All the Pretty Girls - J. T. Ellison [84]
But she wasn’t anywhere near home. She was on the side of a road in North Carolina, sick with the croup and not a bowl of soup in sight. She needed to get back to campus and get to her study group in the library. Even sick, she felt the responsibility of schoolwork, and wouldn’t miss the group. Most everyone had this crud anyway, so she didn’t need to worry about giving it to anyone. There was a lot of work to be done now that she was fully into her major coursework, and if that meant she had to put off bed for a few more hours, that’s just what she would do. She pushed her damp bangs out of her eyes, swung her leg back over the bike and started pedaling.
Thinking about her father’s soup brought back more memories. As she rode, she remembered the compromise that she’d come to with her father. Giovanni was a stern man, hardworking and strict. He’d emigrated the family to America from a small mountain town in Italy called Sestriere so his six children could attend American colleges. Noelle was his youngest child, the last to go to college. She wanted to go to Colorado and study climatology, to go skiing and mountain biking in the biggest mountains in the country. Giovanni thought that Colorado was too far away. So they’d come to a deal after Noelle found the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of North Carolina—Asheville. It gave her the mountains, and it gave Giovanni the peace of mind that she was only a few hours from home instead of three days’ drive.
For the quiet, serious Noelle, UNC–Asheville was a dream come true. She loved her department heads, her roommate and the environment of the campus. She’d joined the cycling club and had made many friends. She’d even found a group of Catholic students that went to the church off campus, and she joined them as often as she could. Now, her sophomore year, she felt right at home. She had a lot of attention from the boys on campus, too. She was five-six, a hundred twenty pounds of lean muscle, shiny brown hair and soulful ethnic brown eyes, and she got quite a bit of attention from the opposite sex. But she was her father’s daughter, and shunned formal dating because it was his wish. It didn’t bother her, she had a lot of work to do for school and dating wasn’t the most important thing on her plate.
She pedaled back through the gates to the university, rode through campus and pulled up to her dorm, West Ridge Hall. Securing her bike in the rack, she chained it and went inside. Wheezing as she walked the hall to her room, she wondered if she should cancel her attendance at the study group for her climatology class. She came to her door, unlocked it and went inside. She and her roommate kept the blinds up; their room afforded a beautiful panorama of the mountains, and they both enjoyed lying in bed gazing at the view. Noelle put her backpack down on the floor and stretched out on her twin-size bed.
Oh, that felt good. Too good. She knew she needed to get up and get going. Being sick was no excuse for missing that study group. So she managed to get herself up, slip on a jacket, grab her books and make her way out of her cozy room toward the library.
Ramsey Library stood in the center of campus, and the walk felt good. Physical activity had always been Noelle’s cure when she didn’t feel well, so a short walk to the library wasn’t going to hurt. She walked along the quiet pathways,