Just My Luck

The low rumbling of the thunder was the only warning there was before the sound of rain hitting the pavement increased, making Hope rush towards her house, clutching at her umbrella.

There weren’t many people in the neighborhood. The streets were empty, except the few children who were playing in the rain, jumping in the puddles.

Hope smiled reminiscing how she used to have the time of her life making small paper boats and how she was the two pigtailed child who was somehow always covered in mud.

Hope laughed to herself, seeing how she was still covered in mud, but it wasn’t fun anymore, and her two pigtails were gone.

She fastened her pace as the wind gushed making her umbrella utterly useless.

Soon she was in her backyard, where she had all but thrown the umbrella on the ground and was fumbling to find her keys in her bag. Finally locating them she unlocked her door when a loud thud came from the old shed her father had built.

With keys in her hand, Hope decided to check it out. She grabbed a shovel from the garden, thinking it wouldn’t be very wise to go empty handed. She had the police on speed dial, so she clutched her phone in hand.

She felt stupid walking in, knowing that all the people in horror movies make the exact same mistake as her and are the first ones to die.

Gathering courage, she unlocked the shed and screamed, swinging her shovel around in thin air with panic and turned on the lamp and immediately felt stupid.

A black cat was looking at Hope with his large green eyes, pretending to not have dropped all the gardening tools. Hope sighed, dropping the shovel on the ground and decided to pick up the tools and check on the cat.

“Hey there kitty kitty, are you here for shelter from this rain?” Hope asked as she carefully approached the cat.

The cat hissed at Hope. At first Hope thought to just let the cat be before she saw that it had somehow managed to wrap its leg in a bunch of wire in the shed and could most definitely injure itself if it hadn’t already.

Hope pursed her lips and ran to her house, she grabbed some cotton, some antiseptic, some bandages and a bowl of warm milk and rushed back to the shed.

The cat hissed again looking at Hope.

“Hey there kitty, I am not going to hurt you, see I got you some warm milk.” Hope consoled as she tried to get as close as she could to the cat.

The cat narrowed her eyes at Hope, who kept down the bowl as near as she could from the cat and established a safe distance.

The cat sniffed the milk, but it was a little far from the green-eyed fluffy ball of darkness. So, Hope pushed it closer.

The cat wasted no time and started drinking the milk while Hope carefully tried to untangle the cat’s foot from the wires.

Hope gave a sigh of relief when she was that the cat wasn’t really hurt from the wire and kept them on the table in there.

“You gave me quite a scare there kitty.” She said as she slouched down on the floor near the cat.

The cat looked up from the bowl of milk and meowed at Hope.

“Oh, so now you like me?” Hope gave half a smile as the cat continued to eat.

A gush of wind blew in the shed, making Hope shiver.

“I’ve had a really long day, and I really need a shower.” Hope said looking at her all-dirty shirt and pants.

“Some asshole decided it was smart to drive by fast through a puddle when it’s raining the whole day. I was having a relatively normal day but this man woke up and thought he had to ruin someone’s day and it just happened to be me.” Hope complained.

The cat didn’t even look up this time.

Hope sighed, “What am I doing complaining to a cat?” She questioned.

“How did you even get in here?” Hope asked the cat, “and why am I still asking you questions like you could actually answer me. Sorry kitty, I have officially lost my mind.” Hope said.

The cat looked at Hope and meowed.

Hope chuckled. “Nice, at least we can agree on that I am losing it.” Hope kept staring at the cat, who didn’t seem to mind Hope anymore.

“I’ll check on you later.” Hope said getting up and leaving the cat be.

She then finally entered her house and locked the door behind. Her parents wouldn’t be back till late night, but that wasn’t unusual for her, with her mother being a renowned surgeon and her father being a successful business man.

She ran up the stairs to her room and threw her bag on the bed and immediately went for a shower.

Hope was a little worried. She had been having a bad time lately and she just wanted to get it over with already.

Her mind wondered to Patience. Patience was such a wonderful being, always seemed to have her calm and cool about situations. Hope considered herself lucky to have Patience in her life. She wished that she could borrow Patience’s cool demeanor for a while.

Because Hope was every sort of dramatic. Things seemed to come naturally to Patience, Hope on the other hand had to try and try and try to get anywhere near to her.

It wasn’t a bad thing, if anything it was a source of motivation to do better, but when it came to Aaron Smith, she really wanted patience to lend her some chill.

Aaron Smith was what Hope’s dreams were made up of.

Unfortunately for Hope though, even being near this boy resulted in suffering.

And it wasn’t the “pwease notice me senpai I wuv you” suffering. It was, “fuCk, OUch I ACCIDENTALLY SMASHED MY LITTLE FINGER OF MY FOOT AGAINST THE TABLE.” suffering.

In other words, being around Aaron Smith always resulted in extreme bad luck for Hope. It could vary from a bird defecation to a full-on ink spill on her brand-new skirt.

For instance, just today evening when Hope was walking back to her house, Aaron was standing there waiting for a bus and a car just happened to, on that exact moment when Hope was passing by Aaron splash the puddle water on Hope.

The guy was like a bad omen! And it sucked even more because Hope was, for a lack of better explanation of her feelings, interested in Aaron.

Hope sighed as she got out of shower and wore some warm clothes.

Things would get progressively worse tomorrow for her, she knew it. She was dreading the day already and it hadn’t even started.

She wasn’t pessimistic, her days were just normal till this guy showed up and then suddenly things just got messy. Most of the days avoiding him would do the trick. Thankfully, they didn’t have many classes together.

Unfortunately for her, she did have a class with him tomorrow. It wasn’t exactly a class with him, it was a semester exam for a common subject they had. Which meant they would be in a class together.

Having four walls and a bunch of students around her should have guaranteed her protection, but she wasn’t sure since this hadn’t ever happen to her before. It did make things worse in her head because it meant that if something humiliating were to ever happen, it would happen in front of a considerable amount of crowd.

She could not afford to fail. The semester had given her nightmares where she would wake up in sweat and search a step of Tryptophan metabolism because she couldn’t remember it in her dreams.

So, she put her hair up in a bun and with new found determination she sat down and opened her book, to try her very best, wishing and praying that things would just for once, turn out fine.