no one could make me look stupid in front of the class or belittle my intelligence. But that always left me being ahead of everyone, and, well, that just added to my list of insults seeing as I was 'trying too hard' to be a smart cookie. I had the intention of trying not to fall into old habits, but, well..."
I shrugged and sheepishly gestured to the notebook in his hand. "Oops, I did it again."
"There's nothing wrong with being ahead," he reasoned.
"No one else goes studying a semester ahead," I countered. He scooped Cyrus up to put her off to the side before he was up and walking to the door.
"Where are you going?" I inquired.
"One sec." He was out the door, and I could hear his shuffling footsteps down the hall. Our rooms were all on the second floor, each room with a queen-size bed and a private bathroom. I hadn't decorated it like I'm sure others would, seeing as I didn't have much money to be decorating to begin with, but it was enough to feel homey.
Until I knew if this would be a dorm I'd be staying in for a while, I wouldn't get too comfortable.
Another bad habit of mine.
It felt better to be safe and not settle into this school until I'd proven my "curse" of getting kicked out, suspended, or expelled was behind me.
Westley was back, his lips curled up in a wide boyish grin as he rushed back to the beanie and practically sunk into the pink seat.
"Hey," I giggled. "Why do you seem so excited all of a sudden?"
"Here." He offered me a large notebook that had a black matte cover. I arched an eyebrow at him but accepted the book and worked on going through it.
My eyes scanned the detailed notes, noticing the various highlighted sections in pink, yellow, blue, green, and orange, while the ink bounced between black, blue, and red.
The familiarity of it all started to make me realize what this book was, and I slowly peered up from the sheets to see his wide grin as his eyes twinkled with happiness.
"Looks like you found someone as weird as you," he teased with an added wink.
"You...you finished making notes for the entire semester." My voice was filled with shock. "For all the classes."
"All four of them are all up in here." He raised his hand to tap his finger against his right temple. "I have to write all down once for it to stick and stay in my head. It's something I've done for a long time. Both my parents are extremely smart and work in science labs to calculate cures for diseases and such. Their memory is massive, kind of like a large file cabinet that doesn't end. Or how our pockets seem to hold everything."
His last comment made me giggle, and I suddenly felt so connected to him. This was the first time I'd known anyone who had similar habits to me, and the acknowledgment of finding another person like myself only gave me a sense of enlightenment.
I'm not weird. There's someone just like me who admires and follows similar study habits.
"This feels like one of those destined moments in time," I quietly commented.
Westly smirked. "Who knows. Maybe you manifested me into existence."
"You can't manifest someone into existence," I said with a laugh.
"Why not?" Westley questioned. "Anything is possible in the world of magic. You could have been like 'Dear Universe. I need a hot man who studies the same way as I do and likes to take naps all the time. He'll be my new cuddle buddy and have all four flame traits like me. Let it be so!’"
"That's not how you manifest!" I giggled and shoved his arm.
"I tried," he reasoned.
"Wait!" I caught onto what he said. "You DO have all four flame traits!"
"Did I say that?" he inquired, but didn't seem worried about the slip-up. "Oops!"
"You revealed that on purpose." I narrowed my eyes at him questioningly and all he did was shrug. "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. You can't read minds, so we'll never know if I did or didn't."
"Meaning we don't have magic for that?"
"We do, but that's really hard to unlock," he explained. "But let's talk about that on another day."
He rose up once again and pulled out his phone.
"What are you doing?"
"I have a better question," he offered. "When you look at me, what's the impression you get? I want your honest opinion."
"As in the 'you' right now or