Technically,I’ve taken all of my English credits, but who wouldn’t want to take an extra British literature class? Plus, right now it’s a great distraction from worrying about Poppy.
We’re supposed to get the paternity results today or tomorrow, and I keep checking the website every five seconds.
I know it’s stupid to fall in love with that baby, except I can’t help myself. It’s not like she asked to be in this situation.
But I’m definitely worried I’m getting too attached.
If the baby isn’t my brother’s, he’ll probably throw a block party,I think morosely.
You’d think a crisis like this would make us closer, but Ben’s as distant as ever, barely bothering to make eye contact with me. I’d like to grab him by his dumb designer t-shirt and shake him silly until he tells me what’s wrong.
After checking the paternity website one more time, I drop my phone into my backpack and chide myself when my thoughts drift to Rider, as they’ve done more times than I’d like to admit in the last few days.
I don’t think about his apology, and I don’t let myself revel in the long looks he’s given me ever since.
Nope. I definitely don’t.
Those big gray eyes got me in trouble once, and I don’t plan to be a sucker a second time.
Except… he did seem sincere.
No, Gabby. Stay strong.
Our professor leans back against the windowsill and reads passages aloud from EM Forester’sA Room with a View, one of my favorite books. Even though I was little when I first saw the film and couldn’t grasp all of the nuances, I understood that at the heart was a really cool love story.
As I munch on a granola bar, Bree bumps my elbow and whispers, “I watched the movie this weekend. Did you know there was a full-frontal nude scene?”
“My foster mother covered my eyes when we got to that part. Took me ten years to finally see the dangly bits.”
Her shoulders shake with laughter, and I smile.
This unexpected friendship with Bree is the most surprising part about helping the football guys. I’ve seen her in class before this and I helped her with an essay once, but now that I’m so involved at her boyfriend’s house, it seems to have gotten me a cool new girlfriend.
I could use a few friends. It’s hard for me to meet people sometimes. I spent the bulk of high school babysitting for my aunt and being an awkward nerd. The one time I really took a chance socially and put myself out there was with Rider, so when he blew me off, I withdrew even more.
By the time sophomore year rolled around and I moved off campus with Ramona, I started dating Sean, who was a bigger homebody than me. After that, it was just easier to keep to myself than to try being friends with people who would eventually disappear or move away.
My attention returns to the professor, who reads, “‘If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting both for us and for her.’”
I pause, that line hitting me in a way it never has before in all the times I’ve read the book.
Lucy Honeychurch is a prim and proper young English woman who refuses to give in to the advances of the free-spirited George Emerson, a man she met while on vacation in Italy, opting instead to get engaged to the very stuffy and condescending Cecil Vyse. That quote my professor recited refers to the fact Lucy plays incredibly emotional music on the piano but lives a buttoned-up, repressed life.
I used to think I wanted a George Emerson, someone who could get me to loosen up and enjoy life and take chances, but this book fails to tell you that taking chances and putting yourself out there doesn’t always work the way you think it will.
Sometimes taking chances gets you ghosted by the quarterback.
I cross my arms and whisper to Bree, “Is Cecil Vyse really so bad?”
She snorts, and we pretend to be engrossed in the lecture when our professor turns sharply our way.
“Daniel Day Lewis was pretty DILF-y inThe Crucible,” I mumble once he returns to his notes. “I watched it over the summer. We shouldn’t judge him by his portrayal of Cecil. That role required him to be pompous and anemic.”
“You’re such a nerd.”
She has no idea. I wrote up a whole unit of lessons for that play, and I don’t even student-teach until next spring.
Being a nerd used to bother me. Now I view it as a badge of honor.
