13. Thirteen
13
THIRTEEN
ELIANA RICHARDS
CIA Academy, 2017
Diary Entry
I can’t concentrate when I’m around him and I don’t understand it. The hatred isn’t new—I hated him for as long as I can think, but the extent of distraction Peter David is to me nowadays is confusing. We have almost every class together, although I make sure to sit on the other side of the room and never interact with him or his few friends. But more than once my focus gets drawn onto him, on his beautiful side profile, on the way he is pronouncing words, on the playful plop his lips make when he is bored in class and tries to distract himself. He probably doesn’t even know he’s doing it.
Well, better than chewing your pen.
History is repeating itself because I’ll once again won’t be the class's best. But this time, it’s not because he simply outsmarted me. No, it’s because I let my fucking hormones come in the way and take over my body.
Why am I so stupid?
It’s still Peter Davis we’re talking about.
From all of the guys on this campus, why is he the one making me lose focus on what’s actually important?
And as if rhapsodizing about Peter wouldn’t be bad enough, one of my professors caught me in the act yesterday. And the entire class became witness to me stuttering and trying to answer a question I hadn’t even heard a single word of.
As a punishment, he made me get up early and run around the obstacle course like in every bad military movie. At first, I thought this was a bad joke, but apparently not. He screamed at me through the entire course like the good old drill instructor that he is. It was a lot about “being distracted in the field would get people killed”, which I totally agree on. I couldn’t even imagine how disastrous a mission with me and Peter being on the same team would end. Peter, I’ll get these weird feelings screamed out of my head sooner than later.
Today is the fifth time that I needed to get up early to run through the obstacle course. The positive thing first: I'm getting better at it. After the first time, I was barely able to move the next day, but last week I got a new PR and even Agent Parker, who was supervising me like always, was impressed how much I improved.
Of course, I wish I wouldn’t need to be punished that often, but no matter what I tried, Peter remained a beautiful distraction. It was like my mind was leaving my body as soon as he entered the room. I could practically watch my own brain sighing and squeaking while throwing him heart eyes.
It was more than just annoying.
Our year might be small, but I knew that there are still multiple classes for each subject, so I talked to our mentor and tried to switch classes around to be away from Peter. Thankfully, a couple of opportunities came up, but I still remained in the same classes as him for four subjects.
Which was enough to get punished frequently.
We haven’t had any exams so far, but I know that the professors are noting down more than only the results of the exams. This wasn’t a normal college, this was still the CIA, and all of our profs were high ranked agents before they went for the academic path.
It was only a matter of time they would decide that I wasn’t mentally strong enough to become an agent.
Once more, Peter Davis was the reason my dreams didn’t come true.
My only chance is to get away from Peter and show everyone how smart I actually am and that I deserve to be an agent .
But as hard as this is to admit, I lost my chance at the CIA. Even if I’d be able to kick my own ass from now on, the comments of me being distracted easily were already in my HR file. I’d no chance to join the task forces I was looking for.
So I need to do something that let my heart burst into pieces by only thinking about it: I need to quit the CIA.
But how devastating this might be, I will not give up my dream of changing the world. My new goal will be the FBI.
Different agency, same dream.
Without Peter around, I know I can become the best.
I just need to find the perfect lie to tell my father why I’m changing agencies…