Chapter Two
OfficialEndeavourHigh: It’s a great day to be an Endeavour student!
I am not one of those people.
So that’s how I got to school twenty minutes early. Campus hadn’t come to life yet. The parking lots were half empty, and the buildings barely unlocked, waiting for the first-day chaos of no one knowing where to go. I walk right on into the English building and find the right classroom.
The lights aren’t on yet. I love being the one to turn the lights on. That’s such a teacher’s-pet thing, but that’s ultimately what I am—a seventeen-year-old teacher’s pet. I flip the switch and take a second to appreciate the empty, now-illuminated classroom.
Except, um … it’s not empty?
There’s a boy, with his head down, sitting at one of the tables in the back corner.
“Ugh, why’d you have to turn the lights on?” he grumbles, picking his head up enough to talk—and enough for me to recognize the face. The sharp intelligence in the eyes. The high angles of the cheekbones. The competitive nature of the gaze.
Hayes.
My eyes roll of their own volition, and I stomp into the room, my sneakers not making the same satisfying impact my loafers would’ve. These match my low-waisted black shorts and baby tee better, though.
“What’s the matter with you? Why are you sleeping in a random classroom?
Sleep in your car, like everyone else!” I snap as I sit in the front row.
My favorite vantage point. I set my Norton anthology on the table in front of me, centering it in my field of view, just so I’m not looking at Hayes.
It doesn’t work. I turn around in my chair to glare at him, just because I must yell at him for this. “And what are you even doing in my—“
I stop. I realize what it means that he’s sitting here. In this room. With a Norton anthology in front of him. Just like mine.
Oh, no. Absolutely not.
He smiles, wicked and demonic and full of arrogance. That’s the Hayes Collins I know and hate. For a second, I just sit there and bounce one foot against the ground, thinking.
“You can’t ruin this for me, Collins,” I whisper. It’s barely audible, but he hears me anyway, because we’re sitting alone in a very silent room.
And all at once, I need to cry. I press the heels of my hands against my eyes as hard as I can, until I see nothing but black spots.
Okay, this is fine. This happens. I stand up, not looking at him, or anyone else in the hallway as I rush out of the room.
I left all my stuff behind, everything except my phone.
My left shoe is coming untied. I’ll fix that too.
I’ve never had to cry in the bathroom on the first day of school before, not even on my actual first day of freshman year, when I walked into the wrong classroom and everyone stared at me. But that’s fine.
This is fine. This happens.
Mercifully, there’s a stall open in the bathroom at the end of the hall. As soon as I lock the stall door, I lean against the wall and let the tears fall. Instantly, everything feels better. I’m a crier for a reason. Once the tsunami of emotion passes, I can clearly see inside my own mind.
So, okay, my entry into my lit major is not turning out how I wanted it to. Instead of my best friend, I got my biggest competition.
I’ll just avoid him. I don’t care.
Actually, he should avoid me. He’s on my turf. We’re not in a lab. This isn’t the science building. Future Doctor Collins isn’t going to top this class.
I am.
With that thought, I wipe the last of the tears from my eyes and make sure I don’t have snot dribbling out of my nose.
By the time I make it back to the classroom, other students have filed in.
No one I recognize. All actual college students.
Some barely older than me, some old enough to be my mom.
(I like those people; they’re usually the nicest.)
This is fine. This is still the moment I’ve been waiting for. The day I’ve been waiting for.
I wait for it all to wash over me, for a sense of rightness to set in. There are plenty of feelings washing over me in intense, all-consuming waves, but I don’t think any of them are close to rightness.
That, at least, I’m used to. Most of the students aren’t even aware of the early college program on campus. What I’m not used to is the gnawing ache of watching the clock tick. Two minutes past. Five minutes past. Eight minutes past …
Before I have time to stew further, Professor Lowry steps through the door, nearly a full ten minutes late. To her own class. On the first day.
I knew what she looks like because I’ve literally wanted to take her class for years, but seeing her in person versus her buttoned-up photo on the English department website is …
different. Her glasses are on top of her head, lying on a riot of messy and possibly irreparably tangled curls.
They’re light brown with some salt and pepper strands mixed in.
Bags under her eyes, minimal makeup aside from a strange amount of blush.
She looks like someone who spent all night in the library.
She’s … a bit of a mess. I hope it’s in a “disheveled genius” kind of way, but I’m not sure.
Her white cardigan is stained with something that might be coffee, and I don’t really understand why she’s even wearing it because it’s hotter than Dante’s inferno today.
(Damn. I wish I could’ve made that joke out loud.
She might have loved it.) Underneath, she’s wearing some crepey yellow blouse that doesn’t fit, and a blue-and-red patterned skirt that doesn’t match.
Looks like the primary section of the color wheel melted all over her.
It’s, um, a lot. I was always told to dress for the job you want, and right now, it doesn’t look like the professor in front of me wants her job. Another wave of emotion crashes onto me again. But it’s more identifiable this time.
Anxiety.
She’s the head of the English department, and she’s supposed to be my ticket to a promising college career as an English major.
Then a PhD in literature and a professorship.
Starting with this class. Starting with this very moment, where she’s digging through her briefcase, I think in an attempt to look for the glasses that are on her head.
“Alright,” she says, her voice brisk. “I’m going to call roll, and as I do, you will all move to your assigned seats in alphabetical order …”
Seriously? Assigned seats? We don’t even have assigned seats in our high school classes. That’s middle school stuff. She starts calling names, not even looking up from the roster in her hands. There are two A’s, so they sit at the first table in the left, front corner. Then two B’s.
With any luck, there will be someone between me and him.
“Carter,” Dr. Lowry drones.
I move to my seat, right in the front row, center of the room. Right in front of her.
“Collins,” she calls, and for a split second, I hope there’s another Collins in the room. A different Collins. My eyes shift as a presence takes up my peripheral vision.
It’s Hayes, sitting down in his assigned seat, right next to me.
There is no other Collins in the room, and there is no luck, at least not for me.
“Hey, Novella,” Hayes whispers. His voice isn’t teasing or chiding or even annoying in the slightest, and I find that extremely suspicious.
“Listen,” he says, but I won’t, and I’m not gonna, and he can’t make me, except he’s sitting right next to me, basically whispering in my ear.
I sort of have to. “I didn’t mean to make you …
flee, or whatever. Earlier. Did you cry … ?”
I scoff, but it’s kind of wet and gross. I meant it to be snappy and unapologetic and unaffected. Joke’s on me. I couldn’t be unaffected if I tried. I’m always trying. Never not trying.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I tell him. “That wasn’t about you, trust me.” It was, but I can’t let him think that. Can’t let him know that. “This has just been …” My left hand lifts into the air and sort of swivels around the room, like I’m presenting this disaster to him.
“Weird? It’s looking that way.”
Just then, Dr. Lowry appears in front of my table, dropping a giant stack of stapled pages in between my elbows. She doesn’t tell me to take one and pass them along, I just do. They’re syllabi, of course. I was excited for this part. I can still be excited about this part.
Instead of staying in my seat and letting everyone else pass them around, like a normal person, I stand up and hand out each syllabus myself. I hoped my initiative would impress her, but as I sit back down, Dr. Lowry is scrolling through her phone with her head down.
“Read through your syllabus,” she mutters, waving one hand in our general direction. She still doesn’t look up. “That’s what the first session is for.”
Minutes pass, pages turning in relative silence.
It takes me about half a page of reading before I realize this is basically the default English department American Lit 1 syllabus.
I’ve read it all before. It’s on the school’s website, and it has been for years.
There’s nothing in it about her beyond the bio that’s also on the website.
No contact information beyond her office number.
The volume rises around me as people start chatting. I expect her to stand up, to say something, to quiet the volume. To introduce herself, ask us how we are, or verbally confirm that we’re actually in the right class. Honestly, I wish I were in the wrong class.
After fifteen minutes she puts her phone down.
“Well, this has been fun,” she says, pushing herself up with her palms flat on the desk. “I’ll see you all Wednesday. We’re starting with Jane Austen.”
I let the paper fall from my fingers. My hands come to rest against my face. Around me, people start leaving the room, including Dr. Lowry. I don’t see her, but I hear her heels clicking against the floor.
“Wait …,” Hayes starts. I move my hands. We’re the only two people in the room again. “Was Jane Austen even American?”
“No, Mr. Collins, she wasn’t.”