Excerpt: Rain/Aidan/Luna

(Warning: The following excerpt is completely unedited. Spelling/grammar errors and stuff I will later delete abound. This is the first chapter of my second book, "Aidan.")

Of all the things Aidan had seen in his life, he doubted he had seen anything quite like that building. That hall, beige, terrifying building that towered above him like some kind of monster from under the bed that he had stopped believing in years ago. A monster that wanted to come alive and eat him.

He tried not to shiver.

He felt the hands on his shoulders. Thin, small hands that usually would have felt very warm and comforting. But right now they just felt cold. He couldn’t figure out why they felt so freezing cold. Maybe it was just him. He turned a little to his right and saw her face grinning at him.

“You nervous?” she asked, in that voice that still sounded so young. But he didn’t think his mom was old. People didn’t get old until they were in their eighties or nineties or something like that. But compared to him, he supposed, she was older. But still not old.

He didn’t nod. He didn’t shake his head. He merely turned his gaze to his feet and wished that maybe he had made a different choice about this. What was he getting himself into? What would the consequences be? How could he have been stupid enough to actually do this? He didn’t know. He just wished he were anywhere else but here.

She didn’t need a response. She moved behind him again and squeezed his shoulders, giving him only a little bit of condolence with that motion. “You’ll be okay,” she insisted gently. Not forcefully. Not like she knew everything that was going to happen. But enough so that he at least believed her on some level. They both knew very well that she wasn’t going to convince him of that all the way. That just wasn’t possible with someone like him.

Aidan let out a quiet sigh and hoped that whatever he really was getting himself into, it wouldn’t be as bad as he feared. He didn’t notice many signs of nervousness inside himself. No pounding heart. No trembling fingers. He was just cold. Very, very cold. He pulled his hoodie tighter around his shoulders and wished, at the very least, that the weather could have been better on his first day.

Even though they were early, students were still rushing around the campus. Some of them were freshmen, trying to find their first classes. They looked out of place already, but not so much as he would have thought. Then there were the others who had been here longer. They were comfortable. Many of them weren’t even glancing at their schedules.

“You think they’ll hate me?” he asked quietly, almost too quietly for her to hear him. He wasn’t entirely sure if he was asking her or himself. She giggled, but he could tell that she took him seriously. Because he was being absolutely serious.

“No, I don’t think they will,” she replied, and her hands slipped away from his shoulders as she came to stand beside him. She wasn’t much taller. Just a couple of inches. But she was older, and that much struck him greatly. “You’re a really great kid.”

He sighed. “But that’s just it. I’m a kid.”

His mother smiled at that. A more amused smile, like she would have laughed had the situation been different. She leaned in close him and put one arm around him, and she whispered in his ear like she was telling him a long-kept, and well-kept, secret of everyone at this strange new place.

“So are they.”

He couldn’t help but grin a tiny bit. It was only a tiny bit. But it was still something. It didn’t mean he was happy, though. It was just something.

She stood all the way up again and grinned once more at him. “You’ll be fine,” she insisted, looking on at him like he had grown so much, and like she couldn’t believe this was actually happening. “I am so proud of you.”

Aidan tried to match her expression, but in the mood he was in, that wasn’t easy. He managed a little. He clasped his hands together in front of him, tugging at his sleeves in anxiety. “Thanks.” He meant it. But it definitely didn’t sound like he was very enthuastic about it.

“Remember, just call me if you need anything, and I’ll be here at one to pick you up.”

He nodded, and with one last smile, she turned around and walked off towards the parking lot. She waved from a distance, and he waved back. But then she left, and he was alone. He was alone at on a stinking college campus.

Now he really didn’t know what he had gotten himself into.

He readjusted his thin backpack on his shoulders, hoping he hadn’t forgotten to put anything inside before he left the house. It always felt like he didn’t have everything. He reached down and zipped up his hoodie almost to his throat, as if that would somehow keep his embarrassment and his differences from showing. No one was looking at him yet. They didn’t know what he was doing. He hadn’t done anything. But they would start looking soon. He had little doubt of that.

He began to walk towards the building, and as he did, he wondered if this was how his mom had felt on her first day. Had she been this nervous? She said she had. But she didn’t really know how anxious he was. They were different people. And this was an entirely different situation than she had gone through. He was just a little more drastic. She said that was something to be proud of. He thought it was a good reason to hide.

No one was nearby as he reached the door and pulled on the handle. It was heavy and glass, but it swung open at his will and he rushed inside before it could close on him. Inside, there was heating, but he didn’t take off his hoodie. He didn’t even loosen it. The dark gray fabric was his only sense of security.

There were more people inside. Some of them were watching the TV on the wall that was presumably showing the news. Some of them were getting drinks out of vending machines. Some of them were getting into the elevator to head upstairs. Still, none of them looked at him. For that, he was grateful. But he knew it wasn’t going to last.

As soon as the elevator doors closed and he saw that no one else was getting in, he picked up his pace and fast-walked over there and pressed the green up arrow next to the doors. He waited. This wasn’t a particularly fast elevator, he could tell. But after about half a minute it arrived. Thirty seconds. He would have to remember that. He wouldn’t taking the elevator if he was ever late.

No one got off, to his relief, and he boarded with the hopes that no one would be watching him. He kept his head low and his gaze away from any others. No meeting anyone’s eyes. He just pressed the button for the fourth floor and watched in relief as the doors closed.

His mom wouldn’t have wanted him to be shy. At least not this shy. She had spent so much time suggesting that he do his best to make friends early on, both with his classmates and with his teacher. But what would he say? What would he do? How in the world was he supposed to make friends with people at a college?

He gazed at the little digital display close to the ceiling as the numbers rose. Two, three … four. He bit his lip. The doors slid open onto the other floor of the building. No one was there. He couldn’t even hear the faint chatter of students. He got off. And still, no one. An empty hallway.

He let out the most ridiculous sigh of relief that he didn’t have to deal with more crowds. Nothing made him more nervous than crowds.

It was even warmer up here, so much that he really did consider taking off his hoodie. But he didn’t. He looked around to figure out where he was going to go. All they had was numbers on the door and digital screens above the doors with class names. But he was almost too short to read them. This was certainly one of those times when he really wished he would grow faster. A lot faster. Being short stunk.

Aidan finally noticed that his heart rate had indeed increased. Great. More signs of nervousness. He listened intently to the sound of his own echoing footsteps as he walked down the hall, reading each sign as he went. That was still the only sound. His feet. He wondered if he had accidentally come to some forbidden floor, and that was why he was all alone. He didn’t mind being alone here. He wished there was someone he knew, maybe one of his parents. But there wasn’t. There were also no other students.

He had to turn several corners before he came to room 431. “Introduction to Computer Science,” it read above the door. This was the right room. He just wondered if he was making a huge mistake.

He placed a hand on the doorknob, and shivered at how cold it felt. Freezing. Even colder than he felt inside, and that was indeed saying something. He really wanted his mom to be here with him, to offer some comforting advice and tell him that he would be able to make it. But honestly, what mother walked her son to his first day of college? No, that would only earn him more strange looks.

At last, Aidan turned the knob and pushed on the door. It opened, slowly, ominously, and he peered inside.

It wasn’t full. But it also wasn’t empty. There were several students sitting here and there in seats, looking over their textbooks or fiddling with their pencils. He swallowed hard, stepping inside and hoping to everything that they wouldn’t look up.
They looked up.

He hadn’t known what to expect when they saw him in the classroom. His mom had told him her own stories, but that was different. When she had come into class, no one had even given her a second glance. But when these few students turned their heads out of curiosity as to who had come into the classroom, they all nearly dropped everything they were holding.

Their mouths hung open and their faces scrunched into confused and stunned expressions that he wished would go away. They said nothing. They were absolutely silent. But those faces spoke louder than any words could have done. He stepped back several times like he was being shot at with arrows. Then he turned his head down and walked as fast as he could to the back corner seat of the room. And there, he sat, not looking up to see if they were still staring.

Great. He hadn’t been here a minute and he had already attracted the attention of every member of the class present. That must have set a new world record. It wasn’t a big class. From the short glass he had gotten, it wasn’t a big classroom. Probably forty students, maximum capacity, with an overhead projector and a screen for projecting, and a computer, and rows of desks going up and down through the room. And the teacher’s desk. The professor’s desk. He was going to have an awfully hard time adjusting to using that new term.

For the few minutes he supposed he had before the rest of the class came piling through the door, and all the time refusing to turn his head up, he removed his backpack and began unpacking all his supplies. His laptop. His thinner laptop that only weighed a few pounds to his relief. And a pencil, just in case he had to write something down the old-fashioned way.

He reached up and pushed a few locks of straight black hair behind his ear. He still wondered if it had been a good idea to grow his hair out this much. He liked it, certainly, but it sure got annoying. Then again, he had nothing on those girls who had hair going down to their waists. He pitied them. His only reached his shoulders. But at his age, he supposed that was still a little bit unusual.

Indeed, as he had suspected, as soon as he had turned his computer on and prepared a nice blank document for taking notes, the crowds came. It wasn’t like they were all trying to squeeze through the door at once. But those few minutes later, it was like an alarm bell had gone off telling everyone that class started soon. In fifteen minutes, exactly twenty-six new people came into the room. He counted carefully. He only glanced at them to avoid drawing attention, but from he could see, they were all a lot different from him.Tall, for one thing. Some of the guys had beards. Beards! And moustaches! And a few of the girls looked as old as his mom. She hadn’t told him about that fact.

But still, there was no professor. No one to take charge of the imminent ruckus. There was only a little bit of chatting thus far, so it wasn’t like he had to cover his ears from the noise. But some of the people coming in were sitting close to him. And that made him nervous. Soon, there were only three empty seats. And one of them was just to his left.

He bit his lip and hoped, so desperately, that no one else would take that seat. He had counted thirty people in the class so far, himself included. According to the class information that morning, there were thirty-two seats filled. One necessary empty seat. He wished with every bit of might he had that no one would take the desk closest to him.

It was only as he was glancing around once again that he noticed that there were still people staring at him. More people than before. New people. And some of them were leaning over to whisper to their friends, pointing in his direction like he was an interesting exhibit at the zoo. He had known his differences were obvious. But were they that obvious? And were they that interesting?

He tried to slouch down further in his chair and hide his head behind his laptop. He couldn’t tell if it worked from his current position. He wondered if his mom hadn’t made the wrong decision in suggesting this, and if he had been even more stupid in agreeing. He had said he wanted to do this. This was his fault. He had gotten himself into this mess.

He could only hope it didn’t end up to be as much of a mess as he thought.

The door opened again for the first time in a minute, and now, it wasn’t a student that came in. It was a man. An older man. Almost definitely too old and too professional to be a student. He walked in with a bag hung over his shoulder and took his place behind the professor’s desk. Aidan sighed quietly in a mix of relief and increased anxiety. The professor was here. The students quieted down. That was good. But this also meant that class was going to start. College class.

“Good morning, everyone,” the man in the front greeted them. Most of the students remained silent, but a few of them nodded and gave brief, half-sincere replies.

“Good morning.”

He didn’t look mean, from what Aidan could tell. He wasn’t casual. He looked very professional with his clothes and dark-toned bag. But he didn’t look too harsh. He set his bag down on the desk and walked over to the computer on the side of the room, presumably to set things up for the start of class.

The students went back to whispering to one another about various things, finishing conversations they had started before he walked in. Aidan sat up enough so that he could see clearly over his laptop, and watched several other students take out theirs. But not everyone. And most of them didn’t even take out notebooks as replacements. They didn’t even have backpacks. He wondered very much if he had overprepared, but tried to convince himself that at least he had what he needed, in case he had to use it.

Aidan quickly regretted his decision to sit up taller. Because only a few moments after he did, the student in the desk in front of him, a guy who looked about twenty, turned around to face him. He didn’t look like he was trying to make friendly conversation. He didn’t look angry. But he did look incredibly confused and determined. About something.

“Hey,” he started, but not in the way of a typical greeting. Aidan did his best to talk like he thought everyone else did.

“… hey.”

The guy raised an eyebrow like this was the most pressing question in the world. “How old are you?”

Aidan froze. Of all questions someone could have asked—“why are you so short” or “what’s up with that hair” or “why are you still wearing your jacket”—he wished it could have been another one. Not just one. Anything but this one.

But it had been asked, and he knew he couldn’t just ignore it. He let out a sigh, but he tried to make it a quiet sigh. He backed up a little in his seat like he would be attacked as soon as the answer came from his lips. He hoped with all he had inside him that they would react to him as well as they had reacted to his mother.

“Twelve.”

And the look on the guy’s face made Aidan curl up in his seat and wish so desperately that he had just stayed at home.