Page 134 of Any Port in a Storm

“Yeah,” I’d countered. “But my dad’s not like yours. And he’s supposed to be easing his way toward retirement. I suspect this is really about my grandparents.”

Ever since Eleanor died, my dad has been harder than usual to reach. Sure, he’s always been stoic. Private. But, aside from the tear-stained cheeks he shared at his mother’s funeral, he hasn’t publicly expressed emotion of any kind about losing both of his parents in such a short period.

“It might be,” Grace had agreed. “Well, at least you’re going to have fun with Ivy this summer. It’ll be good for you to have some time away.”

She’s right—I do need some time away. Granted, I won’t get a break from my work. Spillinger, who has been increasingly crusty toward me ever since she found out about Nick and me in the spring, told me I could only beg off my TA duties this summer if I promised to make huge progress on my dissertation.

What I really need to get away from, I think, is Nick himself. I’ve been avoiding him, but Hawthorne is small. Every time we bump into each other around campus, it reopens the wound of our breakup all over again. I’m angry, I miss him, and I know I need a fresh setting to take my mind off everything.

About a week and a half into our trip, though, I’m no better off. No matter how hard I try, I can’t force my brain to focus on writing. Maybe it’s because my dissertation covers basically the same topic as my Master’s thesis, but I’ve run out of ideas. I can’t seem to think of a single innovative argument. Historically, I’d take a conundrum like this to Spillinger, but that’s not an option anymore. I have the sense she’d just take the opportunity to bite my head off.

I also might have talked things through with Nick, who has become something of an armchair expert on the Pre-Raphaelites, thanks to all the time he’s spent listening to me wax poetic about them over the years. But that’s not an option now, either.

And knowing I can’t talk to Nick, about this or in general, makes me feel like I’m suffocating. He’s always the person I turn to when I’m feeling lost, and without that steadying force, I’m all kinds of disoriented.

My day goes from bad to worse when I get a call from none other than my advisor herself.

“Hi, Dr. Spillinger,” I say cautiously when I answer.

“Laurel.” Her voice is tight. “We need to talk.”

“Of course,” I reply, fighting the urge to say, “Obviously; that’s why you called me.” Forcing myself not to think, “We should have talked six months ago, so you could tell me that you used to date Nick, before I went and destroyed everything he and I had.”

“It’s about your dissertation draft,” she continues. “Look…this isn’t going to cut it.”

All the air whooshes straight out of the room. “What?” I’ve been meeting with Spillinger at least once a week for the last several years, first for my Master’s thesis and now for this PhD work. She knows me. Knows my work ethic; my inability to let go of my perfectionism.

I don’t understand where this is coming from.

Unless…

“I think you’ve veered too far off track with your comparisons between Christina Rossetti and twentieth-century feminism,” Spillinger says in a bitter tone I’m not used to from her. “Your recent conclusions are subpar.”

My shock is still swirling all around me, but a healthy dose of fury is starting to creep in. “I don’t understand,” I say flatly.

“It’s just not good, Laurel.” Her voice rises several decibels. “It’s…irredeemably derivative.”

I blink rapidly. Never in my life has anyone critiqued my work this way. I’ve always been an excellent student—both because I was blessed with parents who taught me everything they knew, and because I liked the attention I got from being an overachiever. I was the kind of kid who insisted on reading the hardest book in the library for every project. Turning in assignments in shiny report covers. Setting myself apart in every way possible, maybe as a defense mechanism of sorts. Maybe precisely so no one would notice that I actually had very little going for me other than the fact that I’m smart and like to work hard.

But, up until now, it’s always worked. People were impressed with my go-getter attitude; my consistency and grit. It was a matter of pride for me, because it made me feel like I was living up to my grandfather’s example; being a strong, intelligent woman like my mother.

My mom, especially, has always been my idol—she was a regular at marches during the era of second-wave feminism, and I hung on her every word when she’d tell me stories of what she and her friends witnessed back then. Beyond even that, she has the aura of a general badass. Warm, no-nonsense, and successful—I’ve always wanted to be just like her.

And both my parents are so committed to their work, it just seemed to me that I should be, too. I didn’t do many extracurriculars in high school. Instead, I made it my goal to excel in the classroom. I figured I liked learning and was good at it, so I’d keep on with academia for as long as possible.

I’m not sure I ever stopped to figure out what I really wanted. Who I really am.

Still haven’t, in fact.

“I’m surprised to hear that,” I tell Spillinger finally. “It had seemed like things were on track.”

“Unfortunately, they aren’t,” she says, nearly sounding apologetic. “Can you come back to the city for a meeting?”

“I’m on vacation. A vacation I need largely because of you,” I want to shout. But I take a measured breath and say that I can. Because she’s my advisor, and she’s the darling of Hawthorne’s English department. And if there’s any shot of me successfully defending my dissertation, I’m going to need her on my side.

“Good,” she says, with a disturbing finality. “I’ll see you then.” And then she hangs up, taking any remaining shreds of my dignity with her.

After Spillinger shatters my sense of self, I rack my brain for potential distractions. Ivy got a summer job at Shoreline Books, a cute shop in town, so I decide to take a walk. I somehow manage to convince both Ivy and her coworker, Oliver, to go out with me tonight. She clearly has a thing for him, so the idea of third-wheeling with them seems like a good one—at least it will be amusing.