The Last of Them All (editing)

Clara dragged me literally by the arm and the amount of strength she used surprised me. We spun out of our door, slamming it behind us, leaving my half unpacked bag lying on my bed.

I followed her out of our dorm room and down the long narrow hall. She bounced up and down with excitement as we sped walked to the stairs. The walls of the hall were plastered with the symbols that seemed to invade the building like the plague. However instead of the perfect, pristine cement and colorful wallpaper I had imagined, the walls were as if a small child lived there. Parts of it were crumbling as if it had been blown up, other parts were plastered with bright vivid colors that hurt my eyes, while some had intricate paintings and pictures along the sides. On the front of each brown, wooden door were two name tags that were decorated to an individual's liking. I read a couple of the names I saw as we rushed by.

Alice, Karlee, Raegan, Mckenna, Cynthia, Jayden, Trista, Sydney, each nametag was extremely personalized. One had music notes all over it and another had intricate drawings of dragons, while one had flowers and birds all over it.

We walked past the rest of the four hundreds and into a giant lobby area that was littered with chairs and junk food wrappers. It looked like a typical college boys dorm room. You could obviously tell this was the hangout area that Jarvin had talked about.

I walked in and the smell of old pizza and stinky socks wafted through my nose. Two teenage boys were lounging about in some green chairs that looked extremely comfortable. One of the boys had dirty blonde hair that fell over his eyes and he sat stiffly in his chair. There was no doubt that he looked extremely uncomfortable as the other boy talked with large amounts of confidence. The boy that was talking had an aura of authority about him, and it immediately caught my attention. He had dark black hair that was pulled back into a sleek ponytail, making him look sort of intimidating. He was wearing something similar to what Justin had been wearing a couple of days ago, instead of the sweats he was wearing black shorts. A thick white jacket was draped over the arm of the chair and the red eye symbol on the back stuck out like a zit on prom night.

I don't know why but I felt my cheeks grow red as soon as I laid my eyes on him. He was even more muscular than Justin, which is hard to achieve, at least in my opinion, and his darker, tan complexion was another bonus. The fact that he seemed so confident and yet so causal drew me to him. It wasn't until Clara elbowed me in the ribs that I noticed my staring.

"Ow!"

"You were staring." She casually said, as if she was used to it.

"I know." I adjusted the hat on my head awkwardly and may or may not have gone back to gazing at him.

"Malaki."

"What?"

"That's Malaki. He's kind of a ladies man. Superhuman. I have to train with him sometimes and let me tell you..."

I stopped listening to Clara and stifled a laugh. Justin would be glad for the change. My heart stopped beating as he turned, resting his arm on the side of the hideous green chair he was resting in. His face turned back towards us and he smiled assertively. He stood up and came over to where we were standing in the doorway.

"Hello, Clara, and you must be," he turned to me, expecting an answer.

"Oh. I'm Alanis. I go by Ali though."

"Nice to meet your acquaintance Ali. I am Malaki." He held out his hand and I reached for it. Instead of shaking it like I had expected he bent over and gently kissed the top of my hand like a gentleman. Clara just rolled her eyes and sighed.

Was that flirting? I had never flirted nor had anyone flirt with me before, so I wasn't sure.

We left the lobby/hang out area and continued on my tour of the building. It was a beautiful building. The other floors had more dorm rooms and lobby areas, but turns out ours was the largest. Surprisingly, a lot of the rooms were empty. There was actually only about four or five occupied rooms out of the fifteen or so in the hall.