I cleared my throat. “Yeah… I just wanted to touch base.” I took a deep breath. “I’m back on task.”
Ross was silent for a moment. “Okay,” he said, almost sounding disappointed. “You say the word, and I’ll be there.”
“I’ll call you soon.” And I hung up.
By the time I made it back out to the living room, I’d made up my mind.
“Yeah, let’s go get a drink. At least something in my life has to be worth celebrating.”
Within an hour and a half, I was nearly drunk. Apparently not drinking for weeks lowers one’s threshold. But within two hours, Shawn was as drunk as me, and so was his mouth.
“What was it like fucking your professor? Her * somehow special because she happens to be smart? No way that chick is good in bed.” He laughed.
I glared at him. “I don’t want to talk about Helene.”
Shawn switched subjects quickly. Sadly the subject didn’t stay switched for long.
“You know, you and professor lady woulda never worked. She’s too stuck-up. Now that gal over there who can’t keep her fucking eyes off you…” He let those words trail off.
I glanced over, seeing the woman sitting at the bar with another gal. She kept looking over her friend’s shoulder at me, and when I made eye contact, she smiled. I looked back at Shawn, refusing to return her smile.
“That’s all you really need—to get laid.”
“Stop,” I warned him. “That’s not ever what I need when I’m sitting in a fucking bar.”
Shawn snorted. “And yet, you seem to get laid more than any man I know.” He laughed.
“Can we go,” I said as I stood up.
“What?” Shawn said incredulously.
“Yeah. I—”
“No way, asshole.”
“I’m leaving,” I muttered as I turned away toward the door.
Shawn grabbed my arm. “You so hung up on that bitch—”
I yanked my arm away. “Don’t ever call her that again,” I seethed as I glared at him.
But Shawn was a little too drunk to care. “She’s … a … fucking … bitch,” he spat out.
And that was it.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Helene
“We’re going to do things a little different tonight. I’ve scheduled this night as a work night for your term papers. I’d like each of you to come up and meet with me individually, so we can review your topic, your sources, any questions you have. If you’re not meeting with me, then you can be working on your paper. I wrote the Wi-Fi password on the board, so you’d all have access from your laptops. You can access LexisNexis through the library’s website, as well as other databases. If you have questions on what a scholarly source is and how to search specifically on those resources, please let me know. You will not get full points on your paper unless you have the right number of sources considered scholarly. Failing to understand what that means is not a mistake you want to make.”
I hadn’t seen Kane yet, and in all truth I actually had no idea if he was there or not. I’d not let my eyes wander around the room when I entered a few minutes late, and the most I could say conclusively was that Kane was clearly not sitting in the front row. I’d actually contemplated canceling class tonight. It was, after all, a work night, and adult students shouldn’t really need me to tell them how to write a term paper at this point, but… I’d found that handholding was as much a part of collegiate education as it was primary school.
I sat at the desk, waiting for the first student to come up, and while I waited, I pulled out my own laptop, doing my own research for my very own paper. I was still a student myself after all. I hadn’t managed much over the past half week—hell, I’d barely managed to get out of bed on some days, and eating was something I had to physically and quite painfully force myself to do. But I had set up a meeting with a counselor from Victim Services in Philadelphia as well as a psychiatrist from Trident Correctional Facility. Both had agreed to meet with me, and I knew I should be excited about it. But I wasn’t really sure I cared anymore.
I’d been ecstatic, stupidly, profoundly ecstatic about the new direction of my dissertation—so ecstatic, in fact, I’d not bothered to reach out to Dr. Briggs, because frankly, I didn’t want to run the risk of finding out she didn’t like my choice. Blending a bit of victimology with philosophy was a good choice; it was the right choice for me, and I wasn’t going to be dissuaded. Too bad I wasn’t feeling it. I wasn’t feeling much of anything anymore. Just numb, just dead.
When the first student pulled up a nearby chair and sat by the side of the desk, I forced a smile to my mouth. I tried to act enthusiastic about what the guy was saying, but I couldn’t honestly say I cared. Cyborg theories weren’t really my topic of interest.
“It’s going to be awesome,” he said. “I mean, this book I found is all about aug… aug—”
“Augmentation,” I finished for him.