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I will not, I snark. Goodbye, go torture someone else.
It’s a warm, sticky day and I’m glad to escape the July heat and duck into the icy air conditioning of the dining hall. The Institute of Arts and Technology knows how to keep its students sufficiently chilled.
The dining hall is abuzz with conversation, and the air is coffee-scented. The word on the street is, Nick and crew haven’t come back here since our confrontation. Shelly looks much happier these days; she waves at me cheerfully as I walk by.
Clair and Kennedy are waiting for me at a table in the middle of the room. They’ve both finished their classes this morning, and I’ve already written and sent in my assignment.
I grab an iced coffee and a roast beef sandwich and join them.
“Hey, Ruby Red.” Clair reaches into her pocketbook. “Look what I got you! Early birthday present.”
I feel a little twinge in my stomach. I can’t untangle my birthday from the memory of those cakes, which always reflected what I liked the year they were made. Over time, the cake themes evolved from farm animal to TV shows to various pop bands.
And then she got sick, and there were no more cakes.
Every birthday is now a reminder that I’ll never have a personalized cake from my mother again, and I’ll never get a chance to repair our relationship. I’ll never get to hear her say that I wasn’t the reason she was a bored, frustrated housewife who gave up the career and the life she really wanted.
So I really hate birthday presents. My sister hasn’t gotten me one in years, at my insistence.
But I never told Clair any of this, and it’s kind and generous of her to have gotten this for me. “Thanks,” I say brightly.
Clair thrusts a slim white paperback book at me. It looks about the size of a book of poetry, which she knows I love. I’ve got two shelves of poetry books in our dorm room, and that’s just because I can’t fit any more.
I glance down to see what book it is, and my stomach twists itself into a knot, but I never let my face stop smiling.
It’s written by Professor Nass-hole. There’s a picture of his smug, handsome face smirking on the cover. He’s even holding a pipe.
He doesn’t smoke a pipe.
Could he be any more pretentious?
Clair didn’t know what she was doing when she bought the book, of course. None of my friends know about my history with him. They know I took a couple of his classes, and that’s all they know. Maybe I should have told them, but when we were together he swore me to secrecy, and after he dumped me and broke my heart—well, it was embarrassing to admit that I’d ever been with him.
And now that I can see him clearly, it’s more than embarrassing. It’s mortifying that I was ever with him. I always thought of myself as smart and self-confident, but I let myself get manipulated by this bargain basement Lord Byron. It’s an apt comparison, actually. Lord Byron was a talented poet but a real monster in his personal life, and he also used and discarded women at will.
“Oh, thanks. You shouldn’t have.” I force a smile. “You really shouldn’t have.”
“I saw it in the campus bookstore. It just came out yesterday, and I thought this would be so perfect for you.” She flashes a huge smile at me. “Hey, you could get him to autograph it.”
Or not.
“I really never thought of him as much of a poet.” I flip open the book and start reading. The poem is actually very good, which I find galling.
I flip over to the next page, and I’m now reading another good poem—a poem that sends shockwaves through my body.
Because I wrote it.
And I sent it to him.
I emailed several of my poems to him using my campus email, asking for his thoughts on them. He didn’t reply via email, but he chastised me in person, saying that was much too personal an email and I was risking us getting busted.
And here it is. My words, published under his name.
“Stars weep in the vast cosmic sea, a mirror to the ache inside of me!” Clair recites enthusiastically. “It gives me the shivers.”
My. Words.
He stole them from me. He’s taken so much from me already—my self-respect, my dignity, and now this.
