Sorry for how long these chapters have been taking-- Wattpad has just been becoming less and less of a priority now that I'm a senior in high school. I hope I can get more breaks to write, but it's become increasingly difficult balancing this, a Marvel fic, all the books I've put on hold, and my collab on AdrenalineSisters . Hopefully I can get chapters by a little faster, but I can't be too sure. ((Also, you should totally check out my YouTube and sub!! It's Mira Edits :) ))

||Jamilla Tate|| First Person ||

Before it could even register in my mind that the start of classes were nearing, the days flashed by within the blink of an eye. It was probably a week or so that blurred together with imagery of floor 6 of Park-Stradley hall and the inhabitants that I now am reduced to referring to as my neighbours. It was the first time in my entire life that I felt free-- like I wasn't limited to the four blank walls of my bedroom back in a shoddy old apartment in Cleveland. It's not that the interior design of the dorm room that I was assigned here at Ohio State, but it is a magnificent upgrade to my old room that was tinged with dread and the misfortune that loomed over my head almost mockingly.

Becca, seeing as she and I are going to be living together in a dorm room, quickly searched for more commonalities between us in an effort to strengthen a bond-- a major one being the fact that we are total comic book nerds. Though her older brother, Nate, is such an unbelievable flirt(sometimes I wonder if he can even help it anymore), I still have a sliver of respect aching in my chest for him introducing his sister to the imaginative world of Marvel(and occasionally DC) comics. We would spend hours of the time that we probably should have spent prepping for our English lecture that would take place almost every day at 7 o'clock in the morning talking about the characters that lived within the pages of our favourite comics(what compelled us to choose a course that early in the morning will forever elude me). For the first time since essentially ever, I felt like the shackles that were once keeping me so confined were absent. I felt so impeccably free.

That was until Becca and I accidentally slept through our alarms...

And woke up ten minutes before the lecture is set to start.

"Fuck!" I shout out in pain, bouncing up and down on one foot while I tightly clutch the other that I accidentally banged into the wooden post of my bed. It's somewhere around 6:50 in the morning, and Becca and I made the terrible mistake of not setting more than two alarms. Who would have thought that we were both incredibly heavy sleepers? Either way, in the broad daylight of the morning, I certainly am regretting ever thinking that I could survive a 7 o'clock class. "Fuck, where are my damn shoes?" I curse out loud, hopping around the room in pain in search of my sneakers that seem to be missing in action. Of course, I never lose things unless I'm on a dire time constraint and I need it immediately.

"It's under your bed!" Becca calls out from somewhere within her closet, where she is obviously struggling to choose a shirt to wear over her jeans. I, personally, have never been one to fret over clothing that much, so it was seriously no problem at all for me to pull on a pair of dark blue jeans and a basic t-shirt. I drop to my knees reluctantly and stretch my arm out under my bed, feeling along the carpet for the bumps that would be the sneakers I must have kicked underneath last night in a rush to go to sleep. I yank the shoes out from beneath the bed frame triumphantly, a noise of breathless victory eliciting from my mouth.

"Okay, Becca, if you don't hurry up right now, I'm leaving you." I say lightly, not necessarily meaning it as I tug my Vans onto my right foot(my toes throbbing in pain the entire time).

"Okay, okay!" Becca cries out as she finally emerges in a simple pair of jeans and cute shirt. Why it took so long for her to choose an outfit as basic as that, I will never know. She rushes over to her bed to grab hold of her tote bag, stuffed with the expensive textbook filled to the brim with classic literature that we could probably find online. I straighten up and pick up my Jansport, groaning under the weight of the English textbook and my notebook.

Minutes later, Becca and I are hurrying out of our dorm room, the former making quick work of locking the door shut with her key as I rush over to the elevator so I could smash the button with my finger continuously until the doors parted for us. We hustle in quickly, breathing sharply as we wait to get to the ground level after choosing the floor. It takes the two of us another ten minutes to arrive at the actual school and another ten to find the lecture hall that the class would be taking place in. The entire time, it felt like my lungs were shriveling up in my chest, heavy gasps coming from my mouth as we crash into the doors and push into the room.

Everyone-- literally everyone-- turns to look at us.

The lecture hall is packed full with students around our age, all of them looking either very drowsy or very excitable and eager. I couldn't really make out anybody I know, mostly because there are so many faces that they almost seem to blur together, so I avert my gaze to the professor, who was just finishing scribbling his name down on the board. He looks over at me and Becca, his eyebrows raising as he studies us in our embarrassingly disheveled appearance. I suddenly can't croak out a word under his stare.

"And who might you two be?" He asks us. Becca manages to speak immediately, a confident tone enveloping her words smoothly.

"Becca," she says. My lips move but no sound comes out. She glances over at me and raises her eyebrows. "And this is Jamilla."

"Juh-mill-uh, hm?" Our professor repeats my name, his tone mocking the way I've become accustomed to introducing myself to other people. I try not to wince uncomfortably-- standing in the front of the entire lecture hall while making a terrible first impression on my English Lit. teacher is not how I imagined my first day of classes to go. "That's not really how the name is pronounced, is it?" He hums curiously.

"N-no, sir," I respond quietly.

"While I do seem just a boring, old English professor, I do pride myself on knowing quite a bit about cultures-- especially the one that your name comes from." He sets the piece of chalk that he was clutching tightly in his hand down on the desk, dusting his hands of the yellow powder coating his fingertips. He glances up at the amount of first years sitting in the elevated rows and rows of chairs, looking almost apologetic for the interruption to his introduction that he couldn't help but unnecessarily elongate. "Jah-mee-lah." He enunciates my name properly. "Arabic, but also African. It means beautiful." I try my absolute best to not blush out of embarrassment at this point, because I look anything but that right now with my curly hair thrown up in a messy pony tail and my eyes hosting bags that are the result of falling asleep at 3 AM. I feel my legs automatically moving in the direction of the stairs, carefully drawing myself out of the situation with Becca trailing along after me.

"Excuse me, sir, but where did you learn that?" A sharp and squeaky voice calls out from somewhere around the second row. I turn my head as I pause at the stairs, looking over at a pale blonde girl who is leaning forward in her seat almost eagerly. I can already tell that she's a try hard, what with the way she's asking him pointless questions.

"If you'd like to know later, come speak with me after class." The professor smiles tightly at the girl, who sinks back in her seat upon getting shut down. I purse my lips and trudge up the stairs to reach the seventh row, where there is two empty seats near the far end. Becca follows behind me as I quickly maneuver threw the mass amount of legs to reach the open chairs, sinking into the one closest to the left staircase. Becca sits in the chair on the other side of the boy seated between us, a heavy sigh emitting from the part in her lips as she settles in. I set my backpack down on the ground so I can dig through it for my notebook and a stray pen, sitting up straight once I get my stationary ready and settled on my lap. That's when I finally turn my head and glance at the student sitting next to me, watching curiously as he cautiously removes the lid on his coffee cup. He moves to grab the can sitting on the floor by his foot, picking it up and bringing it to his lips. It's then that I realize that it's a can of Red Bull. He yawns sleepily and tips the can over, pouring some into his coffee cup easily. He sets the energy drink back on the floor and replaces the lid on his cup, taking a tentative sip of his drink with a wince.

"I don't like mornings," he hums tiredly, turning to look at me with a half hearted smile. Something flickers in his drowsy looking eyes when his eyes glance off of my face. "Jamilla?"

"Josh?" I raise my eyebrows. He nods and smiles sleepily at me. "What the fuck are you doing?" I point to his coffee cup, to which he chokes back a laugh and brings the rim to his lip, taking a slow and tentative sip of the caffeine overload he created.

"I'm about to pass out," he sighs. "Why'd you lie to me?" He inquires as an afterthought.

"I didn't lie," I say slowly, slightly confused about what he's trying to say.

"Okay, Jah-mee-lah." He smirks as he takes another gulp of his coffee(could you even call it that anymore? I think it's a heart attack waiting to happen). I hold back a groan of annoyance.

"Most people can't pronounce it right, okay?" I try to reason with him, but that earns a stupid snort from the boy and my heart is skipping a beat for just a single second. God, why does he have to be so beautiful?

"It's obvious that I can," he frowns.

"How was I supposed to know that?" I press.

"I don't know, maybe telling me it?" He retorts around another harsh gulp of his beverage.

"Would you stop drinking that?" I tell him in an attempt to avoid his scrutiny, resisting the urge of grabbing his cup from his hands and whipping it down the staircase to my left. "You're gonna die or something."

"No, I won't." Josh smiles at me, his eyes crinkling in all the right places and his nose scrunching up adorably. I hope desperately that my heart would stop beating so quickly and that my face would not sell me out in terms of the blush that is threatening to coat my brown cheeks again. "I'll actually manage to live through this class, thank you very much."

"You're so difficult," I huff in annoyance as I flip the cover of my notebook over, harshly jabbing the button on my pen to eject the ballpoint.

"I pride myself on that, Jah-mee-lah." He closes his eyes and leans his head back on his chair, that small smile curling his lips up at the edges as he blows a soft breath of air out. I don't turn away from him immediately, simply embracing this moment of slight peace where I can clearly observe his features without his awareness. I try to calm myself down, my gaze flickering over to Becca, who only smiles between me and Josh and turns back to the booming voice of our English lecture.

Without any better judgement, what with my lack of flirting skills, I convince myself to remove the coffee cup from Josh's grasp, holding it firmly in my hands. His eyes open upon the absence of his drink from his hand, his gaze following it before a small, encouraging smile graces his lips. And then he nods slightly, and without thinking any further, I take a short gulp of his concoction before handing it back, a grimace on my face as I sink back in my seat, eyes wide and ready to absorb every word that echoes across the room.

-/::\-