The Butterfly Effect

What plan was that exactly? Well I had no fucking clue.

I could barely make heads or tails out of any of this let alone figure out a way forward. The familiarity of the situation was doing wonders to make it all so much more unfamiliar, making it feel like every single time I took a step forward it was on to ground that crumbled away right beneath me.

I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't understand what was happening here. I couldn't place why something as small as me was having these sort of changes on the world around me. I'm a no one and a nobody to anyone except for me and the fucking butterfly effect is supposed to be little more than a bad science fiction movie but here I was living it.

In the absence of anything else to hold fast to I found it easy to fall into familiar patterns, a certain amount of comfort from the same and the ordinary. Closing in and shutting people out, withdrawn and sullen and making sure that every part of myself lent that same impression to the people around me.

Hood up and hands shoved into pockets. Not making eye contact with anyone as the Kims let us all know that we're going from trust exercises to a tour of campus and we all trail along behind them like ducklings, though we were hardly walking along in a row.

I'm not at the back. I'm in the middle, keeping an eye on the people around me and making sure to keep an eye out for where Blake is in the group and keep my distance. After the trust fall he had his eyes on me, each time I looked up and scanned the crowd I would somehow manage to meet his gaze and see that he was watching me and dammit I just didn't understand it. I couldn't figure out his plan here with me.

I wanted to be beside Eddie, but he was trailing along a few feet behind the group and it would be just too obvious to break off and fall into step with him now. The events of the day so far had made me realize one thing about my situation at least, Eddie was going to take finesse to get close to and if I wanted to rekindle our friendship I'd have to be careful. Too much and all I was going to do was spook him, so I was fine to keep my distance for now.

Keeping my distance was good. It was practiced. It was oh so easy for me.

In my pocket my phone pinged with a text and I pulled it out and checked it, tuning out the rambling patter of the Kims as I read off the message from Mr. Powell, my new landlord.

"Just looking for a heads up on when you'll be dropping in. Want to make sure I'm home to give you the key."

It had been a big enough fight just getting my folks to agree to a college so far from home. I'd had to justify it every step of the way, show them a concrete plan to explain how the higher education was going to help me in the end and how it was going to be to my benefit. They were skeptical enough of higher education as it was, add in to that the fact that I was a liberal arts major with a focus on History and English… well trying to convince them that there would be a job in the future for me with that degree was almost impossible, but I managed that small miracle and didn’t want to push it any farther. Frankly convincing them also to let me bunk in the dorms was absolutely a step too far.

Mr. Powell was a compromise, an old friend of my fathers who, just like me, had moved away to pursue higher education. My dad had contacted him and got him to agree to rent me a room and there I stayed for all my years of schooling.

We hadn’t been close. Mr. Powell was a nice enough guy but he was also old enough to be my dad and he was clearly not interested in spending his time with some guy in college. For all four years we mainly kept to ourselves, with me doing my best to make sure my presence in his home was as invisible as possible.

I fired back a quick message, my mind half focused on making it look like I wasn't on my phone, which was against the rules, and clearly distracted by all the disorientation of the day as I gave him a time but made sure to follow it up with another text to explain and then over explain why I couldn't be sure or specific about anything and I'm sure just making the very best of first impressions with him.

Sighing I put my phone back in my pocket, but not before I'd been spotted.

"Breaking the rules on the first day," a voice said low and conspiratorially beside me, "What a rebel."

For a limited time you can join my Patreon for only $2 and get access to over a month's worth of new pages of My Second Chance as well as SEVEN FULL STORIES with a new one every month! Join here: https://www.patreon.com/SophiePert