“No.” Her soft voice is barely above a whisper. “It wasn’t my intention to get you all worked up and m-mad about it. I’m so—”
“Don’t fucking apologize. Can we just get this goddamn paper done so I can go home? I have a shit ton of other studying to do.” I pinch the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger.
Jesus Christ. She’s looking at me like I just kicked her puppy, dejected and crestfallen, no doubt from my callous dismissal.
Well that’s too damn bad, because I don’t have time to think about her sensitive feelings. Or Summer’s. Or Kyle’s. So she can just take her sad eyes and downturned mouth and…
Shaking my head, I ignore the knot forming in the bottom of my stomach, dismissing it as hunger pains. Yeah, that must be what it is; I haven’t eaten in hours and normally don’t go more than two hours between a snack or meal. Why else would my gut feel so shitty?
The silence at our table is deafening.
For the next thirty-five minutes, we do nothing but work side by side, taking notes and exchanging information for my paper. Violet doesn’t smile. Doesn’t laugh.
Doesn’t stutter once, because she’s not fucking talking.
Does nothing but edit my bio essay, that bright yellow highlighter gliding across my notebook in smooth strokes. Her indifference shows in the straight line of her normally smiling mouth. The hesitant replies to my scientific questions. The dulling twinkle in her now guarded eyes.
I follow them now as she reads my paper, scanning my carefully worded essay, following as her eyes trail along line after line, widening occasionally.
Smiling, too.
I can’t stand it.
“What’s so damn amusing?”
Inquiring minds want to know.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. You’re laughing at me. Give me the paper.” I try to snatch it back but the little tease holds it far out of my reach.
“I wasn’t laughing at you, Zeke.” She sounds bashful. “I was surprised, is all, especially by this line here.”
I lean in close as she holds it toward me, finger pointing to a sentence near the end of a paragraph.
“It’s good. Insightful.”
My jaw clenches and I cross my arms, moody. “I’m smart, you know, not a fucking idiot.”
“I never implied that you weren’t,” she says quietly. Pauses. “But let’s face it, it is a paper about people having babies with their cousins, and I-I wasn’t expecting it to have so much introspection.”
I raise a brow.
“Introspection is a good thing.”
“Anything else?” I ask, now hungry for her praise.
“The whole thing is actually really…good. I would tell you if it wasn’t. I had Professor Dwyer my sophomore year and know how hard she grades.”
She’s not kidding; Dwyer is a tyrannical bitch.
I’ve had her for less than half a semester and already I can’t stand her. Her class. Her TA, who is just as big a prick as she is.
“Anyway,” Violet is saying, “I think she’ll be pleasantly, um…surprised? By your topic. It’ll be a nice change of pace from all the other boring topics.”
“What was your paper about when you had her?”
Violet squints, the corners of her eyes wrinkling in thought. Her pert nose twitches, reminding me of a rabbit. “Uh, let me think here for a second.” Now she’s closing her eyes, visualizing her paper, I’m sure. “I wanna say it was something on our environment and the effect it has on us getting cancer.” She shoots me a sheepish look. “Snoozefest, I know.”
“Sounds boring as shit.”
Her hazel eyes widen. “Oh, excuse me Mr. First Cousin Birth Defect.”
“Are you teasing me?”
She flushes. “I wouldn’t dare poke the bear.”
“I’m a bear now, huh?”
“That’s what Summer called you after our little run-in at the grocery store.” She scoffs. “Kids.”
“Right. Kids.” I glower. “I wonder what kind of bear.”
“The kind that eats people.”
When Violet checks the time and calls it quits on our session, we rise. She shuffles my printouts and slides them across the table toward me. I gather them up, shove them in my notebook, and stuff them in my backpack.
Curtly, her lips bend into a pleasant smile—a fake, manufactured, purely patronizing smile. One you’d give the smarmy guy hitting on you at the bar “If you need anything else, or any additional help, you can email or call the help desk to make an appointment. If you can’t get scheduled with me, we have staffers available Monday through Friday, from nine am to eight pm.”
Her canned statement is professional, but lacks any real emotion.
Like me.
Shit.
“Come in and close the door behind you.” Coach points to the chair in the corner of his office without lifting his head. The gray on his temples catch under the light, something I’ve never noticed about him before. “Sit.”
I sit.
Shift in the shitty, uncomfortable chair.
He continues to take notes on his yellow notepad with the same red pencil he carries with him everywhere. Normally it’s tucked behind his ear, out of the way, or in the breast pocket of his Iowa embroidered shirt. He uses it now to toil away at whatever match points, positions, and strategies he’s dreaming up—something he’s famous for in the Big Ten division.
Coach pauses long enough to lift a finger, raise it in the air, settle it on a cream envelope, and slide it across his beat-up wooden desk.
“Take this.”
“What is it?”
“What the fuck does it look like?” He huffs impatiently. “It’s an invitation.”
I know he wants me to ask What for? so I don’t.
Coach powers on, still scrolling across that yellow pad. “They have a fundraiser every year and it’s coming up. I don’t suppose Nancy told you.”
“Nancy who?”
This time he does raise his head, blue eyes unblinking as he regards me. “Don’t be coy Daniels, it doesn’t suit you.”
I rack my brain, trying to recall any Nancys I’ve met recently, but none come to mind.
“Nancy from the Center, where you’re volunteering.”
Oh, that Nancy. “That chick doesn’t say dick to me, Coach.”
“No, I don’t suppose she would.” He chuckles, low and deep.
Actually fucking chuckles.
Whose side is he on? “What does this have to do with me?”
“They have a fundraiser,” Coach repeats. “It’s in a couple weeks. We have no meet that weekend and I’ve excused you from practice, so I fully expect to see you there.”
“See me there?”
“Yes. I take my wife, Linda; we buy a table, eat.” He leans back in his old, rickety seat, the springs squeaking with every movement. Coach scratches his chin. “It’s actually a really nice date night.”
Coach is married? This is news to me.
“But Coach, a fundraising gala?”
“Yes. I’m sure with all your parents’ money, you’re quite familiar.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Good, then it’s settled.”
“Yeah but Coach, I’ve literally only spent two days with the kid I’m mentoring. I just started the program.”
“Well. There are two weeks until the gala. I’d say that’s plenty of time to step up. Jump in with both feet, eh?”
I can see by his stalwart expression this subject is closed.