Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 51243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 256(@200wpm)___ 205(@250wpm)___ 171(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 256(@200wpm)___ 205(@250wpm)___ 171(@300wpm)
Granted, I’d miss the entire first week of the program and lose any chance at winning the top award, but it might be worth preserving my mental health.
Snap out of it, Audrey. You can’t let Taylor win again…
Taking several deep breaths, I resisted the urge to take an Uber back to the airport. Instead, I strolled around the small town that bordered the campus, taking in the shops and restaurants.
A bright blue sign flashed “Gayle’s” ahead of me, and I stepped forward.
The store was closed for the day, but the faux stacks of pancakes in the window beckoned me to come back with their labels: “For when you hate your life,” “For when you’d rather be home,” “For when you want to restart the day.”
I made a mental note to come back this weekend and continued strolling.
No matter how far I walked, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the universe was laughing at me.
“That which we call a ‘rose,’ by any other name would smell as sweet.” A guy held out a bloom when I returned to the residence building. “What’s your name?”
“Audrey.” I smiled and took it from him. “Audrey Parker.”
“Harold Bessemer.” He gently grabbed my wrist and kissed it. “Would you, by chance, be the same Audrey Parker who won the Rhodes Writing Award this year?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Oh.” His smile vanished. “Well, you must feel really good about yourself for winning that.”
“It was a pretty big highlight for me.”
“Well, you won’t be getting a highlight in this program, bitch.” He snatched the rose from me. “Hope you’re prepared to lose to the man who actually deserved that Rhodes Award.”
“Um… okay then.”
“It’s not okay.” He narrowed his eyes. “If you possessed a single ounce of human decency, you would write a letter with your basic prose skills and tell the committee to reroute that award to me.”
“Are you being serious or sarcastic right now?”
“Serious.” His voice was tense. “If you’d like, I can write the letter for you, since we both know you overuse em dashes and sprinkle them wherever you can.”
Oh my god…
I’d almost forgotten what it was like to be around people who took every comma, semicolon, and award like it was life or death—and every conversation, no matter the topic, always circled back to prose.
People who were just like my parents.
“Would you like that, Fraudrey Parker?” he asked. “Hmmm?”
“I would like you to stop blocking the door,” I said instead.
“I bet you would like that very much, Fraudrey Parker.” He hissed. “Fraudreyyy!”
His words shouldn’t sting—he knew nothing about me or the guy who’d uttered that same cadence before—but they did.
They always did.
“Okay, fuck you.” I pushed past him and made my way inside.
I took the emergency stairwell up to my floor, and when I stepped inside the suite, my luggage was neatly pushed against the wall, and Taylor was leaning back on the couch, staring at his phone.
I cleared my throat, and he immediately looked up.
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words fell.
His lips parted, too, but the room remained silent.
The tension from earlier was still here, still palpable, laced with an awkwardness we couldn’t deny.
The living room walls slowly closed in as the seconds passed, bringing him closer to me.
Still silent, he stood to his feet and walked toward me.
“So,” he said, finding his voice first, “did you get the office to assign you another roommate?”
“That’s not what I was doing.”
“What were you doing?”
“None of your business.”
He arched a brow.
“But speaking of this roommate situation, I think it’s best if we set some boundaries for the next few months and commit to being cordial.”
“I don’t think you know what the word ‘cordial’ means, Audrey.”
“Of course I do.” I hated that this man was even more attractive up close—that his boyish charm from our childhood had intensified to impossible levels I couldn’t deny.
“Congratulations on getting into the Postscript Program,” he said. “I’ll do my best to be cordial with you.”
I nodded, searching for something to compliment him on as well.
“Your girlfriend Stacey seems…” I couldn’t finish that sentence because odd and ditzy as hell were all that came to mind.
“Congratulations on getting drafted in the first round,” I said instead.
“Did you actually watch the draft?”
“I saw it on the news the next day.” I shrugged. “I was secretly rooting for you to fail and go undrafted because of your ego.”
“You should’ve known that wasn’t happening.”
“I don’t know anything about you, Taylor Wolff,” I said. “And I don’t plan on learning anything new either.”
“What part of being ‘cordial’ is this?” He smirked.
“Anyway—” I rolled my eyes and stepped back. “I took a quick look at the syllabus this morning, and it looks pretty intense, so I would appreciate it if you didn’t have any company here late at night.”
“Ever?”
“Yes, ever.”
“Then I expect the same from you,” he said.