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I’m taking a big sip of my coffee, staring at the empty Word document with narrow eyes like it’s an adversary taunting me, when my phone vibrates against the surface of the table next to my laptop.
I glance at it and see a notification for a message from a number that isn’t saved as a contact. A number I don’t recognize.
How about the answers to that quiz?
I read the message from the notification that’s still displaying on my locked phone.
I furrow my brow, not yet putting two and two together. But when I punch in my iPhone code and open the message, I see that it’s a number I’ve messaged with before—it’s just that I haven’t received a text from it since the summer after senior year of high school.
It’s now that the content of the message makes sense. It’s Hunter, hounding me for answers to the Bio quiz he’s going to have to take later today.
Hounding me to cheat for him, in other words.
Not happening.
Speaking of hounding, I look at the last message he sent me during the summer after we graduated high school. I see he was asking whether a friend of mine he had a thing for at the time was going to be at the house party another of my friends was throwing.
Shameless.
This is pathetic even for you, Hunter. Begging for quiz answers. Try studying next time.
Glancing back up at the message he sent me three years ago, I feel compelled to send a follow-up.
Even more pathetic than when you hounded me about Michelle.
If you want to talk about begging, you should have heard her that night
Heat pools low in my stomach as my thighs clench together. The extremely unwanted thought of Hunter asking me to beg—demanding that I beg, for something unmentionable—flashes into my mind, and my cheeks blaze with blushing.
I just send an eye-rolling emoji back, not dignifying him with any further response. I shut off my message notifications and try to focus back on my essay.
I turn my attention back to the blank Word document, but over the course of the next five minutes, it doesn’t get any less blank.
You know what’s weird? I kind of feel relieved that Hunter’s clearly back to being an obnoxious jerk.
Things just make more sense that way. Rather than him being concerned for me like he was a week and a half ago when I told him about my accident. Or him being nice, like he was to those kids when he helped me with that unexpectedly giant class.
It’s just way easier for my brain to accept obnoxious jerk Hunter who does things like ask me to break academic integrity by giving him quiz answers and then makes a crude sexual innuendo when I deny him. Him being nice and concerned was just weird. Things didn’t feel right.
Over the next ten minutes, even though my fingers occasionally take their positions on my keyboard, I’m just not able to strain out the sentences I need to get the ball rolling.
With a sigh of defeat, I close the lid of my laptop. Sometimes when no thoughts are coming, it’s best not to force it.
As I walk outside, ready to just spend the rest of my time before my next class scrolling on my phone at the coffee shop, one of the fliers on the library bulletin board catches my attention.
The wordsDance Therapycatch my eye, and make we wander over to read more details. It’s an advertisement for a new major in the Physical Therapy department.
Dance Therapy, huh? That’s an interesting idea. I wonder if Ice Skating Therapy is, like … a thing?
Maybe a good thing to do some preliminary research into on my phone at the coffee shop, while I procrastinate starting this damn essay.
* * *
When I get back homeafter classes, Casey’s in our living room.
“We’re going to a party this Friday,” she says.
“Nice to see you, too, Casey,” I say through a tired yawn. “My day? Oh, it was pretty good. Long, but pretty good. How about yours?”
