi’s gaze could have burned through metal. When he approached the steps, he took a seat and popped a loud bubble from his gum. Everyone looked tentatively towards one another then at Simi, who didn’t take her eyes off the late arrival.

“You’re late,” she said with arms crossed over her chest.

“Uh, I’m sorry?” he said, smiling wider. There wasn’t a trace of wrinkles or lines anywhere on his narrow face, and his dazzling white teeth seemed to sparkle in the sunlight.

At that moment comprehension dawned on me. That voice. It was very familiar…

“Please don’t tell me,” I pleaded to Annie, who just gave a confused look back.

“What?” she asked defensively.

“That’s not the same guy, is it?” I asked, hoping against hope there were two different Liams in Las Vegas that Annie randomly met two days in a row, despite the obvious answer.

“Yeah, that’s him!” she whispered, barely able to contain herself. I frowned and glared at him, which Annie unfortunately saw. “Why?”

“That’s the guy who drenched me yesterday,” I whispered low enough for only her to hear. Annie’s overexcitement had gotten people’s attention. Sweat starting to form on my brow as my nerves grew.

“No… no way, it couldn’t be. He would never do that,” she muttered, shaking her head but not sounding too confident. “Besides, you didn’t even see his face.”

But I knew it was him. That voice and laugh were distinctive enough.

“Gather ‘round, gather ‘round,” he finally said. “My name is Liam and it’s good to see you here today. If you guys would take a seat for a minute, I’m going to tell you a bit about myself before we get started.”

Not even taking into account the water park incident, the fact he showed up what ended up being about an hour late without an apology or explanation to his own group was very selfish. Add on the fact that he basically started our meeting over, not even acknowledging Simi made it even worse. As he continued to speak, I started to hate him. It scared me a little as I had never really had such negative feelings towards anyone before.

Liam talked about his high school glory days as the star quarterback, his high-ranking in the Beta Alpha Delta Fraternity and his numerous clubs and activities around campus. That would explain the B-A-D sprawled out on his coal black t-shirt. It seemed to be high school all over again, with Annie going after the big man on campus.

Trying to be fair to Annie, I tuned out his monologue and attempted to find something, anything that would make the guy remotely appealing. From his appearance alone, I couldn’t see it. He did have a broad chest and shoulders, and his perfectly toned arms were about to burst through his shirt that was about two sizes too small. There was a rebellious look to him with his curly unkempt hair. But, his most notable, and frightening, feature was his pitch-black eyes. He had a rather large and round nose, which drew some attention away from his intense glare, but it was still pretty spooky. I added that to his boastfulness and egotism and decided there was just nothing there. Annie’s crush was the rudest guy I’d ever met and of course, he was my orientation leader, which meant I’d be seeing a lot of him.

When he finally finished, they took us around campus and showed us everything from department buildings to fraternity and sorority row. Liam was quick to tell us how vital it is to be part of the Greek system, that it “opened doors” to many areas and connections on campus. Both he and Simi were Greek, but Simi just gave us a quick history of the Greek system on campus and led us to the Campus security offices where we’d get our ID cards.

Once everything was done and our leaders let us go, an hour later than planned thanks to Liam, Annie tugged hard at my elbow and pulled us toward him.

“Will you let go?” I mumbled under my breath as we approached him. “You’re hurting me!”

“Shut up, just wait a sec,” she whispered, as we got closer.

“Wait a minute, what are you doing?” I demanded as she continued to pull.

“Just chill Zoe!”

I relinquished my futile fight as we finally reached her target, who had his back towards us.

“Um, Liam?” Annie asked sounding more like me than her normal, forward self.

He turned slowly and stared at Annie for a moment with a look of confusion on his face.

“Have we met?” he asked.

My jaw dropped as the three of us stood there silently for a split second. How could he not remember Annie? They practically spent the entire previous day together, the day that was supposed to be our day. It hurt me that Annie was so excited to see this guy, and he didn’t have the decency to try and remember her.

“Yeah, yeah, um, remember yesterday at the park?” Annie fidgeted uncomfortably.

“Oh yeah, um…Abby right?” he nodded.

“Actually, it’s Annie, but you’re close!” she giggled.

“Oh that’s right! Annie, how are you? How’s your first day going?” he asked in an overly friendly way.

“It’s great, I absolutely love the campus. It’s so beautiful! And that Perspectives class sure is interesting!”

“I don’t know, I wasn’t the biggest fan of it myself, who’s your Prof?” he asked halfheartedly, folding his muscular arms.

“Oh, Professor what’s-his-name, um…” she stumbled on.

“Professor Franklin,” I interjected out of the blue. Immediately my cheeks grew warm and my pulse quickened. Both Liam and Annie turned to me but with very different looks. Annie’s was one of complete surprise and Liam looked extremely interested and pleased.

“You look familiar,” he said curiously, “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”

“I uh, I don’t think so,” I stuttered, not even able to make eye contact I was so embarrassed.

“No, I really think so. Where do I know you from?”

“Well actually,” Annie finally interrupted. “She has this crazy idea that you two bumped into each other yesterday. Apparently you spilled your water all over her or something,” she finished with an uncomfortable chuckle.

Recognition dawned across his face as his eyes shot open in understanding. “Oh yeah! Ha-ha, yeah now I remember you.”

“So it did happen?” Annie asked, looking somewhat surprised. I shot her an unfriendly glance as my anger started to build.

“Yeah, see my buddy and I were walking towards the wave pool after we left you and he gave me this little push as I was taking a drink. I tripped over someone’s bag and unfortunately, your friend here got most of it all over her. But, water is water, no harm no foul right?” Liam said between laughs.