Getting Schooled (The Wright Brothers #1)(33)
She wasn’t looking at me anymore – she was looking down at the desk instead, unblinking, until finally she cleared her throat. “Uh… I completely broke down. I got kicked out of school because my grades tanked, and I was drinking, and fighting, hanging with some not-so-great people and… just not in a good place. I wasn’t very happy with myself, but I realized that I was hurting the people who were still here who loved me. And I realized I was fucking up my dream, and knew my father would be devastated if he could see that. So, I cleaned myself up, did what I needed to get re-enrolled in school, and I’m working on keeping the promise that I made to him, that I would fulfill my dream.”
I smiled at her when she looked up, pretending I didn’t notice the gloss in her eyes. “What’s the dream?”
“Well,” she said, perking up. “If this MFA program doesn’t destroy my soul first, eventually I want to teach a Creative Writing course, here at BSU. With a lot of writing courses, there’s so much focus on “proper technique” and “rules” and all of that. I want to teach people how to – productively – write from the heart.”
“How do you teach somebody to write from the heart?”
She smiled. “Instilling confidence, and encouraging individuality. Stripping away fear, burying the need to compete. Feeding real creativity, critiquing based on an understanding of an individual’s voice, instead of a guidebook on what’s right and wrong. Of course, there are certain rules, like grammar and spelling that should serve as the roadmap, but there’s a way to combine the two without losing the soul of the writing. A lot of times, we learn to write a certain way, and don’t figure it out until vital years have gone by. So as I’m learning, I’m figuring out how I can teach it to others. It’s still just a concept now, and not the “coolest” thing in the world I guess, but… that’s what I want to do.”
“I think it’s cool as hell.”
She lifted her head, surprised. “Really?”
“Yeah. I mean, maybe some of the people who end up taking your class will be writers who could have been Corey Jefferson. Sounds like you’ll be providing an important public service to me.”
Reese laughed, sweeping a handful of braids behind her back as she sat up. “You know, maybe thinking about that will make some of these classes a little easier on me.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Thank you.” She held my gaze for a long moment, and then pulled her lip between her teeth. “Hey… do you—”
“I am so sorry Mr. Wright,” Professor Bryant said as she breezed into the office, interrupting whatever Reese had been about to say. She blew out a big sigh as she headed to her desk, and then looked at me with a smile as she motioned for me to come over. Reese had already turned her eyes back to her laptop, and kept them there while I moved to Professor B’s desk. When she was ready to start, she called Reese over.
The professor reached down to dig something out of her bag, and I caught Reese’s eye again, giving her a wink. Just like in the bookstore the other day, she blushed, and that made me happy as hell for some reason.
Huh.
Maybe I was into bougie girls.
ten.
“What’s on your mind, little girl?”
My mother’s eyes met mine through her mirror as she slid the back on a pair of diamond studs. I grinned at her, then shrugged.
I was in her bedroom, on her side of our duplex, watching her get ready to go out. It wasn’t exactly a ritual, but ever since I was a teenager, once she was serious about someone, she’d let me – and usually Devyn – sit in her room while she dolled up, laughing through questions she mostly didn’t answer. In the twelve years since my parents divorced, I’d seen my mother get ready for a healthy amount of dates, even if I never saw the guy. She had this thing about bringing men around me – wouldn’t do so until they’d been dating three or four months. That remained true even through adulthood – I hadn’t seen Joseph since that day at the dealership.
“Thinking about you and your new boo. Y’all have been at it for how long?”
She smiled, then picked up a tube of deep red lipstick. “Two months now. It flew by.”
Yeah, I thought. It has.
Because if it had been two months for them, that meant it had already been two months since that first office meeting with Jason. A month and a half since that car drop off that had lit my little panties on fire for him. A month since that night at his house.
A whole sexless month.
I almost wished we hadn’t done it, because something had shifted. When I thought about him now, instead of sexual curiosity tainting my disdain for him, it was a just plain old curiosity, no ill feelings. What was he doing, what was he thinking about… who was he with? Was he wondering the same things about me? Within the span of two months, I’d gone from patent distaste to liking – as in wanting – him, and I really didn’t know how to feel about that.
I wasn’t ready to like anybody right now.
My midterms had gone well, despite my emotional state, and I was chugging along. I had been able to keep up with my own course work, plus the things I had to do for my assistantship, with little to no major problems.
Things were just now starting to feel somewhat normal again, after the bullshit with Olivia and Gray. He wasn’t calling anymore, I was over ducking and dodging her in the halls, and I really just didn’t have the extra energy to expend on anger for either of them. They could have each other.