Out of earshot, I murmured to Rory, “You should ask him out.”
Her face flushed immediately and she shook her head. “I can’t do that. I literally ran away from him the other night.”
“You ran away with me, not from him. I’m sure he understands.” Guilt churned in my gut again. I was going to have to buy some antacids soon. First, I’d felt guilty for accepting Bash’s invitation, then I’d felt guilty for asking Bash to bring someone for Rory, now I was feeling guilty for being the reason Rory hadn’t been able to finish her date with Darius. I was a mess.
“You think?” Rory’s previously confident tone was uncertain now.
“I know,” I insisted. “He’s totally into you. Just give him a chance.”
She didn’t say anything I knew she was thinking about it, just nervous to put herself out there. We slipped into Xavier’s class, and sat together near the front and made plans to hit the cafeteria after class.
Xavier cleared his throat and hoisted himself up onto the table at the front of the classroom. “Your assignment last week was to follow a train of thought through for ten minutes, which, as you probably realize now, is a lot of words. The trick to train of thought writing is to let your mind wander and to follow it. It’s exciting but also disconcerting where the brain will go if you allow it free rein. Psychology 101 will tell you that your subconscious mind will go places you would never go consciously, that you can think death threats without ever giving them and that’s normal. As we grow, we learn to filter what we think so that what comes out of our mouths isn’t abhorrent. Which is why you hear children say the most unbelievable things. They don’t have functioning filters yet.” He patted the spot on the table next to him. “So, let’s have them. Train of thought papers go here. Pass them to the front. I look forward to seeing where your twisted minds took you.”
The class laughed as everyone pulled their papers out and began passing them to the front of each row. I gathered the papers from my row and brought them up, wondering at the abrupt change in Xavier’s attitude. He seemed happy today, chipper even.
“Today we’re going to be writing flash fiction. I’ll put two images up on the board and you’ll have the rest of class to write four hundred to five hundred word stories for each of the images. This will strain your creativity, believe me. It might sound easy enough, what’s five hundred words, anyway. But, writing a complete story in that word limit is difficult. Next class you’ll be partnering with other students to critique your work.” He turned on the Smartboard and put two images up, side-by-side, then got the train of thought papers and opened the first one up.
The images were weird. One depicted a woman dressed in what looked like a ball gown, slumped over a staircase with a toy crank sticking out of her back. She looked like a broken doll, I mused, with that blank look in her eyes. A story exploded in my mind at that simple thought and I began to write.
I was just reading over my two stories when Xavier clapped his hands together. “Alright. Our time is up. You can take those home tonight and polish them up a bit but make sure to bring them back on Thursday.”
I stuck my sheets in a binder and put it in my backpack. “What did you write about?” I asked Rory.
“Miss Jensen,” Xavier called out before Rory could answer. “Can I speak with you for a moment before you leave?”
Rory’s eyebrows shot up. “I’ll wait for you outside,” she murmured, gathering up her stuff to leave.
“Thanks.” I shouldered my bag and made my way through my classmates to where Xavier sat at the desk with the stack of papers. My hands grew clammy as I waited for him to tell me what this was about.
“Miss Jensen,” he repeated formally, making my stomach flop. This wasn’t going to be good, I felt it in my bones. “I’m aware Headmistress Donahue filled you in on your scholarship acceptance and the fact that I voted for you based on your essay.”
I nodded since my mouth was too dry to allow me to speak.
He sighed. “I was hoping your first paper was a product of nerves. It was flowery and exceedingly verbose and didn’t, in my opinion, reflect the writing in your application essay.” He eyed me now and my hearted thudded painfully. He was insinuating I’d plagiarized. Anxiety spiked. I clenched my teeth and waited for him to finish so I could get the hell out of here.
“I graded your train of thought paper,” he continued with another sigh that made me die a little inside. “It’s…” he seemed to search for a word, “stunted.”
Stunted? I tried not to gape at him but it was almost impossible. I’d worked on that for days, letting myself follow my thoughts to their bitter end. I’d gone from light to dark and back again in that paper, revealing more about myself than I was comfortable with most people knowing. I’d laid it all bare and he was telling me it was stunted?
I snapped. It was the last straw after a boatload of straw. “Are you serious? Stunted? I poured my heart out and did exactly what you asked us to do.” I shook my head as tears filled my eyes. “Why did you even vote for me if you hate my writing? And, yeah, before you take your insinuation a step further and accuse me of plagiarism, that essay was mine. It’s all mine.” A growl of frustration slipped from my throat. “I thought you were going to be a mentor. You were the one thing about this fucking place that made me want to stay but I guess you’re too wrapped up in your divorce to care about any of that.”
I turned on my heel and stormed out of the room then immediately began to hyperventilate. Rory’s hand gripped my arm and steered me down the hallway and around the corner for an ounce of privacy as I freaked out.
“Nooo,” I moaned, remembering each biting word I’d spewed at my professor. “I brought up his divorce.” I buried my face in my hands.
“I heard.” Rory patted my back sympathetically. “It wasn’t your finest hour, not that I’ve been there for many of your hours.”
I lifted my head and stared down at her. We’d only just met, I realized, even though it felt as if I’d known her forever. Her knowledge of me consisted of drama, physical violence, self-absorption, and verbal attack. “I swear, this is not me.” I shook my head, trying to figure out when I’d become this person. A person I’d have steered clear of normally. “I never hit people or yell at teachers. I’m boring. I like reading.”
She laughed. “I believe you, don’t worry. People who are used to this type of stuff don’t have the expression you have right now. You’re all red and blotchy.” She reached for her backpack and pulled a water bottle out. “Here, drink,” she pushed it into my hands.
I drank, thankful that I’d found the one person on campus who understood me and was patient enough to stick with me through this craziness. I handed her back the bottle and sighed. “I just want my life back.”
“Well,” she shrugged with a grin, “we’re in university now. I doubt anything will ever be the same again.”
A flash of light caught my attention and had me glancing out the window behind Rory. I frowned and stepped closer to get a better look.
“Wonder what that’s all about,” Rory mused aloud as we watched a line of identical black SUVs drive through the front gates and pull up at the front of the administration building. One by one, the vehicles parked and guards, or what looked like guards, climbed out. Dressed in black with tactical gear, bullet-proof vests, and guns strapped to their sides, I thought they’d better be guards or AWA was in serious trouble.
A group of students paused as they passed to stare at the strange sight and began theorizing about what was happening. It seemed as if they knew no more than we did, so I paid little attention to the gossip until I heard one of the guys say, “Maybe this is about the body they found just off campus last night.”