Human

"Congratulations!" I shot up from my bed at the loud chant.

"Good job Paris, you got your first arrest!" Casper ruffled my hair.

"What's going on?" I rubbed my eyes, hoping to clear my vision.

"Harry told us you caught a thug!" Lou joined in.

"Ah, yeah. But what does that have to do with all these people in my room?" I scanned my room filled with some new faces.

"We like to party." A small girl called from the back.

"Well I have school." I pushed my covers aside and started packing my books.

"That's fine, I can get Easton to give you a ride. We can party later." Casper suggested.

"You have parties like everyday, why do you need another one?" I was not in the mood to deal with drunk and dangerous people.

"You're the first girl to ever make an arrest, the rest of us just help." Lou spoke up.

"Great, now please leave. I have class in an hour and I need to shower." I grabbed some random articles of clothing from my closet.

"You heard the girl." Lou mumbled and started pushing everyone out.

I left them and entered my en suite. Another note on the large wipe board was sitting on the inside of my shower. It read:

Meet me in the lobby at 8:45 we have English Lit. together.
- Easton

Great, now I only have forty five minutes to get ready.

Jumping in the shower and out in a matter of ten minutes was a new record for me. And getting dressed in five, damn, I was on fire. I gave myself a good fifteen minutes to blow dry my hair and style it in a cute braided ponytail before heading down for a good breakfast. Once down in the cafeteria I settled for a bagel and hot chocolate to go so I wouldn't have to keep Easton waiting.

"Paris." Somebody whispered in my ear, making me jump.

"Well hello to you too Easton." I settled down.

"Come on, I don't want to be late." He lit a cigaret left.

I guess I had no choice but to follow his smoke trail. I pray his car didn't reek of smoke. But unfortunately it did.

"Easton."
"Yeah?" He responded through his cigaret.

"Can you please not smoke when I'm nearby?" I knew this would be a long shot, but it was worth a try.

"Sure." And just like that he spit it out.

I must say, besides the smoking, Easton was quite an attractive lad. He had multiple tattoos, but they suited him and made him look tough. So I'm defiantly not complaining about my ride, and classmate.
The car ride was silent besides occasional honking for other cars of in the distance. It took us about fifteen minutes to pull into campus with all the traffic. As soon as he parked the car, Easton hopped out and opened my door for me. I smiled and thanked him, obviously somebody taught him some manners.

"Do you think I could catch a ride with you tomorrow?" I spoke as we wandered down the halls of the large school building.

"Of course, but you wouldn't be needing me for long, you'll get your own car soon enough." Easton held the classroom door open and let me in first.

"What do you mean?" I chose a spot in the middle of the far side of the classroom.

"If you bust someone you get a car, that's why none of he girls have cars." Easton sat next to me.

"When did you get your first car?" I lowered my voice and started the serve on our desks.

"15, I've been here from the start. It used to be just Harry, Niall, Ed, and I." Easton lowered his voice as well.

Class started before I could respond, leaving the question burning in my head for a whole hour and a half. All we were going to be doing for the first few weeks of class were analyzing journals and poems . Each day we were given a sentence, or phrase, and we had to write a good page or two about the meaning and purpose and how it applies to our life today. So all in all, class was very easy. One minute you were on sentence three and next thing you know, two pages are filled.

"What if I don't want a car?" I whispered.

"Give it to one of the others, they'll love you forever." Easton chuckled and packed up his belongings.
"What class do you have next?"

"World religion." He mumbled. "I already know you do too, Harry told me. I'll bring us there and if you want we can catch lunch after." Easton suggested.

"That'd be great." I smiled and stood up at the sound of the bell.

"I'm gonna be honest when I say this so don't bitch at me." He warned. "But you are one of the last people I thought would get a bust."

"Don't judge a book by its cover, I look like a weak flower but I can be rough when I want." I laughed.

"I guess so, I better be careful around you, don't wanna get my ass kicked." Easton put his hands up as if he was surrendering.

"So where is world religion?" I followed him down a dark and deserted isle.

"The next building over, but Harry asked for me to pick something up." Easton opened up the door to a janitors closet and filled a bag with cleaning materials.

"You're stealing cleaning materials from school?" I raised and eyebrow, completely unimpressed.

"These aren't cleaning items." He whispered and I silently laughed at him. "Whatever, let's go." Easton took my hand and dragged me out and back to the main classrooms.

We didn't really talk at all until class started. The teacher made everyone introduce themselves, which was very annoying and unnecessary. But just like my English class, we were going to be journals. However these were more personal.

"Today's topic is about faith, I want you to use your knowledge of different types of religions to help you. Explain how people with all sort of beliefs used faith and what things you have faith in today and why it's important." Professor Hayden started class.

He seemed to be very young, maybe 24. He defiantly had a good sense in style too, which was rare for college professors. They normally were old and wore huge ass khaki pants and sweater vests, but Professor Hayden was rocking the slim fit pants and fitted half zip sweater. Although his clothes made him seem a little older, he still look very young. And young teachers are laid back and fun.

Right away my mind went berzerk, I had too many thoughts jumping around in my brain. So without over thinking it I wrote whatever came to me first. Overall mine was okay. I looked over at Easton and he already had two pages completed. Looking for inspiration I read just a little bit of his.


Faith- the complete trust or confidence in something.

In all religions or groups of people there is a common belief, something they all trust and support. And each person generally has faith in the leader of the group, faith that they will fulfill greatness and help the rest of the followers seek the greatness along with them. Faith shaped the way people are today. Many religions have faith in Jesus or a Buddha.

But in today's world faith is so hard to find. People trust people and have faith in something and are so oftenly disappointed with the outcome that they give up. They give up hope. Way back when, the people never gave up. Indian tribes in America never gave up faith in their leader that spring would come in the midst of long and hard winters. Or that the rain would come to help their crops. Today's society is a mess, everyone gives up so easily, nobody has faith. Not in themselves or anybody else. We are all just knackered and tired I guess, we are just lazy excuses for humans. It's like nobody cares, and if we do, nobody has motivation to do something. And in order to be motivated someone needs to have faith in you, faith that you will fulfill greatness...


"You like it?" Easton caught me reading his paper.

"It's really good!" I nodded.

"Harry and I used to write little stories and have our parents edit them and help us improve." Easton shrugged.

I raised my eyebrow. "Harry reads and writes?"

"Yeah, he's really good at it too. He dropped out of college because of all this gang shit and because he got offered a really good editing job for a publisher his family used to know."

"I'll have to read some of his work, and more of yours. Maybe you will inspire me." I teased and continued working right up to the last minute.

"I'll see you all tomorrow, don't forget to get a journal for this class. I don't want some crappy notebook you all will lose, make it something cool. Just staple this one in or something, I don't care, I just want them all in one place." Professor Hayden sat on the top of his spiny chair, feet on the part meant for your ass.

"I'll dig out my old journal, Harry and I have matching leather ones. They have doodles all over them from when we were young. I could lend it to you so you could read some of my work."

"Yes please, I'd love that!" I skipped to Easton's car.

"Calm down, they're not that good." Easton look disgusted with all my excitement.

"I know, I just want lunch." He rolled my his at me and started the car.

About seven minutes and twenty three second later, we arrived at a fancy looking pasta restaurant. Judging by the amount of cars in the parking lot, I'm making a safe guess that this place has very good food.

"This place looks packed, it's going to take like twenty minutes before we even get a table." I scouted the people waiting in line at the hostess.

"It's fine, I know somebody." Easton took my hand and weaves us through the inpatient adults in line.

He gave the hostess one look and they let him through, nobody followed with menus or even said a word to us. We walked at a fast pace towards the way back of the restaurant towards the booths overlooking the extremely beautiful flower garden and waterfall outside. Menus and silverware we're already placed and ready, as if they knew we were coming.

"How'd you do it?" I gave Easton a suspicious look.

"Do what?" He played innocent.

"Oh you know what I'm talking about Easton, don't play dumb with me." I narrowed my eyes at him.
"We helped the owner out a few years back, so he gave us this table. Anytime, with anyone, no matter how much of a line there is, he or his employees can not seat anyone to this booth."

"Fare enough, so what's good here?" I scanned the menu looking for something that really stood out to me.

"Everything, can't you tell by the line?" Easton cracked a grin.

"Okay sassy pants, clam it down a little." I teased.

"Hello guys, my name is Kelsey and I'm going to be your waitress this afternoon. Can I get you guys something to drink or eat?" The perky waitress addressed Easton and I.

"Yes, we will take two glasses of your signature lemonade and two orders of your deluxe pasta with a side of breadsticks instead of the salad. Oh, and cheese on the side." Easton smiled at Kelsey and handed her our menus.

"You come here a lot I can tell."

He shrugged. "I guess you could say that."

"So tell me a little about yourself." I sipped on the water that was waiting for us at our table.

"I'm Easton Tate, I'm 19. I've lived here with the gang ever since we got the building. I used to be home schooled. I have lots of tattoos, I look intimidating when I want to, otherwise I really playful. Louis is an ass. Harry is a nightmare. I hate a lot of people in the gang, like Bailey. When Casper brought you to the first party she introduced you to me first but you won't remember. I'm majoring in communications but I enjoy reading and writing, and world history and religion. I'm working on my under graduate degree in psychology. I used to keep a journal full of lessons and quotes I've learned from past lessons. I have tons of scars but they are hidden. I have a shit background with a shitty history. And I noticed the new scar on your wrist since you woke up this morning."

"It's really that noticeable?" I rubbed my hand over it and pulled my sleeves down to cover the hideous scar.

"No, I notice the little things. Like the way you smile a lot and make funny faces with your eyebrows. I saw the bandage on your wrist as you walked down the stairs that one morning when you got in a fight with Louis." Easton shrugged. "It's the logo, the one other gangs use to symbolize us. The H is suppose to be Harry, and the line with the circle is a key. And I you turn it upside down it looks like a person holding two shields."

I looked down at it, ♅. "What does it mean?"

"Nobody knows this besides me, so don't go on running your mouth about this. But Harry designed it, he locked up his memories and is shielding out the pain and hard times. Like that one tattoo he has, the 'Fight Off Your Demons' one. He's shielding himself from his father and everyone else trying to hurt him, the demons." Easton confessed.

"I don't know what to say, that's… deep." Easton laughed.

"Your face shows concern as if it intrigued you, but your words were like, 'I didn't listen to a thing you said but it was a long explanation so I'm going to say it was deep'." Easton laughed some more.

'Whatever, don't make fun of me." I pouted like a little kid.

"Alright, enough about me, tell me about you."

"Okay, um, I'm Paris Paxton. I'm 19, I just moved from the dorms to the building. I live on the 6th floor with Lou. I'm really good with persuasion and arguments, but I'm planing to major in the same things as you. I used to write poems about my friend. I'm actually quite shy, but living with all you guys, I'm kind of braking out of it. I don't have any tattoos, I have a different taste than most of you. I went through some pretty rough things as a kid. I pay very close attention to details, like how you have lines on your forehead from raising your eyebrows too much. And I like to admire somebody's tattoos. Scars are very intriguing to me. And I didn't have many friends before meeting Casper."

"Why do you like scars?"

"There's a quote by Angelina Jolie that inspired me."

"What is it?" Easton actually seemed interested.

" I like someone who is a little crazy but coming from a good place. I think scars are sexy because it means you made a mistake which lead to a mess. "

"That's a good one, I'll have to write that in my journal when I find it. There are a lot of important quotes just floating in my head, waiting to be written down."

"Me too."

"So about your family and childhood, I told you something secretive about Harry, your turn." Easton smiled.

I took a deep breathe, it's had been a long time since I've told anyone. "My brothers were driving home from my 10th birthday party in their own car and crashed head on into a gasoline truck. Both vehicles were blown to bits. The police considered it to be suicide, so the other family sued, locking my father up in their place. Two weeks later my parents got divorced. I was always bullied in school about myself and my family. Years down the road, somebody tried to get my friend to commit suicide. She nearly did, and I was left to convince her and the boy not to do it. She had me tell the boy, at age thirteen, she was so close to snapping, why didn't he just do it. I literally almost lost everyone."

Easton got up and sat beside me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me in tight. He kept whispering little messages in my ear and placing kissing on my forehead as a cried into his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry Paris. You are beautiful. You are so strong. I wish knew. I care Paris, I will always care for you Paris, even if we're not together, and even if we are far, far away from each other."
And somehow In those sappy moments, Kelsey had delivered out food. The hunger was defiantly getting to us. Wiping the last tear from my cheek, Easton slid back into his side of the booth. And before I could say a thank you, he took two fingers and lift my chin. Easton zipped his lips and threw the key away.

Notes

Hello!! Haven't updated in a while... So why not now? On Harry's birthday too. Anyway, my birthday is on the 13th so I'm getting pretty excited!

Hope you you like it, I've been SUPER busy lately so I don't know when I can update next.

Xoxo
-E