Page 1 of Petite Fleur

Chapter 1

Maeve Henderson

Today is the first day of the fall semester, and of course, I'm not prepared.

I woke up late, I lost a shoe somehow, and I missed the bus. Overall, I'm off to a great start.

I don't know why they even call it fall in Texas when it's always so dang hot. I'm sweating half a block down from my apartment; very ladylike.

If it wasn't the first day, I'd skip my first class today and catch a later bus, but I don't want to be known for the entire semester as the girl who skips the first day. They'd only see me as a slacker or maybe assume I'm a party girl and was too hungover to show up. I'd rather nobody look at me like that.

So, that leads us here, to me running like an idiot down the Houston streets.

My college is two miles from my apartment, and honestly, when I rented the place, I thought that was close enough.

Clearly, I was wrong.

I should have asked one of my roommates to drive me to school; that would have been the smart thing to do.

Carlie doesn't have her first class until noon and Sean doesn't have his until ten.

Either one of them would've been pissed that I'd woken them up, but they would've done it.

Heck, Carlie probably would've just thrown her car keys in my face and told me to leave her alone.

Yep, I definitely should've done that.

I managed to make it to class with only a minute to spare. That gives me just enough time to throw my bag in an empty seat and rush out into the hallway with a can of spray deodorant and the baby wipes I always keep in my bag.

I like to be prepared; sue me.

I quickly wipe the sweat off my arms and face, dousing myself in a hefty amount of deodorant, and shake out my shirt so it's no longer stuck to my back.

When I come back in, everyone is staring at me.

Wonderful.

So, instead of being perceived as the party animal who can't stay sober long enough to show up, I'm the girl who stinks.

I rather would've been the one who skipped.

I take my seat and try to give a friendly wave to everyone who stares at me, but I'm humiliated.

I hope that means this was my bad for the day, leaving the rest of the day to actually go well.

"Now that we're all seated, welcome to Environmental Conservation 101." The professor announces.

I pull my laptop out of my bag and open it to where I will be typing the class notes, but I also have my phone set to record the lecture.

I don't want to miss anything since I really can't afford to retake a class.

The professor waits a minute until everyone's laptops are ready before beginning, I like that. It gives me a good feeling about this class if he's considerate enough to wait for us.

This is going to be a great semester.

"Normally, I would begin with the taboo topic of overpopulation, but I think this semester, we will switch things up. We will start with our discussion of global warming and the ozone. " He announces.

That's going to throw me off; I already studied up on this guy's opinion on overpopulation. I was hoping it would give me an advantage that we had the same views.