Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 133655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Drew says something about the guest speaker our professor invited to class next week, and I nod like I’m listening even though I’m not. My brain never stops racing, no matter how tired I get, prepped, I imagine, by a lifetime of exposure to Ace’s charisma.
Discreetly, I glance over my shoulder to check…something.
Ace is staring at the floor like it has personally wronged him. His shoulders are tense, his jaw tight, and his desk is completely clear of a notebook or pen or laptop.
He used to draw stupid stick figure comics in the margins of his notes and then pass them to me with captions like “this is you falling asleep in class, but sexy.”
Now, he won’t even pass me a glance.
I shift in my seat, and Drew’s knee touches mine. I don’t pull away, but I don’t lean into it either.
Instantly, I wonder if Ace notices. God, I hope he doesn’t. But also, I hope he does.
Hell, I don’t know what I want. I only know this hurts.
I click my pen just to do something, but when that’s not enough of a distraction, I check my phone. I hate that there’s a huge part of me that hopes to find something from Ace, but there isn’t anything. No texts or calls or emails. Nothing.
I look back again, and Ace is rubbing the space between his eyes like he’s trying to press out a headache that won’t go away.
He looks…wrong. Off. Like he’s in the room but not in the room.
You did that, Julia.
Guilt and anger and sadness and heartache wiggle inside my chest. I don’t know what to think or feel or do or say. I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t even know if I want to fix it.
Ace might’ve told me he was in love with me, but he also told me things that showed me he’d been mind-blowingly deceitful.
The professor enters the room, tosses his briefcase down on his desk and starts discussing radial and interval convergences without preempt or greeting. I swallow hard and face forward again. I try to listen. Try to care. Try to pretend I’m not burning from the inside out.
After class, Drew asks if I want to grab coffee between my classes.
I make up an excuse that I have to meet with my adviser. I don’t know why I do it, but I do. And while Drew is packing up his laptop, I look over my shoulder again—right in time to see Ace walk out the side door without looking back.
I’ve lost so much, and the bitter pill of it all is that there are some parts I don’t know if I truly ever had.
Thursday, September 18th
Ace
It’s Thursday morning and my ass should be in class, but instead, I’m storming down the hallway of the advising building, gripping the strap of my backpack like I’m about to use it as a weapon.
I only got through one of my classes before I couldn’t do it anymore. I simply couldn’t walk into another lecture hall, sit behind Julia and Drew, and pretend I don’t see the way he touches her arm when he makes a joke. Every fucking time she laughs over something he says—which is probably fucking stupid—my mind reminds me that that laugh used to be mine.
I used to be the guy who made Julia laugh.
I used to be the guy who walked her to class and sat beside her in each one.
But I’m not that guy anymore.
So, like a fucking coward, I bailed on my second class of the day, and now I’m standing in front of Cynthia Patreetus’s door, knocking once before pushing it open. I tried to come here Monday, but her secretary said she was out of the office until today.
She looks up from her computer, a little startled at first, but when she sees me, she immediately rolls her eyes and lets out a soft laugh. “Ace Kelly,” she greets. “No appointment, no warning, and not even a coffee bribe this time? To what do I owe this mildly chaotic interruption?”
I drop into the chair across from her with a sigh. “I need to change my schedule.”
She gives me a look that is equal parts amused and exhausted. “Nice to see you too.”
“I’m serious,” I say. “I want to go back to my original class plan.”
She freezes, and her fingers hover over the keyboard of her computer. “You mean, the schedule you abandoned because, I quote, ‘this version is more aligned with what I need to have a challenging, optimized, experience-driven academic structure’?”
“Yeah. That one.”
Cynthia leans back in her chair and crosses her arms over her chest. “Why the sudden shift?”
I stare at the corner of her desk and shrug. “I just think that was the better schedule for me.”
She gives me a look that says she’s not buying it.