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With all due respect, Professor, I could ask you the same fucking thing.
13
Rory
The only person I could think of was Chelsea. She’d tell me what the hell was wrong with me. She’d know.
I couldn’t even concentrate during psychology. The entire class, it felt like Noah Evans was a furnace—the heat threatened to consume me whole. It felt like everything he said was directed just at me, like he wanted me to understand that what we did was legit.
Truthfully, it feltright.But could I justify it? Moments like these left me fumbling for answers, but then again, moments like these didn’t happen to normal fucking people, did they?
I raced out after class. Chelsea had texted and told me she was waiting inCafe Mélange,a cute little joint just a road away from college. By the time I got there, I was short of breath.
She’d already ordered an iced chai latte for me, complete with boba pearls. I sat down and took a long sip while she looked at me.
“Okay, spill the beans, girl. What’s going on?”
That was when I burst into tears. Maybe it was finally the accumulation of everything that was happening to me. None of it was bad, barring the lecherous head of admin affairs, but it did feel overwhelming.
Chelsea, in her usual style, sat back and waited for my hiccups to subside. Then, she spoke again, this time softly. “What is it, love? What’s going on?”
So I spilled everything. All that was going on in the chatrooms, the incidents of the morning, the conversation with my professors and how I felt drawn to all of them, and the incidents with the admin head and Noah.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if she dismissed me as a basket case and made a run for it. But this was the girl who’d helped me pick up the pieces of my life after my mom and all the boys who never loved me.
This was the girl I’d trust to keep a secret even if it meant I would sound crazy to the entire world.
The first thing she did was reach out and hold my hand. “Girl, you’re living the modern rom-com of your dreams, complete with a villain. I can’t wait to smack the shit outta the villain, of course, but I honestly don’t see anything wrong with the rest of the stuff that’s happening.”
And I needed to hear this. I’d been feeling so wrong, so guilty for not feeling guilty! The conflict was driving me insane!
“Don’t you think it makes me... I don’t know,” I stammered, afraid to say the words.
“How come things can’t happen normally to me, Chels? Why can’t I just settle down with someone my age and live in a nice house with white picket fences and do random soccer mom shit?”
“Do you want to live in that kind of world? Which is fine for those who crave it. Are you one of those people?”
And that’s when it hit me like a door in my face.
I didn’t.
There were some things that stayed the same. I loved kids and sappy romantic movies where the hero would go all nuts about his lady, mere days after convincing himself he hated her.
I just didn’t crave a future of cooking meals every night and having sex once a week. I wanted the normal stuff, of course—Netflix on the couch, debating whether Bridget Jones was a genius or a maniac, bitching about random people at weddings.
But I also wanted adventure and newness and, well, freedom. I’d seen couples together, couples who looked like they’d grown into one amoebic mass that could not seem to think separately from each other.
It was like the girl had forgotten she had a separate existence, a life that she’d lived before the guy came along. And that was what I’d been conditioned to believe wasgood for me.
“I love you for being my third eye, Chels.” I sighed and leaned back into my seat. “What about people, though? I can’t imagine ever fitting in, the way I’m going about things.”
Chelsea gave me a little scowl that made her look like a ferret. “Are you crazy? What is this talk about fitting in? You’re beautiful, sexy, and you have a killer brain. You don’t need to fit in, Rors. You need to make your own shit happen.”
“It’s just... with Noah... he’s also my professor, Chels.” I rubbed my eyes and then remembered I’d tried to do fancy stuff with my eyeliner today. I’d gone for wings and all.
“Oh, fuck,” I groaned. “I forgot I had liner on!”
“Well, you came with wings, and now it looks like the wings are flying off. You’re migrating.” Chelsea chortled. “It’s okay. Rors, you’ll never stop being beautiful, runny liner and all. And as for Noah... does he treat you right? You know, say good things?”
