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“I told you I wanted to be alone.”
“That’s why I’m back here.”
Against her will, her steps grew less urgent. “There are easily five different ways to Litvak.”
“Yeah but this is the most efficient.” Colin grinned. “You know how I love efficiency.”
She did. It was his second driving force after winning.
Allison stopped. Her head fell back, and she huffed a breath at the sky. Time to be more direct. “Seriously, Colin. What are you doing here?”
“I told you, walking to class.”
She groaned. He was being purposely obtuse. “No. I meanhere,at Claymore. Aren’t you supposed to be at Oxford or Harvard or Stanford or wherever, two years into your deep-dive into the merits of reading science fiction through a Lacanian lens? Isn’t that why you left m—”
Allison snapped her mouth shut, hard enough that her bottom lip got caught in her teeth, a shock of copper exploding over her tongue. She concentrated on forcing those thoughts away. The day they’d broken up didn’t exist. Neither did the clipped, painful words he’d spoken, nor everything that had happened to get them there. Like a parchment so soaked through with water that its sentences had bled into illegibility, or a document closed without being saved, she’d erased it all from her memories. From her life.
Eagerness pierced his expression. Almost as if he’d been waiting for her to mention their past. “Allison, I—”
“Listen, clearly we’re going to have to deal with each other. But there’s nothing that says we have to dredge up what happened at Brown.” She waved a hand over her shoulder. “It’s all ancient history, so let’s leave it there. No rearview mirrors. No looking back.” With him at Claymore, always there, always looming, it was the only way Allison would be able to continue her forward trajectory. She couldn’t hit reverse.
His back straightened, drawing him up to his full height. “Well… if that’s what you want.…”
“It is.”
The two of them stood quietly on the sidewalk. Colin stared at her. Allison looked anywhere else.
Discomfort seeped into her skin, and her first thought burst from her mouth to fill the silence. “This isn’t going to be like undergrad, you know.”
He cocked his head. (Not a gelled hair fell out of place.) “What does that mean?”
At Brown, Colin had been something of an academic superstar. He’d represented the school at numerous conferences, gotten invited to networking events and featured in school promotional material, and had won the Rising Star Award (the university’s biggest academic achievement) his senior year. The deans and professors all knew him by name, even if he’d never taken their class. Walking campus with him had been like stepping out with a celebrity. In their Lit Theory course, the teacher had treated Colin like he was the only person there, calling on him first and letting him talk for longer than anyone else.
“In Frances’s class, you won’t be the smartest or most well-read person in the room.”
His face lit up. Nothing made Colin Benjamin glow like the promise of a challenge. “Is that so?”
Allison nodded, sharp and definitive. She jammed her hands on her hips for emphasis. “You can count on it.”
“I guess we’ll just have to see who’s the better TA.” All his praise from earlier seemed to be forgotten. He grinned his amused grin. The one that suggested he’d win this round. The same way he’d always woneveryround before.
But not anymore.
Grabbing the strap of her bag in both hands, she did exactly what she’d promised Colin. She sped up her steps and left him behind.
Chapter 4
Allison would be the first to admit she wasn’t great at math, but the sea of faces filling the stadium seating of the lecture hall seemed to number well past sixty.
Professor Frances had just finished her lecture onBeowulf’s history (the fact that someone had tossed the manuscript out a window during the fire in 1731 was Allison’s favorite part), and she flourished an arm toward where Allison and Colin sat in the front corner of the room. Her turquoise bracelets clinked like tiny bells.
“Finally, I wanted to take a moment to introduce you all to your two teaching assistants for the semester: Allison Avery and Colin Benjamin. They’ll be leading your recitations and will be a great resource for you as you work on your essays and prepare for exams.”
Twice as many eyes as faces swung toward Allison. Heat burst like landmines in her cheeks. Forcing a smile, she clutched her pen until her knuckles blanched.
You need to get used to this,she scolded herself.You can’t teach as a hologram from your bedroom(but oh imagine the bliss if this was a thing).People are going to have to look at you.
She wasn’t self-conscious. Allison had lived in her fat body her whole life: it was her, and she was as comfortable in it as she was in awell-worn sweater. But the more attention she got, the more chances for her to look silly or ignorant. To not know the answer.
