29. Then
29
THEN
Brooke sat in the front row of Mhairi’s class as she handed back essays with red marks on the top. Brooke could never quite quell the anxiety that raced through her when grades were delivered, especially when it was Mhairi’s judgment coming down the line. But since the first paper, a rush of excitement seemed to inflate Brooke’s lungs. She wanted to impress Mhairi—she was living for her praise.
The past three months had been the best of her life. Exploring the city, getting out of her comfort zone, taking risks. She felt like she’d come into her own. She understood now when people talked about finding themselves in college. Her grades had slipped a bit in her other classes, but it’d felt so good to not be tethered to the library, to be really living for the first time, and she knew her creative writing grade would more than make up for it.
Brooke really understood now what it meant to write from a place of big emotions, to describe something she’d experienced instead of something she’d only imagined.
Brooke held her breath as Mhairi slid her paper onto the desk. Brooke flipped up the corner, hopeful butterflies in her stomach. The red mark was sharp, the C slipping out of focus as Brooke’s body flushed and her hands went numb. She could feel splotches breaking out on her chest and heat collecting on the back of her neck.
She’d never gotten a C in her life. She discreetly covered the mark, checking over her shoulder that no one else had seen, but everyone else was focused on their own papers or rushing to tuck them into backpacks.
Brooke never understood people who could wait to check their grade. She flipped through the comments in the margins, so fast she could barely take in the notes about missing conflict, not immersing the reader enough, not ringing true to life, while Mhairi said something in the background.
There was no way she could get into Mhairi’s fellowship with this kind of feedback. Mhairi wouldn’t want her. And without it, Brooke would never have the skills to write a novel or the credibility to be a published author.
Her eyes filled with tears and she sucked in a deep breath through her nose, blinking furiously. She was not going to cry.
Brooke only realized Mhairi had released the class when someone’s backpack swung into her face. She dodged out of the way and headed for Mhairi’s desk.
“Brooke with an e,” Mhairi said with a teasing lilt, but Brooke couldn’t even appreciate it or bask in the familiarity of the greeting.
“I was hoping you could tell me more about this grade.”
“I thought you might,” Mhairi said with a patient smile.
Well, that was humiliating.
“Stories are such a magical thing, aren’t they? Whether it’s an essay or a book or a song. We step into another life and try it on for size. We let them hijack our minds. And the reason we do that is conflict. We want to see how characters handle impossible situations. It doesn’t have to be dark, but it has to have tension, a push and a pull. Feeling split between good and evil or torn between want and need.”
Brooke could understand that feeling very well.
“This paper skimmed the surface. Did you write more than one draft?”
Embarrassment burned up Brooke’s throat like acid and she considered lying for a split second. But maybe that was even worse for Mhairi to think she’d put in her best effort for a mediocre story. “No.” Her paper could’ve been more— would’ve been more—if she hadn’t been gallivanting around town with Jack, spending all her nights and weekends in his bed. She’d completely lost sight of what really mattered, all wound up in the feeling of being wanted by someone.
“Did you have a classmate critique it?”
Brooke shook her head and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying.
“Your story was lovely but it felt rushed. Like it could’ve been more.”
Shame, hot and thick, spiraled inside Brooke and curdled in her stomach. She should have listened to Mhairi’s other words, too. The ones about the magic of revisions. Should have swapped papers with someone, should have put in the time to incorporate feedback. Should have cared more and worked harder.
“There’s still one paper left this term. No need to fret.” Mhairi’s reassuring smile didn’t reassure Brooke at all.
An urgent need to redeem herself made Brooke’s knees weak. “Could I rewrite this?”
“It’s not fair to the other students if I regrade a new paper, but I’d be happy to read a new version if you’d like to write it. I think it would be a good challenge for you.”
Brooke nodded, not trusting herself to keep the tears back. “Thanks.”
She deliberately kept her stride even as she made it to the doorway of the classroom, then flew down the hallway and stairs of Appleton Tower, tears threatening to overflow before she was away from all these people. Her cheeks pulsed with the shame flushing through her.
It’d been so easy to convince herself that swimming and prowling the city at night was living and that spending her nights in Jack’s bed was the kind of risk Mhairi had been talking about. Brooke had been fooling herself—all the way into a C . Jeopardizing everything she’d been working toward for years.
Jack stepped in her path in the lobby, both hands going to her arms, his eyes crinkled with worry. “What’s wrong?”
Brooke shrugged out of his grasp. She might be distraught enough to throw herself into Jack’s arms, but she had enough wherewithal to realize this was not the place for it.
She must look terrible if he’d forgotten he couldn’t touch her like that in public.
“Nothing.” Brooke pushed past him and headed for the Meadows. The metal bar on the door was cool as she shoved against it and fled into the fresh air. She needed to clear her head. To keep the crushing disappointment and self-loathing from spilling over in tears.
Brooke sped along the sun-dappled sidewalk and through the tightly packed buildings until she made it to the park. She followed the path that cut through the fields, under the cherry blossom trees that were nothing of their former glory, scraggly and leafless now. The branches reached for each other, knotted together above her head.
She found a park bench and let her bag slip from her shoulder. Sitting down, she hugged her knees to her chest, burying her face.
“Brooke.”
She looked up and Jack was there, hand outstretched like he wanted to touch her. “What happened?”
Brooke’s stomach squeezed at the thought of Jack knowing how badly she’d messed up. To know she was so very mediocre. He tugged the paper she still clutched in her hand, looking at the letter on top before she could stop him. She held her breath while he scanned the comments, flipping through the pages. When his eyes reached hers, he looked hopeless, confused. But not disappointed.
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“I do feel as though nothing I say right now would be correct,” he said cautiously.
Brooke huffed out a humorless laugh. “Yeah.”
“Come here,” he said, opening his arms and sliding across the bench to her.
There was hardly anyone in the Meadows in the fading daylight, the December chill stealing the warmth from the classroom, but it wasn’t worth the risk.
“No.” She shot him a look that was maybe too harsh. It wasn’t Jack’s fault that she’d gotten this grade. But the absolute last thing she needed was for him to make this worse.
Jack sighed and sat on the far side of the bench.
She hated the defeated slump of his shoulders, but there was too much on the line. “I’m already at risk of not getting into Mhairi’s fellowship with this.” She took the cursed paper back from Jack and stuffed it in her backpack, her eyes welling up against her will. “And if I don’t, my academic career is over, and I’ll never write again, and the world will end.”
Jack’s lips tipped up at the corners. “The world won’t end,” he said soothingly.
“It will .”
“I could talk to Mhairi.”
Brooke sat up straight. “You absolutely cannot .”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I just…” Jack rested his elbows on his knees, dragged a hand down his face. “I want to help.”
“The only help I need is apparently to study. I don’t know what I was thinking just blowing off school this term like it didn’t matter. Like I could afford the distraction.”
Jack leaned back against the park bench like she’d pushed him. His lips pressed together and his eyebrows pinched as he nodded. His hurt settled around her shoulders.
“Come on. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yes, you did.”
Brooke tipped her head back over the bench, face turned to the dreary gray sky. Jack wasn’t only a distraction, but he had been one. She’d completely reprioritized her life and it revolved around the time she could spend with him. “I just need to refocus through finals.”
He ran his hand over his jaw.
“It’s not that long,” she said. “And I’m not going home for winter break. We can take a train somewhere no one knows us. You’ll have me all to yourself. I promise.”
“Alright,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced at all.