If It Isn't Her

After her photography class, Sam was happy and felt a lot more comfortable. She still didn't talk to anyone, but it was nicer being around people who shared her interest. She left her camera out as she left the classroom, wanting to take a picture of the different aspects of the campus. She snapped some of some students as they were conversing and having fun, of the courtyard with its different artistic landscaping designs and architecture. Then she went into where she thought she had heard someone tell her where the cafeteria was so that she could get a sandwich and milk before she had to go to her next set of general education classes.

She saw Alex first thing when she walked in and felt something tug at her stomach. Sam chose to lie low; she was still embarrassed about that incident in front of the auditorium. She quickly got her food and milk, packed it to go, and left the cafeteria to eat when she got to class. For now she just wanted to continue taking pictures.
 
Alex was not anti-social, but the scene with that idiot Travis and the usual attention she got from her appearance combined together and created such unbearable staring. She endured the usual staring people gave her when it comes to identifying her, but this one was just a really embarassment. "I will deep fry his face tonight." she mumbled, knowing that she'll be seeing Travis later at the restaurant. A vivd image of her frying his face in the deep fryer played in her thoughts darkly as she took her chicken panini and ginger ale from the tray, leaving it on an empty surface and walked out the cafeteria with her food.

Her first day in the cafeteria wasn't welcoming, but outside was. The slightly chilly wind and the bright sunlight shone above the school, around her she saw people crowded together with each other in groups. They talked, laughed, ate and some even did their work over their meals. Alex watched them like test subjects, why must one always have company? If her life was normal, she would probably never ask that question. She had lived alone by herself for years, and Travis - even as a friend, their relationship wasn't the bonding type. It was more like "if-I-see-you-then-we-are-friends" kind of thing. Some people even thought they were secretly dating, but heartfully denied this fact - Travis knew of her orientation, and that was probably why he was so comfortable with her.

She sat on the stairs just outside the cafeteria and took out her sketchpad and began viewing her sketches as she ate, the pictures she drew varied in each page. Some were places, people from the restaurant, the last memory she had of what her father looked like and a family of three - with their hands together as the walked on a road to nowhere happily. She smiled, all of these sketches were her thoughts and dreams - and seeing them before her was like looking at the past.
 
Sam easily got through her general education classes for the day and went back to her dorm. She quickly got out her laptop and set it up so that she could load all of her pictures on it. She sat there for several hours goin through them, organizing them, and throwing away the ones that didn't look her best. After looking through them all, she laid down and took a nap, sleeping through dinner.
 
"Sir, there are no more shrimp fettucines."

There was probably about 20 people ordering that damned dish, and Alex was secretly irritated with all of them. Why is everyone in the mood for that dish? It used to be the least liked dish in the restaurant, that's why the chef has low quantities for it's indgredients and now everyone was ordering it madly as if it was the new diet food. These thoughts filled Alex as she did her usual routine of walking back and forth tables taking orders, and serving meals. It all started when she saw her again, that girl...that Sam woman. After seeing her, people started ordering that blasted dish one by one as the night went by. Was it purely coincidental, or was that girl existing to annoy the living daylights of her and that blasted fettucine?

She went home to her TV, watching late night shows while drinking tea as she studied her textbook once again. Thoughts of tech theatre tomorrow filled her, it's been a while since she would be working in a group such as what she, Amber and that Sam woman - who she would be dealing with tomorrow. Her job as a waitress was more of independent work, relying on your co-workers when necessary but other than that you work alone. Also, during her first time in tech theatre years ago, she acquainted herself with a group of boys who acquainted themselves to her just for the sake of passing the course and were probably in the next level of the course right now.

A few hours passed and she finally finished reveiwing things over, and the TV began showing paid programs about exercise bikes and shamwow. Turning it off, she went to the bathroom to get herself for sleep and finally went to bed.
 
Sam awoke the next morning earlier than usual, mostly because of houw much she had slept the day and night before. It was only four a.m. so she got up and showered and gathered her school supplies as well as her laptop and camera and went out for a walk to take low-light photographs. She didn't bother with flash, because it would just take away from the effect, and snapped photos silently for an hour before heading back to her room to do some of her homework from the day before. She didn't have to be in class until almost eight. It was nearing six-thirty now.

At seven-fifteen she gathered her supplies again and went to her class.
 
This time Alex made sure she would be early for class.

She sat on the floor beside the auditorium's door since seven in the morning, it was a little too early. But she used the extra time to start drawing some designs for Architectural Design, she knew that taking this profession would be something like an architect's assistant. Refining her skills in drawing designs and blueprints at an early rate would increase her chances to be top in class. It was something necessary for her, she always felt that she had to prove herself to the world. It was all psychological - but it made her feel better about herself.

She lifted her wrist to glance at her watch, it was 7:15am. Not much time had past...
 
Sam was walking into the theatre building a little after seven-thirty and almost groaned when she recognized the person sitting by the door. She was almost glad to see Amber also entering from the other side of the lobby. For some reason, Sam didn't like Alex too much, though she couldn't identify why.

"'Ello, Alex, Sam," Amber greeted as the three came together, followed by a large yawn. "Geez, why are theatre classes always so damn early in the morning?"

Sam thought about this, and then asked, "Because theatre takes dedication? They want to instill discipline in the students early on?" She felt embarrassed by the fact that she actually spoke an answer, let alone questioned her answer. She didn't know why the class was so early. She just knew that theatre was tougher than it looked just by listening to the lecture the day before.

"I apologize, I shouldn't assume that's why," she corrected herself.

"Nah, I'm sure you're right. Right, Alex?" Amber said, trying to pull Alex into the conversation. "Whatcha doing?"
 
"Because theatre takes dedication? They want to instill discipline in the students early on?"

"Great Amber, you found yourself a walking Wikipedia..." Alex said out of nowhere a she heard their voices and the people who posessed them neared towards her. She was practically bending down on the floor as she crafted a blueprint of her apartment room on her graphing notebook, which contained about a hundred sheets of graphing paper. Her hands and eyes moved in unison as she skillfully used her pen and ruler to draw out the objects, and writing down approximate measurements of each wall and other major details. If she brought her laptop with her, this would certainly be done in lesser time than what it took her to hand craft it - but she enjoyed doing it manually than relying on AutoCAD or other reliable programs for architecture.

She allowed the girls to talk amongst themselves while she busied herself with practicing, after all this was the reason why she came back to college: to finish the course. The talking that surrounded her sounder like slurs in her ears as she felt her concentration close in, helping her focus on her task, she was halfway done, her apartment wasn't too big so it won't take too much time. She had lots of time.

"...Right Alex? Whatcha doing?"

She looked up to the sound of her name and looked at her in a confused expression, they were talking about something she didn't quite catch on and Amber was asking her of something - expecting her to agree. She blinked, trying to find out how to answer the question, but where was no answer. "I'm practicing..." she said, answering the other question instead, glancing down to her work. So far, so good. It was actually a pretty good job, she was pleased with it's results "...for Architectural Design."
 
Feeling scorched by the comment of being a walking Wikipedia, Sam was afraid to say anthing else. She was really starting to dislike Alex to a stronger degree.

"Architectural design?" Sam repeated, impressed. That was a difficult course. She knew because she knew architects through her father's company, and a few had showed her what they did when she was younger and they were building his current office. It was not an easy job to be sure. Sam felt a little bit more lenient towards Alex with this knowledge, knowing that when you were faced with difficulties you sometimes became less sociable and polite, but not enough that she could like her.

Amber nodded and grinned. "You've always been a doodler, since I knew ya," she said, acting as though she'd known Alex for the longest time. Sam rose an eyebrow at her. She had only mentioned having known Alex from when they had taken this class once before.
 
"Yes, Irvington. Architechtural Design." Alex told her in a manner as if she was teaching Sam a new word, she knew it was rude but it came out of her mouth autonomously. She didn't hate the woman, but Alex felt a strong disliking for her - but it never reached to hate...yet. Because the Irvington didn't do anything as bad as killing her father or anything. It was more of stereotypical-disliking-due-to-small-facts-about-a-person kind of hate, in other words, it was all stereotypical.

"You've always been a doodler, since I knew ya,"

Alex looked to Amber, blinking as her left hand played with the pencil idly "You speak like you knew me way back before the first time met you, but now that I thought about it - you were in my high school for senior year, and you were in my Calculus class..." she thought back for a moment, busing her gaze on the floor before looking back at the girl "...And I guess I am. The first time I took tech theatre, I made most of the sets..."
 
Sam's eyes widened. "You made most of the sets?" she asked, impressed. Surely Alex couldn't be that bad if she was so dedicated, she thought to herself. Then she shook it off, because she was starting to admire someone who talked down to her. Her facial expression when from impressed to indifferent with that thought.
 
"Yeah...." Alex said in a passive manner, as if it wasn't much a big deal. But it really wasn't, she didn't think of it as an assignment, but a way to share art with people by using them for spectacular plays "It would've looked better if I could just colour it in my laptop. I'm no good with paint jobs, so luckily this guy I was grouped with painted like Van Gogh and he helped me with it..." she shrugged as she told her tale. She remembered it well, it was for a play happening around winter season of that year. The University's version of the Phantom of the Opera, she remembered working with the acting students as they rehearsed their lines and practiced. They moved and modified most of the sets to adapt to the actor's acting, and the people stationed at the lighting did a wonderful job "...it was a play for the Phantom of the Opera...detail was futile."
 
Sam loved that play, though she appreciated the full opera version so much more. Her parents had taken her to see it a few years back. She had wanted to photograph several moments, but of course cameras weren't allowed in the auditorium. Still, she couldn't let it on to Alex. Sam wasn't going to let her make fun of her again, so she just stayed silent.

Amber, on the other hand, took the silence for further admiration. "Yeah, our Alex here is amazing, truth be told!"
 
"Enough with your flattery..." Alex sighed, gathering her supplies and stuffed them inside her bag. She saw the Professor enter the auditorium not long after Amber complimented her artistic skills "I just taught myself to be something, but I won't consider myself amazing. There are still some things I don't know..." she continued as she rose up from the floor, slinging up bag on her shoulder. For an arrogant person, Alex was humble when it came to her art - it wasn't her thing to boast about it. The art of drawing had so many levels, and she was pretty sure that she wasn't as good as Da Vinci as of yet.

She opened the door of the auditorium and stepped a side, giving the two women a gesture for them to go inside first.
 
Appreciating Alex a little more as she continued being around her, Sam was slow to react to her gentlemanly behavior at letting her and Amber enter first. She didn't even register that was what she was doing for a few seconds.

"Ah, thank you," Sam said politely before following the slightly clueless Amber into the auditorium.

The professor eyed them as they walked in together, and then immediately had them sit down. A couple of other students had signed up for this time as well, and they were just waiting on them to show up.
 
Alex followed closely behind them, sitting beside Sam as she settled down her bag on the floor in front of her. She rested her elbows on the arms of the chair, looking around at the people in front of them. There seemed to be less people than usual, but that was understandable since the Porfessor organized sign ups for lab time. Many people seemed to have picked this hour, for probably half of the class was present. Early birds, perhaps? she said thoughtfully.

"So..." Alex whispered lowly, leaning slightly towards them to make them hear her better "What do you think we are doing today?"
 
Sam shrugged while Amber giggled.

"We're going over tools of the trade," Amber whispered back.

Sam paled. As in, power tools and such? She wasn't so certain about this class anymore. She looked down at her bag where her camera was. Maybe she could talk her way out of it somehow and leave? She was starting to feel nauseous, though that was probably from nerves. She'd never touched a tool before.

"It's the only way we'll be able to do our projects after all," Amber continued. "We're going to be building a scale model of a set that we design together."
 
"Ah yes, of course. The Professor was always into these kinds of things..." Alex nodded as she watched the Professor talk, understanding what Amber was saying. Of course Amber knew of this, she took the class multiple times because she didn't earn enough credits - she had probably had made these set things more than she ever did. This would only be her second time after a long time.

She swept a glance across her companions and saw the Sam girl paled. Her face was white as snow, it was like she was dying - but of course this was a state of emotion and Alex knew it wasn't a good one. What could this cheap-fetish rich girl be thinking now? That it would cost her too much? "Irvington." she called out to Sam "You don't look so well."
 
Sam jumped when Alex spoke to her, and then realized how she had addressed her, distracting her from her thoughts and causing her to forget about the use of tools.

"Sam," she said forcefully. "You will call me Sam. Not Irvington. That's my family name. I am Sam."

That said, Sam looked forward with much more confidence in the lesson.
 
"I will address you at the way I please..." Alex retorted. She was just as demanding as she was back at the restaurant, the tone she used was stronger than the tone she spoke with when she ordered her steak to be well seasoned. The girl had attitude, typical. Typical little rich girl. "You are an Irvington, are you not? So I will call you Irvington. Got it?" She turned away and listened to the Professor.

This is going to be a very interesting school year.
 
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