He tenses then. His fists are tight beneath his desk, his knuckles are white against his skin. "They have told us what they are after. Your refusal to believe them is your problem, not theirs."
"That's not true," Parker said. "These people only want jobs and normal lives like the rest of us."
"That's a stupid and na?ve way to look at the world," he says and his tone is ugly and hard.
I can't look away from the tension radiating off him. This is not anger at a debate gone wrong.
This is personal.
And I have a burning need to know why.
Chapter 5
Josh
"Let’s not devolve into personal attacks," Quinn finally interrupts.
I'm breathing hard now. My fists are tight in my lap. I can't stop. I want to shut my mouth but everything is spinning too fast, too far out of control. I need to get out. Get away. I can't do this. My advisor was wrong. So f*ck
ing wrong. I can't do this.
Ms. Hilliard breaks through the vibrating anger in my brain. "I thought we were going to be able to discuss things? Isn't that what college is all about?"
She draws Quinn's attention away from me, and for a moment, I sit there and just try to breathe. To yank my temper and my emotions back under control.
I am falling. Again. Into the rage and the hate and the anger.
"He's clearly personally involved in this," Parker says, and there is a barely concealed sneer in her words.
“So what if he is?” My protector shakes her head. Slow and smooth and steady. She's amazing. "I don't think we should automatically discount his argument just because it doesn't mesh with what we've been taught. He's arguing for a position that's pretty foreign from the homogenous environment that we usually find ourselves in."
I narrow my eyes and wish I didn't understand what she'd just said, but my brain has been rewired since I started school here. Words like “homogenous” and “heterogeneity” are now part of my vocabulary and I can't undo that. We couldn't just say "similarity within groups". Oh no, we have to make up big words to show how intellectually superior we are.
I rub my hand over my face, trying to yank my thoughts back from the edge of the abyss. I ball my hands up in my lap and struggle to drag my emotions under control and pray to a God that I don't believe in that the conversation will move beyond the current impasse.
But oh no, Parker just has to keep going.
"Look, I appreciate diversity of opinions, but let's be honest. Arguing that violence is the solution to any problem isn't appropriate in academia. The only people who support violence are those who get hard ons from playing first person shooter games."
She stabs me then, right in the soft spot, and there is no way she did it on purpose. But it still hurts.
I’m about to pipe off with something deeply inappropriate but at the last minute, I yank myself back and refocus. Breathing. One. Two. Three.
My savior next to me continues on the offense. “You’re failing to attack the argument on its merit and only attacking it based on the fact that you don’t like where it takes us.”
Professor Quinn, apparently, has decided to pull his man card and control his class. And by that I mean me.
“I think we’ve gotten as much out of this argument as we can. There’s value in having these differing opinions but if we shout each other down, are we really listening to each other or just waiting for our own biases to be confirmed?”
Abby
The sunlight hurts my eyes. It was cloudy and overcast before class started, the sky swollen and threatening rain. Now, the clouds have burned away, leaving the sky brilliant and blue.
I slide my sunglasses on and feel him step into the light with me. "That went well," he says mildly.
He sounds far too calm for what just happened. I saw the tension in his body during that debate. I saw his hands fisted in his lap.
He was not calm. So why the hell is he acting like they just argued about the best flavor of coffee?
"What…what was that?" I say. Because I can’t help myself.
There's a tiny crease at the corner of his mouth that I've never noticed before. Just the tiniest little line that draws my attention to his ridiculously full bottom lip. It's actually the only thing soft on him.
At least, as far as I'm aware of. And wow, talk about a stunning mental detour.
"A purely academic debate about violence," he says mildly.
"You were a little more wound up.” I honestly can’t say why I’m out here, talking to him. I need to go. To get away from the strength and power in those hands. “And now you’re acting all calm, cool, and collected. What gives?”
He looks at me sharply and I feel pinned to the spot. Like I've been cornered by a caged mountain lion and I'm wearing a steak jumpsuit. “You really want to know?”
Whenever anyone asks a question like that, it’s generally a good idea to answer no and get the hell out of Dodge.