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“Oh, yeah?” I raised my eyebrows. “What is it?”
Vanessa leaned forward slightly and whispered, “Do you remember Chris from English?”
My face contorted and I tilted my head. “No.”
“Try. It’s important that you remember who he is.”
I squeezed my face tighter. “Nessa, nothing is coming to mind. I swear I’m trying, but I haven’t the faintest idea. Come on, just tell me what’s going on.”
She giggled and flapped her hand in the air as she relaxed in her seat. “Okay, okay. I’ll tell you. He's sort of the reason I lost track of time. On the way here, he popped out of nowhere and literally blocked my path, and you won’t guess why.”
“Why?”
“Drum roll! He asked me to put in a good word for him. He likes you,” she waggled her eyebrows and squeaked gleefully, but I kept a straight face.
“Okay...”
My lack of enthusiasm became apparent, and she frowned. “I don’t like that face, Grace.”
I chuckled softly. “And I don’t like your excitement,” I replied.
“What do you mean you don’t like my excitement?” she gasped. “You’ve been single for the longest time and besides, he's cute.”
From the side of her head, I watched a few distant friends chatting and laughing annoyingly.
I rolled my eyes and snorted. “Those idiots over there make a hell of a racket. They’re cute, but does it make them likable? No, of course, it doesn't. Chris is just like them.”
She couldn’t have looked more astonished. “Like them? Grace, Chris is a nerd. He’s sweet, quiet, and couldn’t hurt a fly.”
I moved my shoulder to express my disinterest. “Why would I want a man like him?”
She raised her hands in the air, a sign of surrender, with a smug smile on her face. “You know what? Forget I mentioned him. It’ll be like this conversation never happened. Let’s talk about something else. I did my part.”
We laughed and Vanessa started another conversation about her favorite topic: school.
“The semester is almost over,” she said, grabbing a large textbook from the table. “Damn! I knew I'd forgotten something.”
“What’s that?”
“An outstanding assignment. Have you started any?”
I shook my head and leaned back in my seat. Vanessa took school much more seriously than I did. She was always one step ahead with her assignments, projects, and any other academic challenge we were given. I cared too, but only did the bare minimum, never more.
“I wish there was a way out,” I say, half-jokingly, half-seriously.
“That's what you wish,” murmurs Nessa. “There’s no way around this. I can’t believe I’m behind on a task. How could I have missed it?”
I snorted. So that was her, the overzealous overachiever. Nessa wasn’t behind with anything. When I laughed, she lifted her head and stared at me curiously with big eyes.
“What?” she asked flatly.
I dismissed her question with a smile. “Oh, nothing. Your passion gets me every time.”
She smiled and returned her attention to the textbook while I used the free Wi-Fi to surf the Internet on my cell phone. After a few minutes, my phone buzzed. It was a text message from my mother.
I wrote back quickly and placed the cell phone face-down in my lap. Sighing, I stared out the windows and thought about my life.
My mother, Jennifer Emery, happened to be the only family I had. She was a devoted mother and a police officer. Her love for her work was as great as Vanessa’s love of books —
