Chapter 2 Life Of A Normal University Student

• July 19, 2017
• "Grace! If you don’t wake up right now, you will be late!"
• Grace Newman groaned and rolled over in her bed. She pulled her cover down and squinted at the clock on her bedside table to check the time. It read 7:30 AM.
• "Oh shit!" she yelled as she jumped out of bed. "Stupid alarm!” she whined. “I am going to be so late.”
• She grabbed a pair of jeans and a well-worn black t-shirt hastily. She stumbled to find a clean pair of underwear from her drawers before rushing out of her room and into the bathroom. Her mother, Olivia leaned against the wall between their rooms with a knowing grin on her face.
• “Did you oversleep again?”
• Grace huffed and shut the bathroom door with a thud. She quickly changed and brushed her teeth. Finally, she took a cleansing breath and stared at the mirror to make sure her hair didn’t look too bad. She picked up her brush and detangled her dark brown hair. Her eyes were round and large, matching the color of her hair. She would have liked to think that when she smiled, she looked rather pretty. She pulled her hair up into a ponytail and dashed back to her room to pick up her bag.
• Olivia had already made her way to the kitchen and held out her daughter’s travel mug, which was now filled with hot coffee, Grace’s choice of morning drink. Olivia stepped out into the hall just as Grace was barelling down the stairs. She grinned and hugged her mother.
• “Thanks, Mom. I would have died without the coffee!” Grace exclaimed as she squeezed her mother.
• Olivia rolled her eyes as she pulled away and walked Grace out the front door.
• “Don’t forget to greet your friends on my behalf. They haven’t been over in such a long time. You’re meeting Gina and Lily today, right? Tell them to come over when they have time.”
• Gina Newman and Lily Duff were two of Grace’s best friends. While Gina was officially her cousin, the three girls attended high school together and subsequently applied and got through to the same university. Lily was busy since her mother passed away unexpectedly the previous year and was now caring for her younger sister alongside her widowed father. Lily felt better about staying at home and attending university close to home because she wanted to wait for her sister to graduate high school before she transferred elsewhere.
• Grace jumped into her new car, given to her by her mother on her eighteenth birthday. She had to make a headway to the university which was thirty kilometers from her house. If she broke the speed-limit she might make it to class on time.
• Almost five hours later, Grace emerged from the Computer Science building. It had taken her one and a half hours to get to university and then she had sat for a long lecture. Grace was stressed, cranky and hungry. Luckily, she was meeting Gina and Lily at a little cafe near the university. She walked briskly to the cafe and pulled out her phone to check her messages. Gina had left two missed calls and there was also one message from her almost boyfriend Jarred.
• Grace and Jarred had been friends since they were children and fell into an easy relationship upon becoming adults. It felt more like hanging around a friend rather than a boyfriend with him. Though Jarred had tried on several occasions to initiate intimacy with her, Grace had been reluctant. She didn’t think she was ready to take that step with him. Gina had long lost her V-card and boasted about her sexual prowess. Lily was the exact opposite, deciding to wait until marriage to have sex.
• She shoved her phone back into her pocket when she arrived at the cafe, deciding to call him afterwards. She waved at the waitress and walked over to their usual table by the window. Lily and Gina were already waiting. Grace dropped her bag on the floor beside the chair and plopped down with a heavy sigh.
• “Why did I sign up for an early class?” she groaned, laying her head on top of the table. “And my phone alarm is broken too. It never wakes me up on time.”
• Gina chuckled.
• "Because it is a mandatory class for credits?” Lily chimed in. Grace heard her stomach growl just as the waiter was approaching.
• "Can I get you ladies the usual?" a deep voice asked. Grace looked up and smiled half-heartedly at Samuel, who worked there part time while going to law school. He also happened to be Gina’s boyfriend.
• "My stomach is caving in, Samuel! Just get me something." Grace smiled up at him. Samuel stood tall at six feet and five inches with shaggy blond hair that curled around his ears and bright but dark eyes. He was kind and has a relaxing demeanor about him that made people feel at ease and spill their guts to him. He was a good match for her cousin Gina, who was bubbly and mildly eccentric.
• It also helped that they were hopelessly in love with one another. Grace was a little jealous of how close they were. She would never admit to Gina but the couple was one of the biggest reasons why she hadn’t slept with her boyfriend as of yet.
• She was certain that she wasn’t in love with Jarred, her boyfriend. She thought of him as a friend and she wanted to give herself to someone she really loved like Gina and Samuel seemed to love one another. When she was a child, her parents argued constantly until her father up and left them when Grace was nine.
• Her father Ben Lee thought too highly of himself and wanted a life of freedom. But no one had expected him to abandon his wife and daughter and never look back. That was eleven years ago and Grace hadn’t heard from him since. He sent her an occasional gift card from wherever in the world he was at the time. But other than that, she hadn’t spoken a word since the last morning he was in their house.
• “Thank god it’s the weekend,” Gina moaned. “What should we do this weekend, girls?” she asked as Samuel walked away to grab their usual order.
• Lily shook her head with a smile, knowing she would go along with whatever plans Gina came up with. Grace on the other hand was deep in thought, biting her lip as she did so.
• "I am having dinner with Mom and Edward on Sunday night,” grace replied. “I think Edward finally proposed to Mom and they are going to move in together in our home.”