So...College? (Oriel)

[Amanda Joy "AJ" Lane]

Backdated to Mid-October

AJ sat right by the windows facing the street that ran in front of all the shops in the downtown of Pilot Ridge, her hands wrapped around a mug of earl grey tea. She watched people walk by, leaves falling off trees, stripping them bare. She wanted to make sure that Oriel showed up. She wanted to be someone he could go to and she also wanted to help him. She wanted Adaryn to go to college, but her roommate just didn't seem to be up to the idea. So she really wanted to convince Oriel. As far as AJ was concerned, all you needed to do to was have a passion to go to college. That was it. And Oriel had to be passionate about something. She was going to find that thing.

She actually felt so bad that it'd taken her a while to get around to helping him, but their schedules often clashed. She hadn't seen him in a long while actually and was looking forward to catching up and getting started. She'd even brought her laptop. She was determined to make Oriel realize that he could go to college and that it was worth it. She was currently working through her first semester. It wasn't so bad when you loved what you were doing.

As long as what Oriel loved doing wasn't threatening Oliver anymore. She'd meant to talk to him about that, see if the two were finally on good terms. So much to talk about!

[Deleted]

To be honest, Oriel had been thinking about college. The possibility. The probability. The some-other-p-word-because-alliteration-is-cool. He’d been asking around about it, people he knew, getting opinions. Gryph was…helpful. Phoenix was encouraging, of course. He thought the world of Oriel, and was convinced the boy could get into Harvard if he wanted.

He was still on the fence about it, though, the main issues being that 1. he didn’t know if he’d even get in, and 2. even if he did, Oriel didn’t have a clue as to what he would study! The least he could do was keep his grades up….somehow…..and somehow that was actually happening, so that was good…right? Even if he didn’t end up going to college, a good GPA was good, right? Even though it suffered a lot his first two or three years at Hammel….

In any case, he was grateful to AJ for helping him, even if it’d taken some time for them to get together for it. She was already there, in college. Probably busy. She totally hadn’t just been ignoring him, nope. Nope.

Oriel sighed as he walked past the coffee shop and pushed open the door, having completely missed seeing AJ in the window. He immediately unzipped his jacket as he’d already worked up a sweat on the way over. His hair was tied back, in one of those horrific man-buns. He liked it, so STFU!! Anyway, Oriel did a quick scan of the room once inside, and it was then that he saw the brunette sitting beside the window. He grinned his usual devil-grin, then strutted over. "Hey, Jay-Jay," he started. "I seem to have lost my titty-bears, and I can't sleep without them. Can I snuggle yours instead?"

[Amanda Joy "AJ" Lane]

AJ watched him for a moment as he looked around, totally having missed her when he walked in the door. She stifled a laugh as well, mostly because it was slightly funny that Oriel couldn't find her. But he finally did and she offered him a smile as he neared in return to his too big of a grin. It faltered as she set down her mug of tea. She was also intitially shocked by what came out of Oriel's mouth, no matter how long she'd known him, but she was so much better at recovering now whereas before she'd stare and search for words. She also didn't take anything he said personally anymore, because she knew Oriel was joking 97 percent of the time, which was an estimate, but accurate enough.

"Only if I can nuzzle your man bun," she said back, gesturing to his obvious up-do. "Does Phen like that?" Not that she didn't. It suited him. Messy and spontaneous.

[Deleted]

Oriel wasn’t going to change anytime soon, and he much liked and preferred to be able to say such obscene things without the worry that someone was going to call the PC police on him. He didn’t like having to be so careful about everything he said, especially not with people who were supposed to be his friends. AJ was his friend, despite his mouth. Oriel was glad he didn’t have to pretend to be someone he wasn’t just to keep her around.

Oriel raised his eyebrows innocently and rolled his eyes up in a similar direction as his lips curled into a strange sort of smile. “Mmmmm mebbe,” he said quickly, bobbing his palm chicly underneath his ‘do’. He leaned down and turned his head appropriately so she could admire the bun from close up. “Alright, now, give ‘im some loving. That a girl~” Ridiculousness aside, Oriel would take a seat across from AJ, and fold his arms in front of him, one over the other, posing a bright, tooth-filled grin to the pretty girl. “Hiii….’sup?” he said. Right, so he was strangely excited to see his good friend, but…well, he was allowed! It’d been a while, after all. “Miss me?” he asked, puckering his lips out for a double air kiss.

[Amanda Joy "AJ" Lane]

AJ was proud of how far she'd come in banter with Oriel. At first she'd been offended, and then she'd just felt awkward. Then she'd finally come to a point when she realized it just how he was and she'd playfully countered his comments. When he'd given her access to his hair, she ruffled it with a grin. Being around Oriel actually made her really happy as things were usually lighthearted, but she did know that they did have to get down to business with the college applications and so she tried not to let him cloud her focus. "Ugh, so much. College. So much reading." She let out a sigh. "Of course! I need my dose of Oriel." She played along, feeling slightly silly as the participated in the double air kiss.

"Ready to get to work?"

[Deleted]

Oriel would be purring right now if he was a kitty. But since he was just a big cuddly lion, he was growling in content from the head scritches and pets which few knew were Oriel’s big weakness. One hand scratching his head, and his whole 200lbs were flopping on the closest thing, or person, near him. Oriel wasn’t going to flop all over AJ today though. They had better things to do today. More important. Like college things.

Ugh…college.

“Considering how much you’re complaining, you really think you oughta be pushing me into it? I mean…. I don’t even know if I’m going to be graduating, and you think I can do college?” It was a pretty tall order for a kid whose only strength was in his fists. Well, he had a couple other subjects that didn’t suck, but anything that required reading made him feeling like giving up before he even started. Still… “Right, so….where do we start?” he asked with false enthusiasm, cracking his knuckles in preparation.

[Amanda Joy "AJ" Lane]

"You're not getting me to give up on you that easily," AJ told him. Sure, she complained, but didn't everybody in college do that? It was hard work, but it was worth it in the end. That made AJ feel a little bit better about how tired she was. "You will graduate. I'll help you study if I need to. We can have study dates." Finals were coming up after all. She believed in Oriel. All you had to do was get through high school, even if you hated it. Then you got to choose what you wanted to do in college. "Of course I think you can go to college. As long as you want to, and you're passionate about something." She didn't want to force Ori into going if he absolutely didn't want to, but she knew that deep down he did.

She picked up her mug of tea again. "Well, where do you want to apply?" she asked him. "Do you have any colleges in mind? Are you staying in Vermont?"

[Deleted]

“Darn,” he said dryly. “My plan’s been foiled. You are too smart for me.”  Oriel spoke in monotone and with a stilted pace, as if that were the only way for her to realize he was joking.  He smirked, though, at her encouragement, or rather, her eagerness.  The teacher was more motivated than the student, in this case.  Which wasn’t bad….Oriel needed that good kick in the rear, and if it could be done by a pretty AJ, then all the better.  

Whether or not he was passionate about something was another story. “What’s that got to do with…? I don’t got a clue what I’m s’pposed to be studying that anyway.” He’d had this conversation at least once before with someone else. It was the endless debate of studying something he liked, but was probably useless, or something he only sorta-liked and was practical. Oriel shrugged. “Don’t know…anyplace that’d take me, I guess? I don’t want to leave Phoenix…but I wouldn’t mind going back to New York.” Even if it was a shit-hole, that shit-hole was still home to him.

[Amanda Joy "AJ" Lane]

"It's not that I'm smart, it's that I believe in you and I want to help you," AJ corrected him. He didn't seem to understand the idea of studying something you loved, a subject you enjoyed learning about. AJ's parents always went on about how getting an English degree wasn't practical. It would be so hard to find a job if she didn't want to be a teacher, which she wasn't sure about yet. They wanted her to do something that would for sure give her many opportunities and AJ was sure it was just because they wanted to see her succeed, but AJ wasn't good at any practical subject like math or science and she certainly didn't have an interest in it either. She was sensitive to blood and needles and so the medical field was definitely out. "Let me put this in terms you understand," she told Ori. "There's no point in spending money to go through school for possibly for years if you don't like what you're studying and know you won't be happy in that field someday." That's how she tried to look at it anyway. "A degree is a degree anyway. You have education and that will get you a better job no matter what." Passion was the most important to AJ. She didn't want to become a zombie that just went through the college system. She wanted to mostly enjoy it...except for the debt.

"So my main question is, what are you passionate about? What do you like? Or...not hate?" She laughed. AJ wanted to see New York, she'd never been, but right now she liked where she was and she needed to work on things with Oliver and continue to work on her relationships with others. "And that's a start." She scribbled New York down on a page of her notebook and then looked up at him.

[Deleted]

Oriel chewed the inside of his cheek, considering her question. “I like dancing,” he said with a shrug crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t know, I like the theater and shit like that. Ain’t grand or nothing, but….I don’t know, makes me happy…I guess?” Would that yield anything practical, though? “I….don’t hate math,” he continued with a small rock of his head. “I’s the only thing I ever been good at in school.” He didn’t love it though. It got boring after a while. “And….” he started with a breath of hesitation. This one was a little tougher for him to consider, but he did like it too. “I like science ‘n shit….like mixing shit together and making it explode or something. That’s pretty cool.” But probably required more attention from him than he was willing to give. Oriel smirked and leaned in across the table, waggling his eyebrows at the girl. “Phoenix says I’d look sexy in a lab coat,” he snickered, grinning suggestively.