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Chapter One
Sheree
“Keep it or toss it?” Zoe asks, holding up another item. Another memory of my time at college here.
Another memento from the town I’ve grown to call home for the past four years.
Can’t say I’ve grown to love the town of Canning Wells. But more of what it's come to represent.
Certain people in it, too.
Sharing most of my college years with my bestie is my most treasured memory.
Almost.
A close second to the one thing I’ve grown to obsess over more than anything else, even my studies.
A certain Professor at the same college.
“Well?” she asks, making the face she always does when I zone out. Copying my look, but overdoing it so well I always snap out of it and end up laughing until I snort.
“Keep,” I affirm strongly, watching Zoe screw up her button nose before shrugging. Asking me why I’d want a copy of the college prospectus from four years ago.
Because it’s where I took his photo from that I framed. The one under my mattress.
Sometimes I still read the torn page opposite in the dog-eared magazine style booklet, where it describes Professor Michael Grayson.
My major subject Professor as well as my best friend Zoe Grayson’s dad.
I used to panic thinking about someone finding the photo, but apart from my best friend Zoe, I pretty much don’t exist to the rest of the world.
I think I’m the only student on campus with their own dorm room too. Nobody wanted to share with me.
Zoe rolls her eyes and adds it to the growing pile of ‘keep’ compared to the one thing in the ‘toss’ pile, my college backpack.
It’s a decent enough bag still, but just too many memories of heavy books and jock types putting horrible things in it as I’m walking by.
Definitely not something I wanna keep.
Zoe blows the fringe from her face before undoing her whole hairdo and re-tying it.
She has long, soft black hair. The kind you see in shampoo ads. And she literally does nothing to get it that way.
Her skin is perfect too, and her teeth. Her figure? Well. I don’t focus on that too much.
If I took Zoe at face value, I’d probably have to dislike her only because she’s so damned beautiful, especially when I’m standing next to her.
But she’s the sweetest soul too, and we’ve been friends for such a long time.
She’s the one person in the whole world who’s never mentioned my curvy figure, and she never teased me once in grade school about anything. Before we even knew each other.
Before I even knew she’d moved in right across the street with her dad when we were both so little it feels like a million years ago.
When life was so simple.
When we just played and had silly little secrets.
When the only thing that mattered was being friends and having sleepovers, staying up late.
But then she moved. Her dad being an academic who often moved around every few years as well as going to college still, bettering himself.
He’s a professor now.
A professor for the past four years at my school, and the one thing I never realized when I was a kid is just how amazing he really is.
How much those butterflies meant every time I saw or thought of him as I got older.
When I found out he was the leading Professor of biochemistry at the college I was planning on attending, my major was decided.
It’s been a tough four years, and while I am interested in chemistry my biggest interest is something else.
The kind a certain male generates simply by existing.
I try not to sigh just thinking about him, but Zoe figures I’m getting worked up about having to leave college like I have a couple of times already this week.
Okay, a couple of times in the last hour.
“I’ll call you like every break I get,” she promises me again and I nod, smile softly, and hug her tight.
Telling her just how much I’m gonna miss her, which is true.
Thinking about her dad though.
I am gonna miss my bestie, it’s like losing a limb already.
But the thought of never seeing Professor Michael Grayson in class again, let alone once he moves back east?
It’s just awful.
Too terrible to even think about.
Zoe suddenly stiffens and gasps.
“I gotta go… Todd,” she says, noting the time on her phone as I groan, letting myself fall back onto my bed like I really am dying.
Todd.
“Just make sure and tell someone where you go with that guy,” I caution her. “I’ve heard he likes to—”
“I’ve heard it too,” Zoe practically squeals, cutting me off. “Why do you think I’m going out with him?”
She blows me a kiss and dances out of my dorm room, leaving the door open.
Leaving just me, my memories and as soon as I reach for it once I know she’s really gone, the framed photo of her dad.
