by Mona Kasten
But that wasn’t quite the truth, because the walls were spinning and colorful dots were swimming around me. I almost laughed because I suddenly felt so relaxed and the dots looked so pretty.
Professor Walden’s voice broke my reverie. “I think we’re finished here. The next group can come forward.”
“What?” My own loud voice surprised me.
“I think I made myself clear. What you just presented was a good example of a failing presentation,” said Professor Walden. “You’re welcome to try again next year. Perhaps then you’ll be better prepared for my class.”
Isaac and I stood and stared at him as the next group made their way to the lectern, all the while telling us with their eyes how sorry they were.
Red-faced, we collected our things and fled to the hallway. The first thing I did was lean against the wall and try to take a deep breath.
“Shit,” I mumbled, rubbing my face.
“Never mind,” said Isaac.
“No, that was a disaster. Oh God, I completely ruined it. I’m so sorry, Isaac.”
“Don’t apologize. I was just as nervous as you and kept messing up. I mean…” he kept talking but I was only half listening.
I fumbled at my collar and started gasping—it felt like my throat was closing up.
“Dawn? Everything okay?”
All I could do was shake my head. The spots of color in front of my eyes had taken over—the last thing I remember was sliding to the floor, then darkness.
For a few minutes I drifted between something like sleep and a drunken stupor. A nearby voice eventually penetrated the fog—I assumed it was Isaac.
“What were you thinking, Sawyer?” someone hissed right above my ear.
A different voice muttered a reply. I blinked several times to make the world stop spinning and realized that someone was carrying me through the hall.
“I think I’m having a heart attack,” Isaac gasped.
“You should’ve taken some of that stuff, too. I have more if you want.”
“You’re not giving Isaac any sedatives, Sawyer,” spat the person carrying me.
Fresh air hit my lungs. I inhaled greedily. Then I pressed my nose to the throat of my rescuer. He smelled of fresh laundry and a nice aftershave. I wanted to crawl inside that smell and sleep forever.
Suddenly I was set down. Blinking slowly, I realized I was in a car. My head, impossibly heavy, sank backward, missing the headrest. Immediately, someone caught me behind the neck and stopped me from tipping over.
I dragged open my heavy, dry lids.
Spencer was crouching beside me with a frown.
“Hi,” I said. My tongue was sticking to the roof of my mouth and the word came out in slow motion.
Spencer looked back over his shoulder. “How much did you give her?”
“I recommended the same dose I always take.”
“She took three,” I heard Isaac say.
“Three? Are you insane?” Spencer hissed.
“I never realized she was so small.”
Sawyer entered my field of vision. “Are you all right, Dawn?”
“Everything’s fine…” My tongue disobeyed me. My words were slow and I seemed to have acquired a lisp.
“We should take her to a doctor,” Isaac croaked. He was standing next to Sawyer, holding on to the passenger door.
“This stuff is purely herbal. I think she just took too many. She needs to sleep it off,” my roommate replied.
Spencer exhaled abruptly. “I’m holding back the powerful urge to strangle you.”
Sawyer laughed sharply. “Yeah, that’s right. You wanna strangle me. Because I’m the one who’s been treating her like a leper.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he growled.
“Guys, I think…” Isaac tried to interrupt.
The rest was lost to me. I slumped against the headrest and sank into darkness.
My eyelids fluttered. They felt heavy, but I opened them anyway.
I knew this house. The gray walls and the huge couch I curled up on seemed so familiar. I sat up carefully. Everything was spinning.
“How are you feeling?”
I winced and turned to stare at Spencer, who sat next to me bathed in golden light, like some sort of heavenly messenger. He held out a bottle of water. I stared at his outstretched hand. God, his hand. His beautiful, big, strong hand.
“Your hands are absolutely amazing.” I stretched out my fingers and stroked the back of his hand, brushing against his warm skin and enjoying the fierce tingling that ran through me. “You have the most beautiful hands I’ve ever seen in a man. And I’ve seen a lot of hands.”
“I guess that counts as an answer,” he murmured and leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest.
Oh. My eyes devoured his bare forearms. All kinds of thoughts swirled in my head. “Sometimes I wish I could be your Chelsea,” I said softly. “You’d be a fabulous Jasper. In fact, I pictured you while writing that shower scene.”
Spencer’s lips twitched. “I only understand half of that, but okay.”
“Maybe I should’ve let you show me your bathroom. I can’t think of anything else since then except you in the shower. But I can’t be your Chelsea,” I said firmly and shook my head.
“You’re sweet,” he replied. His lips formed a beautiful grin.
How could a face have such sharp lines and look so soft at the same time? I’d never met such a beautiful man before. The world had never seemed clearer to me. The key to the meaning of life seemed to be so obvious.
Lifting my hand, I touched his mouth. Spencer’s grin faded. He clasped my hand and took it from his face. Then he pulled forward and I tumbled against him, my cheek against his chest.
“How about we take a little nap?” He raised a hand and stroked my hair, then slid his fingers down to the back of my neck.
Immediately I relaxed, nestling my face closer to his heart, throwing one arm across his belly and twisting one leg together with his. He laughed softly and goose bumps prickled up my arms.
“I’m sorry, Spence,” I mumbled into his chest.
“Why?”
I swallowed hard. “That I am the way I am.”
He rested his chin on my head and kept on stroking my neck. “You don’t have to apologize for that, sweetie. Never ever.”
I closed my eyes and let his deep, steady breaths lull me back into sleep.
Chapter 13
Spencer was out cold.
My head rose and fell with his chest as he breathed. A steady rhythm.
Slowly, I raised my head and, for the first time, I allowed myself to look more closely—to really look him over. Starting with his hair and then his forehead. His eyebrows were just as dark and thick as the hair on his head, though the left one was a bit thinner and made a little upward turn. He had long, dark lashes, obviously inherited from his mother. They were even curly. That was really unfair, considering people like me needed mascara to look even halfway alive.
A light stubble covered Spencer’s chin and jaw; it must have been a couple of days since he’d shaved. My fingers itched to touch him and trace the lines of his jaw.
My gaze traveled along his torso to the arm that lay over mine. He had a few moles. His veins stood out over his muscles and branched along the back of his hand. He stirred and tightened his hold on me.
An ache spread in my chest and my stomach fluttered in excitement.
After nearly three and a half weeks of turmoil, things were finally settling down again. And this made me uneasy. I shouldn’t want this. And it shouldn’t feel so good to be in Spencer’s arms.
His breathing paused for a moment as he shifted. I moved my attention from his hands to his face. He slowly opened his eyes and looked back at me. He gave me a sleepy smile.
&
nbsp; “I wouldn’t mind waking up like this more often.”
In an instant my relaxed state transformed into something tight and anxious. I sat up and clung to the back of the sofa, feeling suddenly cold and dizzy.
Spencer sighed and propped himself up as well. “I’d say ‘Oh, I didn’t mean it that way,’ but that’d be a lie.”
I coughed and scooted backward until my back was pressed into the corner of the couch.
Spencer grabbed a bottle of water from the coffee table. He unscrewed it causally and held it out. “Have a drink.”
I stared at the bottle for a second before taking it from him and trying a few sips. That only awakened my thirst further. I took a deep breath, then tipped the bottle back and drank deeply.
“Slowly, take your time,” he said, holding out his hand.
Reluctantly, I handed back the bottle and drew my hand across my mouth. I was waking up. The fog was lifting from my brain. And suddenly, my memories of the morning reappeared.
Isaac. Our presentation. Professor Walden. All the crap I’d told Spencer.
“Oh no,” I groaned and sank back against the couch. “I am such an idiot!”
“Bullshit. You just… took some sedatives and got yourself kicked out of a class.”
I squinted as the memories flowed over me like a bad horror movie. “Fucking hell.” I raised an eyebrow and looked at him. “How did you even know about it? I mean, why were you there?”
“I had a seminar across the hall and saw you collapse in the hallway with Isaac.”
My eyes widened. “I fell?”
He nodded slowly. “Sawyer saw it, too. She wanted to pick you up after the seminar. We ended up rushing to take you out of the hallway to my car so Walden wouldn’t find another reason to be a jerk.”
I groaned in frustration. This had to be the worst day of my life.
“I totally screwed up. Instead of giving the best presentation of my life, I… have one less course on my schedule.” I pressed my fingers against my temples. “Poor Isaac. This is all my fault.”
“He looked like he was having a nervous breakdown. Sawyer offered him sedatives, too.”
“I vaguely remember. Hey, can I have another drink?”
Immediately he held out the bottle to me. Thanking him, I took a few more gulps. The water was helping, for sure.
“So you brought me here,” I said, hesitating. “And you’re talking to me again. Is there a special reason for that?”
“Sawyer gave me a talking to,” he replied casually.
“Oh yeah?”
He grabbed the bottle and emptied it in one drink. Then he screwed the cap back on and set bottle on the table. “I think I owe you an apology.”
My mouth opened and shut. This was unexpected.
“The thing with my family has really messed me up. Usually I’m very private, at least as far as they go. You caught me at a bad moment, and… I acted like an idiot.”
I picked at a piece of lint on my knee. “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to pressure you, Spence.”
“I know. You just wanted to be there for me, the way friends”—he cleared his throat— “the way friends are there for each other. And I wouldn’t let you because there were a few things I had to work out for myself.”
Now I looked up. “And that’s your right, too. I just wanted you to know I was there for you. In case you ever need someone to drive you somewhere again, or if you ever feel the urgent need to get something off your chest.”
He frowned and I raised my hands in the air. “But I also get it, if you don’t want to talk about it. Talking is overrated anyway. We could just go back to being… friends, if you want.”
God, that must be the lamest thing ever said.
“I never stopped being your friend, Dawn,” Spencer said, softly.
“It kind of felt like you’d stopped,” I whispered.
“I know. All I can say is, I’m sorry. I mean it.”
My cheeks were warm when I thought back to how he’d pressed me against the fridge. “If we’re going to be friends again, you… can’t do that again,” I said.
He seemed to know what I meant, and sighed. “I know. Sometimes I can’t control myself when you’re around.”
I snorted.
“Come on, I’m serious, Dawn. That wasn’t me. That was the…” he searched for the right word, “… monster that lives in me and comes out sometimes,” he continued.
“So the fact that you wanted to get nasty with me is because you’re actually the Hulk?” I asked.
He flashed a big grin. “Exactly, but the one from the Avengers, because he sort of gets Black Widow.” He was looking at my hair.
I guessed what was coming next.
“By the way, Black Widow also had red hair.”
“So I guess we know what we’re going to dress up as at Halloween. We’ll put green body paint on you and I’ll get a black catsuit.”
“You shouldn’t have said that. Now I won’t be able to think of anything else until October but you in a black, skintight…” He stopped and the muscles in his jaw tensed. “Are you okay with this?” he asked abruptly.
My heart gave a little flip of relief. “Frankly, I kind of missed your teasing, a little.”
The corners of his mouth twitched up. “I missed you, too.”
Chapter 14
I was fumbling nervously at the elastic cords on my backpack when the heavy door to the academic advising office opened. Immediately I crossed my hands over the backpack and sat up straight.
“Ms. Edwards,” the advisor greeted me and sat facing me.
I swallowed. “Um, Mrs….”
“Perkins,” she offered.
“Mrs. Perkins.” I tried to smile. “What happened in Professor Walden’s class was a mistake due to my nerves. I’d like to do my presentation over.” I’d practiced the sentence that morning in front of the mirror.
“That’s very nice, Ms. Edwards. But unfortunately, your regrets won’t change anything. Professor Walden made it absolutely clear that he would prefer not to have you in his class anymore.”
My throat constricted. “So what are my options?”
Mrs. Perkins pushed her glasses up on her nose. She turned to look at the monitor on her desk and clicked several times on her mouse. “I’ll check to see which courses you could transfer into.” After a brief pause, she announced, “I found two other similar courses: a writing workshop on elements of style, and ‘Poetry: The art of the word.’”
If a class still had space available after the registration period, there was usually a good reason for it: like an unpopular instructor, too much work, or a dull subject. Everything in me resisted taking a poetry course—it had been one of my least favorite subjects in high school, and I always got bad grades. And there must be a reason why there were still places available in the writing workshop. I’d need to share my writing with the class. The idea of reading my own work to a lecture hall full of people was like having to do a slow striptease. It was terrifying, but if these were the only two possibilities, the workshop was preferable.
“The writing workshop sounds like a good alternative,” I said with a forced smile.
“Great!” said Mrs. Perkins, beaming at me. She clicked a few more times on her mouse and her printer started to rev up. Rolling backward in her chair, she grabbed the printouts from the tray and handed them to me. “Here’s the room and the time the class meets. The second sheet you should give to Professor Gates on your first day.”
Looking at the paper, I gasped. “That’s right now!”
Mrs. Perkins shot a glance at the clock over her door. “If you hurry, you’ll make it.”
I ran like a maniac, my backpack flapping against my rear end. By the time I reached the classroom I was a ball of sweat. It took a while for me to catch my breath. I
knocked on the closed door and, hearing nothing, opened it and tried to slip unnoticed into the room.
Five pairs of eyes turned to meet mine.
Hard to say who looked more surprised—but it was probably me because all the students were standing on tables and staring down at me. The only person not on a table, but instead standing on the ground with his back to me, was who I assumed to be Professor Gates. Instead of turning, he bent down and peered at me through his legs.
“Hi,” he said. The fringe of his scarf got caught in his mouth and he spat them out. “Who are you?”
The situation was so odd that it didn’t even occur to me to feel embarrassed or hesitant. “Dawn Edwards. I just came from the academic advising office and will be taking your course from today on.” Tipping my head to the side, I added, “At least, if you are actually Professor Gates.”
He jerked upright and turned to me. “Kids, what’s my name?”
Two of the students audibly exhaled from their perches.
“Nolan,” they all droned in unison.
Professor Gates extended his arms. “Welcome to the writing workshop.”
All I could do was stare. The first thing that struck me was his shoulder-length blonde hair, which was pulled back in a short braid. Strands had come loose all over and were standing out from his head, charged with the static electricity from his odd-patterned scarf. He looked like a male Medusa. He seemed to go for the layered look: his gray, knee-length coat hung open to reveal a loose, green cardigan, and under that he wore a yellow shirt with the word “Virgin” woven into it. My gaze lingered there a bit too long and it was hard for me not to burst out laughing. Looking at his face, I couldn’t help thinking: He seemed so young for a professor! At most, in his late 20s. He had pleasant, even features and gray eyes with laugh lines at their corners.
“Don’t just stand there; grab a table,” Professor Gates said, waving toward a jumble of empty tables and chairs.
Hesitantly, I obeyed, and took the chance to survey the other students in the room. There were six of us. One of the two other girls—the one with short, dark hair—shot me an encouraging smile. The other one had folded her arms over her chest and was staring at the ceiling. Two of the guys looked kind of shy; they stared at their shoes while the third guy was busy swiping the screen of his cell phone.
