.: Let Our Crosses Crown Our Past [Julian Drain] :. Info

Our entire next week consisted of hardcore studying. Lauri, Jesse, Antero, and I hit the books for finals week so we were at the library pretty much every day. In fact, we were now best friends with the computer catalog systems, the librarians, and every single janitor, no matter when their shift started or ended. Our beds were the chairs or tables and our pillows were the books we fell asleep reading.

Whenever we got hungry or thirsty, we all voted on one of us to go back to the apartment to get us something. The elected person would then go back, grab everything they could find in the cabinets and a huge jug of coffee, and then come back to the library. Since we became such good acquaintances with the librarians, they allowed us to have all the food or drink we wanted in there, and they always yelled at the other kids who had it.

I could understand why she trusted us though. We spent hours after hours of slaving over our work. Antero just didn’t care about school so he was making up for all the times he didn’t pay attention in class right now. Lauri and Jesse were so caught up in ice hockey that they had completely blown off their classes. I didn’t see what they were so worried about though since their professors were probably just going to ace them on the exam just because they won the tournament. Professors were usually biased when it came to athletes. And I was merely with them because I couldn’t find the will to stay awake during class.

So here we were right now. Our group was currently sitting at the library staring at textbooks, pretending to be taking everything in, but secretly praying that one of us would do something to distract us from the task. It’s like my prayers were answered when I saw something fly across my reading space and hit a snoozing Antero on the back of the head.

“Yeah?” he asked, snapping his head up and abruptly pretending to be awake even though we all knew that he was an unconscious as the book he was sleeping upon. He picked up the pen that was thrown at him and looked around while we all kept looking down into our books, pretending that nothing happened. “Who threw that?” he asked stupidly.

I looked over at Lauri who glanced at Jesse, letting me know that it was not he who had done it. But that could have easily been assumed by the look on Jesse’s face. He was currently looking down with his face in a book smirking evilly. It couldn’t have been any more obvious that he was the perpetrator.

“God damn it, Jesse! I’m trying to study!” Antero scolded as he flung the pen back at Jesse. Unfortunately, he missed and the pen went flying far into one of the aisles. He let out a frustrated sigh as we snorted of laughter.

He was just about to get up when we heard footsteps approaching from that same hallway. Soon enough, the massive shape of a bulky old man appeared at our table from that aisle holding the pen that was the source of our entertainment.

“Is this yours?” he asked in a deep, scary voice. But we knew better than to be intimidated by him. He was the midnight janitor and one of our new friends.

“Yes, sir. Sorry about that,” I said, speaking for the rest of the daft guys who had no manners. I took the pen and set it down on the table.

“It’s alright. I can understand that you kids need some form of entertainment to distract yourself from the hard work,” he said winking at me before turned to leave.

“Or some form of ruining Antero’s life,” Jesse added in as he took the pen back and slung it at Antero once more.

“ARGH, I’ll get you for this!” Antero yelled a bit louder than he should have as he stood up, slammed his book shut, and furiously walked towards Jesse with the book raised in the air as if to hit him with it. Jesse quickly got up and started running into the closest aisle. It wasn’t long before Antero was hot on his heels, chasing him through the racks and rack of books.

“That’s enough!” one of the librarians finally exclaimed as she stalked towards us with an infuriated looking about her face. This was one of the librarians we could just not befriend, despite our joking around with her and whatnot. She didn’t laugh with us, she didn’t socialize with us, and she glared in our direction every chance she got. We knew she was just dying to find a reason to boot us out.

So when we saw her approaching, Lauri and I threw each other cautionary looks so as if to say ‘watch what you say and do.’ But there was nothing we could do to change the situation now. She was headed our way like a train speeding towards a broken bridge. And unfortunately, we knew we wouldn’t be one of the survivors of that wreck.

“You four!” she yelled, finally getting the attention of the hyper monkeys that were Jesse and Antero. They both stopped as soon as they saw the deadly look on the librarian’s face and mine and Lauri’s reproachful looks. “I’m going to have to ask you guys to leave. You’re disturbing the others.”

“What others? It’s the middle of the night, lady! Nobody’s here!” Antero retorted, obviously trying to pick a fight with the sixty-year-old. We all knew he would lose. I went back to pretending like I was reading something while Lauri buried his face in his hands from either shame or exhaustion.

“Get out,” the lady barked. Antero’s response obviously didn’t tame her anger down one bit. She was now fuming more than ever before and looked about ready to call the police on us.

“Guys, let’s leave,” I said quietly as Lauri and I stood up. The other two looked like they were about to argue, but I shot them a ‘shut up and let’s go’ look. They didn’t say a word and merely packed up their stuff and started to lead the way out.

“Make sure those ruffians don’t come back,” the librarian said to me before turning on her five dollar grandma shoes and going back to her desk to probably think about how she got screwed over by life by accepting this job offer. At least that’s what came to my mind as we walked out of the library in silence.

“Are you angry at us?” Jesse asked in a sad voice after we were already in the car and heading home.

“Nah. That’s lady’s a bitch. Plus, I missed the warm feeling of my bed,” I said as I leaned my head on his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me towards him as a thank you gesture.

We didn’t get there too long later, but my eyelids were already half closed. “Need a piggy-back ride?” Jesse asked, hopping out of the car and turning around so I could climb on. I accepted the offer and he carried me up to the apartment. We got into the apartment, got changed, and passed out in our beds. After being in the library for so long, we glad to have our own apartment back. Our beds felt like heaven as we crawled into them for the best night’s sleep we’d ever have.

The next few days were pretty much the same, except for the fact that we went to the library only on days when we knew that the evil witch wasn’t working. The other librarians hated her too, so they didn’t care if we were there or not. In fact, the fact that we were there just made their lives a little more interesting. Apparently, Jesse and Antero were pretty entertaining when they got together.

Finals week finally came around and we were all more stressed than ever. We hardly ever saw each other since we were hermits that crammed as much into our tiny brains as much as possible. We were always locked up in our own room either sleeping after an exhausting final or studying for the next one.

Everybody’s social life usually went downhill during finals. Even Lauri and Jesse, who had hockey practices and games, came home and went straight to studying. Even after they won a game, they would just lock themselves in their room as opposed to partying. I didn’t mind too much seeing as I had just as much studying to do as them, if not more. So for the entire week, neither of us went out to any bars or clubs like we usually did, our TV hadn’t even been touched, and all of our phones were shut off.

But we knew that this lack of socializing would eventually lead up to something good. Our snowboarding plans were finalized with the others and we were excited as ever. Not only would finals be over soon, but also we would soon be in Lapland with nothing but snowboarding, snowball fights, and getting drunk.

Not only did I have to study for exams, but I also had to make all the travel arrangements. We all chipped in money to rent two large cabins for us all for two whole weeks. Each cabin had four rooms and we had ten people total going, so four of us would obviously have to pair up. We decided that we would plan something out when we got there so I didn’t worry too much about it. We were taking two SUVs up there so we would have room to comfortably seat five people plus their bags in each car. I didn’t know some of the people that were going, but it didn’t bother me. Lauri and Jesse were obviously friends with them.

So as soon as we all took our last final, we all came home with the happiest expression on our faces. And like we used to before, we made jokes, we played video games, and we were finally social once more. Except for the packing part of the trip, we were completely excited to leave.

It was finally the day we were leaving when all of us gathered into the living room with our separate bags. Antero was already at our apartment with his. We were going to decide car arrangements as soon as the others arrived. We decided to wait outside so we could leave as soon as possible. And one by one, each individual started to arrive in front of our apartment.

“Hey! I haven’t seen you in a while,” Juke said as he hugged me. He had arrived with Katrina not too long ago. I looked over at Jesse to see if he would start flipping out again, but I saw that he was too busy speaking with one of the blonde, fake-looking girls I didn’t know that was coming with us. He hugged her and I saw his hand lightly graze her ass. It made me smirk knowing he would be too occupied with his sex puppet to care about what I did.

“Yeah, I’ve just been studying for exams so I had my phone off for a while,” I replied, hugging him back. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it! I can understand that the university is your number one priority.”

“All right, guys, here are the car arrangements,” Antero called out, making everyone stop their conversations and look at him. “Julian volunteered to drive his car and I’m going to drive mine for now. We’ll switch off whenever either of us needs gas. Anna, Jesse, Theon, and Avadria: you guys are coming with me. Katrina, Lauri, Natalia, and Miina: you’re going with Juke.”

Juke looked over at me and smiled warmly. “Would you like to be my navigator?” he asked as he took my bags and took them to his car.

“We might end up in Norway, but sure,” I replied laughing as I climbed into the passenger’s side.

“It’s okay. I printed out good directions,” he said, handing me the paper. I looked at it with a confused expression on my face because it all looked like Chinese to me. He must have noticed my reaction because he merely laughed and said, “Or you can sit there and entertain me for the long drive.”

“I like the second plan better,” I responded as we both laughed and drove off to our well-deserved vacation.