Venin

The sun was setting when she finally exited the Columbia University grounds, leaving behind thousands of students casually chatting about all the exhausting course work they had to do over the weekend. Something that New York had quite different from the people in Cheshire was the fact that, even on the weekends, nothing stopped. They lived live to the fullest, and Jasmine didn’t pretend to miss out on anything.

Olivia had disappeared after Mr Howell’s class, claiming that her new boyfriend had called her; Jasmine knew it was a lie when she opened her mouth to tell her such words. Her teacher had an awful habit of calling her after class to tell her where she had been wrong during some of the exercises they did during class. When he did so, Olivia was always dragged with her friend to the fire.

This time, it was different. As soon as the annoying bell rang, Mr Howell excused himself quite quickly, his face turning a bit red when a blush came to cover his cheeks, telling the students he had no time to, in his words, ‘correct the disgraces that we make’. No one dared to ask the reason he was leaving, and he didn’t want to tell it anyway.

During class, Jasmine couldn’t stop her mind from trying to place her teacher in her dream; there was, of course, no natural or normal reason for her to be fixed on that dream, but she was. After all, even if she had dreamt about him, that didn’t mean anything, did it?

Her feet moved quickly through the pavement as she walked back to her flat, knowing her flatmate Amelia would be there already. Amelia Cooper was a girl from the big city of London that had moved to New York by the same time Jasmine had. They had met when they were both apartment hunting and the idea of sharing a flat seemed like heaven to them; so far, it still felt like heaven.

As she reached for the enormous glass window of her building, her eyes darted to a very strange man sitting near the road, a cigarette placed lightly in his lips like he had no care in the world. Normally, she would ignore such a person and continue with her life; now, she couldn’t do it. The colour that painted his hair, as well as the haircut, seemed quite similar to her, although she couldn’t place it.

Like he could read her thoughts, the strange man turned around in a quick movement, looking at her in the eyes. She froze for a couple seconds, feeling like he was looking right into her soul merciless; the brunette had seen that look before. Taking a deep breath, Jasmine shook it off and quickly opened the door, letting herself inside before making sure the door was locked behind her as she made her way to her flat.

As soon as she twisted the key in the lock, a loud voice screeched. “Jasmine? Is that you?”

The brunette rolled her eyes, opening the door and closing it behind her, as she dropped her bag and jacket near the front door. “No, Amy, it’s the cute guy that works at Starbucks.” She joked, mentioning the guy that Amelia always flirted with when they went to get coffee.

“Ah, nice one!” Amelia answered me, making her way to the living room and pulling me with her. “Olivia called me, saying you almost got late to some class. Is everything okay?”

Running one hand through her hair, the girl sat down on the sofa next to her friend and nodding. “Yeah, I just had a lazy morning, that’s all.” There was no way she would ever tell her friend the real reason why she had been extremely tired and unmotivated to do anything. After her, they were just nightmares, everyone had them.

**
It was almost midnight when Jasmine’s boredom hit. The place was silent, as Amelia had taken the night shift at the shopping centre, and there was nothing good playing on the television.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket and it took Jasmine nothing more than five seconds to grab it and look at the screen tiredly. Olivia’s name flashed on the screen and she groaned internally, cursing the day she and the blonde had become acquaintances.

‘Mr Foster’s lecture is almost starting, where are you?’

She shot up from the sofa, her eyes wide and her heartbeat beginning to rise. Mr Foster was her Photography teacher, and although he was usually a nice man, he didn’t like it when their students didn’t attend his lectures. Of course they always happened at night and off school hours, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get revenge on his students.

‘I’m on my way.’ She texted back, grabbing her things and running out of her house, not really bothering that her hair was up in a messy bun and her clothes were wrinkled.

Her feet stomped through the busy barely light streets of New York City, trying to be as fast as they could. A Deja-Vu feeling ran over the brunette as she ran, cursing herself on her mind for being tardy once more. People looked at her with judgement in their eyes, some even picking up mace, afraid the crazy blushed girl was going to rob them or hurt them.

Olivia was waiting impatiently at the front gate of the University, looking from side to side to see if her colleague was arriving or not. Jasmine spotted her and raised her arm still running towards the girl. “I’m here! I’m here!” she shouted, finally getting to Olivia.

The blonde looked at her friend with confusion on her eyes, unaware of the reason why Jasmine was so tired. Olivia’s parents lived on the Upper East Side, being a wealthy and well-known family; her daughter only travelled on nice cars and never walked anywhere.

“Why do you look like you’ve been running?”

Arching a brow, Jasmine searched for a hint of humour and sarcasm from the other girl, but found none.

“Because I was running.” She said slowly. “Now come on, we’re late!” Shaking it off, Jasmine grabbed Olivia’s hand and ran to the classroom where the lecture was just beginning. Luckily for them, there was still a hint of commotion, so no one noticed they had just arrived.

“Good evening!” Mr Foster’s voice was heard, loud and clear. “Here we are again, huh? Glad to see most of my students here.” His eyes searched throughout the entire room. “Anyway, today I have the help from a former student of mine. He’s tutoring here starting today and I thought it would be good for you all to listen to a hardworking man like himself.”

Everyone’s curiosity raised, even thought anyone could see the fear on some of the students’ eyes. No one knew what crazy ideas Leonard Foster could come up with, neither did they want to know.

A shadow came from behind the tall and tanned forty year old; his hair was light brown and covered his eyes if he got distracted. He had a white shirt on and a black leather jacket covering it, his hands stuffed on the inside of his dark jeans’ pockets.

He looked up at everyone, his eyes almost seeing through everyone’s souls. Jasmine shifted in her seat, those piercing eyes seeming familiar to her. Of course she knew who he was; her mind was just being lazy. Goosebumps ran over her skin as she saw his eyes coming to her side of the room.

“Hey everyone. I’m Gerard.”