Never Truly Loved Anything

The dull buzz of the florescent lights above her head made it difficult for her to concentrate. She groaned silently in frustration at the question on the paper in front of her,

How does the information processing approach explain the interference theory of forgetting?

Who cares? She thought as she frowned at the paper. She couldn’t remember learning any of this stuff during the last 2 and a half months.

Coughing echoed through the quiet hall, increasing her frustration as it distracted her. She allowed her eyes to roll in the direction of the sound, noticing others’ eyes going to the same spot. A girl sat covering her mouth trying to muffle the sound. Ali felt sorry for the girl, she clearly couldn’t help the sound from coming out yet everybody was glaring daggers at her.

She glanced around at the faces of her peers, her eyes immediately catching a guy who she didn’t recognise, her eyebrows scrunched up in confusion as he smiled at her as he pushed his glasses back up his nose, before turning back to the paper in front of him. She continued to watch him, trying to figure out why he was there. She felt sorry for him, he obviously wasn’t from around here, from what she could see he’d decided to wear black skinny jeans that made her feel hot just looking at them, but luckily he was wearing a grey and white stripped tank top, there was a black hoodie draped over the back of his chair though.

She eventually turned her eyes back to the page in front of her, hoping that once she started writing the answer to the question would just come out, Interference may be due to overwriting, where new memory traces affect storage by damaging or removing old memory traces.

With that question being the last one she had to complete, she raised her hand to catch the eyes of the exam supervisor before scooping up her pen, pencil, highlighter and eraser.

“Finished dear?” The elderly lady asked her quietly once she got to where Ali was sitting, a kind smile gracing her face. Ali nodded and handed over the paper. “See you this afternoon.”

“Bye.” Ali whispered, smiling back at the lady before quietly navigating herself through the tables and out the door. “Finally!” she said to herself as she stood in the small room that held everybody’s belongings, trying to remember where she put her bag, since when did everybody have white bags?

“How did you go?” A voice asked from behind her, she whipped around in surprise at the new voice. It was the boy from a few minutes earlier.

“I, um, I think I went okay…” She mumbled, she really though she went crap but she wasn’t going to tell a stranger that. “How did, um, you go?” She spotted her bag near the door on the other side of the room and began walking towards it as she spoke.

She glanced back at him to see his shoulders lift slightly before dropping. “I’ve done better.” Ali didn’t speak again as she was rummaging through her bag for her phone. “That coughing was annoying, hey?” He began talking again.

“What, sorry? Oh, yeah, it was a bit. I found the lights more annoying though.” She shrugged and waited for her phone to turn on.

The boy fell silent again as another girl from Ali’s class came through the doors.

“How did you go? I totally failed! I couldn’t remember a damn thing!” The girl spoke a hundred words a minute and Ali struggled to keep up.

“Uh yeah it was alright.” She replied absentmindedly. She threw her bag over her shoulder and walked back across the room to the door, pushing it open and immediately feeling the heat wrap around her body. She could already feel the backs of her knees begin to sweat. She thanked herself that she’d only put a pair of denim shorts and a pale blue tank top on that morning. She braved the heat as she walked to her car which she’d managed to park across the lot. When she got to the car, she wound the windows down and let the hot air that had been trapped inside, escape.

The only thing wrong with her car was the fact that the AC didn’t work, it would be a minor problem if she lived somewhere like Canada, but she lived in Arizona so this minor problem was actually major.

Not wanting to stay in the car longer than needed, Ali raced to the closest coffee shop where she would get an iced coffee and study for her next exam, which happened to be in three hours. When she got to the coffee shop though, her plans were ruined; sitting at the table closest to the door was her brother, his friend Tim, and a group of boys she didn’t recognise.

“Ali!” He called out once he spotted her. She thought about ignoring him and pretending she didn’t hear but the place was too quiet for that excuse to be plausible. She turned around and smiled at the older boy who grinned goofily back at her. “Go get your drink and come meet my new friends!” She just nodded and turned back around to order her drink. There was no way around meeting the new boys so she might as well do it.

She got her drink and went back to the table. “Tim.” She nodded at he boy sitting next to Shaun, her brother.

“Ali.” He copied exactly as she’d done, causing her to laugh at him, he grinned back, showing her all his teeth. She took the seat between Shaun and a boy who looked about double her height.

It was silent for a while before Ali laughed nervously, “Are you going to introduce us, Shaun? Or just let us awkwardly sit here staring at each other..?” Her brother’s eyes widened as he glanced around the table.
“Oh shit,” he laughed along with the rest of the guys. “Guys this is my little sister, Ali. Al, this is Tim’s little brother Pat,” It was obvious which one he was talking about, the kid looked like Tim except he was tiny and well, Tim wasn’t. “that’s Jared.” The boy sitting next to Pat, and almost directly across from her, smiled kindly at her as he brushed his ginger hair out of his eyes. “Empty seat where Garrett should be, where is he anyway?” Shaun asked the group.

“He had to go to the school to finish one of his last exams.” Pat answered. Ali didn’t think much of it, if she didn’t know any of these boys clearly Garrett hadn’t been at her school or she’d know him.

“Oh, alright. Moving on, that’s Kennedy,” he pointed to a cute boy sitting next to the empty seat; he offered her a sweet smile before Shaun moved on. “And this here is John I-make-all-the-girls-cream O’Callaghan.” He was talking about the giant who she was sitting next to. She could see why her brother had said that. The boy was stunning. He smirked down at her and held out his hand.

“Don’t be pulled in by the temptation, Al. He’s a prick.” Tim told her, laughing when John flipped him off.

“Fuck off, Kirch, just cause I got blessed with these looks doesn’t mean I’m a prick. I know how to take care of a lady.” He defended himself, pulling his hand back down onto the table in front of him; his voice was enough to make her knees weak.

“You wouldn’t know how to take care of anybody outside of the bedroom.” A voice that sounded familiar to Ali, shot at John, causing everybody to laugh. When she dragged her eyes away from John to see who had spoken, she was faced with the familiar blue eyes from earlier at the school, except this time they weren’t covered by glasses; she fought the urge to tell him to put them back on. “Hey girl from the psych exam.” He said as he slid into the seat opposite her.

She smiled kindly at him as she took a sip of her drink she’d forgotten she had.