My heart leapt. He wanted to meet with me. God, what was I supposed to say to that?
Until now, he had never asked me to meet simply because we both preferred texting. We were open-minded, just J and Erik, two nerds in their bubble.
I had to smile.
It was a relief for me, even if I immediately felt bad. He was open to a meeting, and I was already having a panic attack at the thought of him being on the same campus as me.
I wonder where he was right now? I wonder what he was doing right now. Maybe he was still in bed, had just woken up...on this campus? I wonder if he was sitting in a lecture right now? Or if I was most likely to find him on the athletic field or in the library?
All these unanswered questions made me put the phone aside so I could turn to my laptop undisturbed and a little too nervously. All the while, I couldn’t suppress the burgeoning feeling of excitement in my chest.
What was wrong with me?
This guy had literally triggered something in me, but I didn’t know what it was.
Interest in meeting him after all this time? Curiosity to see what he was like in real life? It had to be because, after all, my fingers moved as if automatically on the keys to get to the student lists via the university website.
It was forbidden, I knew that, but this was Erik and I just couldn’t live with the uncertainty that here every guy I ran into could be Erik, let alone that I attended the same university with him without ever having seen him.
My chest tightened at that thought.
What was this feeling? Almost as if I wanted to see him, as if I wanted to have all those conversations, we’d had in the form of text messages while walking across campus or spending time at the library.
A little further away from the responsibilities he had to carry through his complicated family circumstances. Like he sometimes implied.
We both had always wanted to escape the responsibilities imposed on us by our backgrounds, but with him, it had been a bit more complicated, he had said, without wanting to explain it to me in more detail.
I hardly believed that. His family could not make his life more complicated than mine did for me.
I turned to the list of names, which had just opened and brought me back to the present, and immediately entered Erik in the list.
A whopping twenty-five Eriks were located at Vanderwood, with seven of them spelled with a k. Of those, however, only two were in my semester, like Erik, who had just recently started studying at Vanderwood.
Thoughtfully, I looked at the two Eriks that were displayed to me: Erik Moos and Erik Finchland.
The first was the ungifted son of an Earth Quatura, but I didn’t have much to do with him, since he had been kicked out of the Circle because of his non-existent powers and was now, as far as I knew from Amara, devoting himself to his art studies. Normally all male Quatura babies ended up in orphanages or with foster families, but he had been thought to be one of the rare male Quatura, which in retrospect had turned out to be false. His memories had been taken from him.
So that left Erik Finchland, who even took the same minor as me.
Could that be a coincidence?
Erik Finchland.
I clicked on the picture, where there was a curly redhead with a plaid shirt and lanky shoulders.
I didn’t know why, but somehow, I was disappointed by his outward appearance. I had imagined him completely different: Brown hair, well-trained body. He had said himself that he was very active in sports.
Nevertheless, I decided to take a closer look at this Finchland. He actually looked quite nice and like a gentleman. Maybe he hid his second side well. The one he showed me every day.
“There you are.”
I startled so badly that I slammed the laptop shut and stared at Grace, who had appeared beside me out of nowhere with a raised eyebrow, a black dress, and her cardigan decorated with orange and black Brazilian patterns.
“What is my little cousin hiding from me?”
With a gleeful grin, she eyed my laptop, sat down next to me, and finally flipped it open.
Luckily, there was such a thing as passwords, otherwise Grace would have come across a red-headed curly-haired man with freckles by now and bombarded me with awkward questions.
“Julie?” Came the question now, with the familiar and often applied puppy dog look, usually used for any favors within temple lessons or if she wanted me to do anything for her.
“No, Grace... There’s nothing there,” I finally said with a little too much hesitation. “I just got scared,” I quickly added, fortunately benefiting from the noisy Copelands and their pack followers who were now also entering the campus and handling a football like savages.
My mind was back on Erik, who was also playing football, maybe even at Vanderwood?
There was a bang and we both looked around for the source of the noise.
“Holy Shit!” it came from one of the Copeland guys that I didn’t really know. He had to be new. And not only that... I instantly disliked him.
