The Only Exception

CHAPTER 4

My first class of the day was at nine, and luckily I didn’t have to work beforehand. Most of my Gen Ed classes transferred from Taylor, so I was pretty excited to get into my actual major classes. I stuffed my laptop, a notebook, and a few pens in my messenger bag before taking a quick look in the mirror.

Jeans, flip-flops, and a V-neck t-shirt with my hair in a ponytail. I was dressed enough that I didn’t look like I just rolled out of bed and not dressed too much that I looked like I was trying to impress anyone. It was exactly the look I was going for. I was able to run to the grocery store the day before to stock up, so I grabbed a granola bar, and a bottle of water before I ran out the front door for class. I had no idea when Sam had class, but wherever she was I couldn’t be worried about it.

I stepped out of the apartment and into the stifling air. At least it wasn’t in the 100’s like it had been most of the summer, but I still felt like my face might melt off on the way to Brown Hall. I charged through the quad and into the newer building. It had a dark, brick façade like the rest of the buildings on campus, but smelled like new paint and each of the white walls glowed from florescent lights. I quickly checked my schedule again and saw that I was in room 204.

I followed the herd of students up the stairs to the second floor, and with luck, it was the first room at the top of the stairs. It wasn’t a very large classroom with maybe thirty desks facing a long white board. There was only one window in the room and it was tucked away in the upper corner. I took the second seat in the very last row. Not too many people had piled in yet, not even the teacher, so I figured I was safe to eat my breakfast. I reached down in my messenger bag and rummaged through, searching for my water bottle.

But then an all too familiar voice made my heart stop.”Isn’t this another pleasant surprise?”

I grabbed my water bottle and slowly lifted my head. There was Trey in all his political glory with his white dress shirt tucked into his blue dress pants, and even an American Flag pin on his collar. His conservative uniform. On most guys it would have been completely dorky, but Trey pulled it off, looking more like a future leader of America. A future leader with a great smile that I had to keep telling myself I wasn’t attracted to.

“I think I may have to look into a restraining order if you keep showing up at the same places as me.”

I glanced over and caught the few people who were already sitting, and the ones just walking in, already staring at us. Great, just what I wanted to be known as, a member of Trey’s groupies.

I didn’t even want to appear friendly with him. He took the seat next to me with a giant, cheesy grin plastered on his face. “Such anger you have, Monica. You assume that I’m following you when you happen to live next door to me and take the same classes as me. Need I remind you that you are the transfer student, so it may actually appear that I had my apartment first and signed up for this class well before you were even aware of its presence?”

I rolled my eyes and took a long swig of my water, turning toward the front of the room. Maybe if I ignored him enough he would just go away. But I never had it that easy.

“So what’s your next class? Should I expect that you looked up my schedule before you transferred and made sure that we could carry on the rest of this semester with our usual political banter?” he asked.

I slammed my water bottle down and slowly turned back to him. The class was almost full, and I could feel people staring at us. I leaned in, keeping my voice low. “Look, Trey, I just want to get through this class, hell, this semester, with some peace. If you really want to continue on with this stupid little charade then I’m sure it can wait until after I’m done learning.”

“So challenging. Even this early in the morning. I like it.” He folded his hands on the desk and kept his face just inches from mine. That’s when I really noticed the freckles that paraded across his nose and down to his cheek. It gave him a boyish charm that stood out among his usual political facade. What the hell was wrong with me? All I had done lately was argue with the guy, and now I was staring at his freckles. Something definitely had to be wrong with me.

Maybe it was the heated political debates that had my blood boiling. Or it could have been the very delicate curve of his jawline as it dipped down into his chin. I was a sucker for a guy with a great jaw line, especially one with the faintest hint of stubble like he left it there for me to stare at. A guy that prim and proper shouldn’t have stubble, but it set him apart from the rest of his put-together attire and made him seem almost human.

“Sorry to interrupt y’all, but I think it’s time for class.”

I snapped out of my jawline daydream and watched our professor saunter into the room. In one hand she had a large cup of coffee and in the other a stack of white papers. She somehow managed to carry both while wearing a maroon skirt suit and four-inch heels. The lady had it together.

“I didn’t think you would take a class taught by a woman,” I whispered to Trey.

The professor set her coffee down on the desk in the opposite corner from us, her curly, brown hair bouncing with every step.

“I am equal opportunity learner, Miss Remy, and you know I can never resist a woman who loves talking politics,” he said back in a low, husky voice that sent a lingering chill down my stomach. I’d have to stop talking to him in class or not only would people really think something, but I would possibly have to put my libido in check.

The professor turned back around and passed the sheets of paper down the rows. “I’m Doctor Gayle Westerfield and this is Political Science 222, State and Local Government. If that doesn’t sound like the class you signed up for, then I suggest you pick up your things and leave now before you embarrass yourself later.”

“A doctor and a women professor? You must be shaking in your conservative wingtips,” I quietly said to Trey.

“I respect a woman who goes for what she wants, Miss Remy,” he whispered, and I caught the corners of a smile tugging at his lips.

The sheets of paper got to my row and I stared at the syllabus, thumbing through it quickly. The main things that stood out were term paper and debate. Before I could even think on it, Trey leaned over my desk, his delicious scent rolling off of him like a tidal wave. If he wasn’t such a cocky thing I would have wanted to grab him and inhale all of him right in the middle of the classroom. “You know, if you ever want to work together on any of these assignments, I’m sure the neighborly thing to do would be for us to join forces.”

Dr. Westerfield stopped in front of our desks, I snapped my head up in her direction, but Trey still kept one elbow on my desk, leaning into me. “Ah, the governor’s son, Trey Chapman.” Dr. Westerfield stared down at the sheet of paper in her hand. I caught a glimpse of it and saw it was the roster with each of our student ID pictures down it. She ran her finger down the length of the page and then smiled, looking back at me. “And the transfer student, Monica Remy. Since you two seem awfully cozy together, maybe you would like to be partners and pick the first debate topic.”

She thrusted another sheet of paper on my desk and I stared at the topics. There was everything from separation of church and state to unemployment rates. I could probably argue with Trey all day long on any of these topics.

Dr. Westerfield walked back to the front of the classroom. “Each of you will pair up and pick a topic. One person will have the supporting view on it and the other will be the opposition. Before the debate, you will each write a twenty page, double spaced paper on your view point and then use those points in your debate.”

Trey grabbed the list of topics from me, practically ripping it from my hand. “What do you think, Miss Remy? Should we go for local education or the rights of victims versus the rights of the accused?”

I snatched the paper back out of his hands. “I think neither.”

A voice huffed from behind us. “Will you two just pick something and stop flirting, so we can move on?”

I turned to see an Asian girl rolling her eyes behind us. “We are not flirting,” I snapped.

“Whatever,” she said. “Can you two just hurry it up? There are others who would like to get on with this.”

“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. I slowly turned in my desk, and that was when I saw the topic that I knew we had to do. We could both only deflect on it for so long, and I knew we’d each have a good argument. “Access to contraception and I’ll take the supporting view.”

I didn’t even look behind me as I turned slightly and slammed the sheet of paper on the Asian girl’s desk.

Dr. Westerfield nodded. “Very good, now we can move on, unless you two have something else to say?”

Trey folded his hands on his desk. “No, ma’am, please continue.”

I rolled my eyes. It was going to be one hell of a long semester if I would have to deal with him in class every day. I just hoped this class was the only one I’d have to suffer through with him.

***

My next class was for my second major, Women’s Studies, and thankfully Trey didn’t happen to sneak into that class. I swear he was following me. The major only had about thirty credit hours, but enough of them crossed with my Political Science classes that it was the perfect second major. Not to mention I had a soft spot for women’s issues.

The Gerrit Smith Building was stuffed behind the main quad area and smooshed between the brand new recreation center and one of the science buildings. It was like a building they just wanted to hide with its dilapidating structure and lake of air conditioning. I made my way up the two flights of stairs until I found classroom 313.

A set of old windows, that didn’t look like they had been opened in years, lined the whole left side of the room. At the front was an old chalkboard with rows of crumbling wooden desks facing it. There were a handful of students already sitting at the desks toward the front. They were all girls, of course. I took a seat in the second row near the window and could already feel their heads turn toward me. I looked up to see my suspicion was right and two of the girls were just staring at me.

“Um, is there something on my face?” I asked.

The girl with short, spiky hair cleared her throat. “Um, no you just looked familiar, that’s all.”

“Oh.” I paused and straightened out my shirt.

The other girl with hipster glasses spoke up. “Are you Trey Chapman’s girlfriend?”

I couldn’t help it; I snorted and then covered my mouth before another burst could get through.

The few other girls in the room turned to the conversation. Now I had an audience.

I slowly shook my head and put my hand down. “Oh, God, no. Trey is just my neighbor and likes to get under every single last nerve of mine.”

The spiky-haired girl seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “Oh, good. Tabitha here saw you two in her last class and was afraid we wouldn’t be able to speak our mind about the governor if his son’s girlfriend was in our class.”

I took out my laptop and then placed my messenger bag on the floor. “Go ahead and talk away. I can’t stand the pompous governor either. His views on women’s rights and contraception are beyond archaic.”

Another girl with long, blonde hair raised her fist in the air. “If I wasn’t an atheist I’d give you an amen!”

The door opened again, two other girls scurried in followed by a woman with a giant mess of blonde hair and a stack of papers cradled in her arms. “Sorry, I’m late; sometimes the copier works and sometimes it doesn’t,” the woman said with a slight Boston accent.

The two girls found their seats near the other side of the room, and the woman dropped the mounds of paper on the podium in front of the room. There wasn’t even a desk for her anywhere. She then looked back at us, straightening out her tie-dye bohemian dress. “Well, everyone, welcome to Women and Gender in Society, I’m Dr. Bailey Santos, but you may call me Bailey.”

She grabbed a few sheets of paper from the podium and passed them around to the small amount of us in the room. “I was expecting a little bit of a bigger class, but when the only room you can get is not air-conditioned and on the other side of campus, people would rather take pottery.”

I studied my syllabus. I browsed the book a bit before class and every topic we were discussing interested me. Originally, I went to Taylor thinking that I wanted to be a lawyer, then after a year of dealing with male-dominated classes and the hell of my last few weeks at that campus, I knew I had a different purpose. When I put in my papers to transfer I added Women’s Studies to my Political Science major. I knew I could make a bigger difference doing something like lobbying for a women’s organization rather than sit in a court room and try to represent people I wasn’t sure I fully believed in. When I knew for sure I believed in everything about women’s rights.

Bailey took her place back at the front of the room and leaned back against the podium. “Basically the format of this class will be that you read the material the night before, and we’ll discuss it the next day in class. We’ll throw in some videos, a few papers, and maybe even get off on some tangents of our own. I don’t always promote going off- topic, but if it gives us a good debate, then I’m all for it.”

I smiled, letting my mind wander to all the things I’d been debating with Trey. I was sure that he would get a kick out of hearing about my Women’s Studies class and probably argue that it was a stupid major. Then I shook the thoughts of Trey out of my head. Why was I even thinking about him? I hated his politics; I hated his smug smile, but I couldn’t deny that some part of me couldn’t stop thinking about that same smile. It was going to be a long year if I couldn’t get over that.