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Kiss.
“Two.”
Kiss.
“Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year,” she whispered back, and I closed the gap between us as the fireworks exploded right outside the window.
She broke away to look at them. As she gathered her dress in her ha
nds, she crawled further into my lap and nuzzled my neck. “We have the best spot in the house.”
“Yes we do.”
THEA
We had spent almost an hour in there, just watching the fireworks display, and after that, just talking. Interestingly enough, I couldn’t even remember what we talked about. All I remembered was how heavy my heart felt when he decided that we needed to get back.
Grabbing my shoes, he held the door open as I walked out.
“Oh my God,” I heard a short gasp to the left of us.
There stood Vivian, in her navy blue dress. Her eyes shot to me, then to Levi before she took off running back down the stairs.
“Shit.”
I dropped my shoes, hiked the length of my skirt up and ran after her. I could hear Levi calling out to me, but I didn’t care. I needed to stop her. Everyone was either to drunk, or too tired to notice us as we ran right past them and out the front door. I shivered at the cold of the pavement under my heels, but I didn’t stop running after her down Commonwealth Avenue.
“Vivian wait!” I yelled, when she reached the curb.
She turned around and spat with all the hate in the world directed at me, “Stay away from me!”
“Vivian—”
“You make me sick!” she screamed. “I do what I have to do because I don't I have any choice. My parents aren’t fancy, high-powered lawyers. I didn’t go to some Ivy League school. This is my shot. This is my moment to make something out of myself and help my family. So I strip. I dance half naked in front of men so I can go school, and I hate myself for it.
“This whole time I’ve been kicking myself whenever I’m near you because I wanted to be like you. I thought to myself, ‘Wow, here is a woman, a colored woman at that, who is at the top of her game, who is doing it the right way’. Low and behold, you’re screwing our professor! And you don’t even need to! Usted es repugnante!”
“Are you done?” I asked her, as she stood on the corner shaking with rage. She looked away without saying a word.
“When I found out what you do to put yourself through school, I never once thought less of you, and I never once thought of you as disgusting. You can judge me all you want, but you don’t know me. The ideal you had in your head of me is not something that I have to live up to. You can think whatever you want about me, I’m still going to be me.”
I turned around to leave when she called out again.
“I’ll tell the dean. I’ll get him fired. There are other professors and you will be out in—”
“No you won’t, but if you’re that stupid, go ahead and try. But first, let me run down the scenarios for you. If it goes the way you’re hoping, I will be shamed out of school, and Professor Black will most likely stop teaching, or stop teaching our class. But he will still be a great lawyer. You, on the other hand, will lose your big chance to better yourself because we all know that he’s the best way to move up and learn. Option two, and this is because you’ve pissed me off, the Levi Black and the daughter of Margaret Cunning vs. a stripper. We will destroy you. If you want to come after me, that’s fine. If you want to hate me, go right ahead. But you will not obliterate everything that man has built for himself. I won’t let you.”
I felt bad for having to do that to her. She was right to be angry with me, but it was my turn to save Levi, even in this tiny way.
Maybe I was just like my mother… willing to do whatever it took to further my own goals and happiness, even if it meant hurting other people.
The thought made me sick.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THEA
