Chapter 16
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
ANNIE
The email shouldn’t feel like I’m being sucker-punched in the gut. The email shouldn’t even come as a surprise.
Miles is no longer a part of the tutoring center staff. He was clear from the beginning that he had no interest in the role and he didn’t even attempt to help me at all with my paper despite me begging for feedback.
“Lainey!” I whisper-yell across the library to grab her attention before she can disappear into the maze of medical reference texts in the back corner of the main floor.
Miss Diane materializes from out of nowhere, as she makes a habit of doing. “This is a library ,” she whispers in a harsh, slinking tone. I imagine her voice is how snakes would talk if they suddenly began speaking English.
“Sorry,” I mouth with only the slightest accompanying sound.
Luckily, Lainey heard me and waits for me to catch up before we dive into the anatomy section together. She gets more work-study hours in than anyone I know. Lainey’s tuition is covered because of her mom teaching at the college, but living in the dorms is an extra expense and she’s adamant about not living with her mother.
“What’s up?” She pops her gum and reaches for a book to shelve. I swear most of our time hanging out is spent like this, us rambling together in the library as she works and I occasionally absentmindedly help her shelve things.
“This is weird but… I need to know how to track down your cousin.”
“On purpose?” Her eyebrows arch sky-high and a sly grin spreads over her face. “I saw your text about breaking up with Cameron, but I didn’t realize you would move on so quickly.”
I groan, realizing my mistake in not explaining myself upfront. “No. Do not let your imagination run away with you. This isn’t about that . He quit the tutoring center without helping me and there aren’t any other tutors that have experience passing Professor Parks’ class. I need his help.”
“What’s going on with you and this class? Are you this stressed out about all of your courses?”
“No,” I admit. “I struggled to figure out the workload a little bit at first because of how many hours I picked up at Drizzle. But I have an A in every other course and things are getting easier now that the stress of my mom not having a paycheck has subsided.”
“What do you have in Parks’ class?”
“I’m not sure. He’s not giving my grades to me in a straightforward way.” Only writing a bunch of red pen notes and leaving me to assume I’m failing the assignments.
“What? What does that mean?” Lainey stops fussing over the book return cart so that she can whirl to face me.
I’m not even sure myself. “He hasn’t given me grades. I just got back my second paper in a row that’s covered in corrections but isn’t formally graded with a final score. And he’s not updating my online grade portal either.”
Lainey tilts her head. “You know he can’t do that, right? You should file a complaint with the department. He has to grade your assignments and give you access to your scores within a certain time frame, per campus policy.”
“Seriously?” I can’t believe I didn’t think to look into that.
After I got my paper back this morning, I was so crushed by the magnitude of Professor Parks’ feedback that I didn’t consider that he has to give me my grade. I can’t help but wonder then if he hoped leaving my grade off might draw me back to office hours. If he thinks so, he’s going to be disappointed. I’m not going to be caught dead alone in an office again with him while my decision about handling our last meeting hangs in the air still.
I need to report him. If only I could trust that whoever I report him to will actually handle the situation appropriately.
The internet is full of horror stories about women in my position being ostracized for reporting well-liked professors. I know because I’ve been torturing myself by reading online posts about these women night after night.
“Okay, so I definitely need to report him. In the meantime though, can you please tell me how to find Miles?”
“Oh, sure. That’s easy. He eats in the cafeteria every day around this time. He’s a total introvert so eating in the crowded cafeteria seems counter-intuitive but he says something about how he likes the chance to be reminded that he’s not missing anything by choosing not to engage with the dull general population taking up space on campus.”
That’s awful and sounds exactly like something I would expect to hear Miles say.
Lainey is a lifesaver because there’s no way I’m tracking Miles down at the one place I would know where to look for him. At his apartment. I snuck out early enough Saturday morning that I didn’t have to acknowledge what happened the night before. And that’s a plan I’m sticking to.
When I reach the cafeteria, I spot him sitting alone at a table with an empty tray in front of him.
“Miles!” There’s no one here to chastise me for being too loud like in the library, but the volume of my voice is a mistake anyway. A handful of students turn from every direction to stare at the crazy woman waving her arms to get an annoyed guy’s attention.
Miles looks toward the door to the student center, which houses the cafeteria, and then back to me. He’s considering pretending I don’t exist.
I bound toward him before he can flee. “The tutoring center emailed me this morning to tell me you weren’t on their staff anymore.”
“Yeah, no shit.” He stares at me like I’ve grown a second head.
“You can’t quit. You haven’t helped me at all.”
“That sounds like a pretty good reason to not be your tutor then, wouldn’t you say?” He smirks and turns away from me to head inside.
I stay stuck to his side like glue. I already embarrassed myself by showing up here chasing after him, might as well commit now. I have to speed walk and dodge around oncoming foot traffic to keep myself within an arm’s length of Miles. He takes exaggeratedly long strides that would otherwise lose me easily in the lunchtime crowd.
“You’re such a jerk.”
“Then stop following me around like a lost puppy.” Miles stops abruptly and gets in my face. For a split second, my heart rate picks up as I have the passing thought that he might kiss me again until he continues, “I did not name you. I did not feed you. I did not find you on the street and take you home to get comfortable on my bed.” He hesitates. “Okay, technically I did kind of do that last one, but you know what I mean.”
Ugh.
“Just tell me what I’m doing wrong in my essays and I swear I’ll leave you alone.” There has to be something I’m missing. I worked my butt off on my newest essay and still didn’t seem to give Professor Parks what he was looking for… in more ways than one.
I jerk in surprise as Miles grabs me by the shoulders. As he leans in even closer, I hold my breath.
“Is this a game?”
“What?”
“Your essays are fine. Above and beyond expectation, even. Either you’re bullshitting me about needing tutoring or you cheated and hired someone else to write your essays. In which case, maybe Professor Parks is marking you down because he can also tell you’re cheating.”
“How dare you!” I step out of his grasp. “I don’t cheat .”
Usually, my face flushes when I’m embarrassed. For once, I feel myself getting hot because I’m so freaking mad. If he had any idea the number of times my classmates gave me grief in high school for not letting them copy my homework, he wouldn’t accuse me of something so outrageous.
“Why would I ever lie about needing tutoring?” I ask him. The logic doesn’t add up. Why waste my precious free time begging him for help if I didn’t need any?
“Because you want attention,” he says bluntly. “You wouldn’t be the first woman to play dumb to get a man’s attention.”
I giggle… until I realize he’s not joking. “You’re serious? Why on earth would I ever want to play dumb to get your attention?”
The muscles in his jaw flex.
“Being objectively good-looking isn’t enough to make up for your crappy personality!”
He smirks mockingly. “Oh, but you have noticed that I’m objectively good-looking?”
“Stop twisting this into something it’s not.” I stomp my foot, a move I immediately regret since I’m not a toddler in the middle of a tantrum. “All I want is help with my essays. Something must be wrong with them because Professor Parks isn’t going to pass me if I fail another assignment.”
I did the math last night and the odds of me passing the class are starting to look dire.
The familiar weight of Cameron’s arm falls over my shoulder. “Don’t tell me you two lovebirds are already fighting,” he mocks.
“Knock it off,” Miles grinds out between clenched teeth. He reaches for my hand and tugs me forward.
“Oomph,” I grunt as he yanks me right up against his chest to get me out from under Cameron’s arm. For someone who acts like such a jerk, he’s playing the knight in shining armor role well.
“Careful there,” Cameron says to Miles. “I don’t want you damaging my girl before you give her back.”
“If you don’t shut the fuck up?—”
“Don’t.” I slide my palm up Miles’ chest and splay my fingers out to get his attention.
He tips his head down to glare at me. I return a slight shake of the head to let him know we don’t need to fight this battle. I’m not interested in verbal sparring with Cameron. I walked away so that I could be done with him. He’s not going to reel me back in with some schoolyard taunting.
“You’re killing me, Blue.” Miles grinds his jaw back and forth until the tension in his body relaxes slightly under my palm.
Cameron lets out a snort of derision. “Wow, a cute little nickname already. Isn’t that sweet?”
He glances over to two of his frat friends, both standing off to the side looking like the last thing they want to do is get involved. One of them shrugs as the other anxiously shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
“Leave us alone. We’re not bothering you.” I glare at Cameron over my shoulder.
“Relax, Annie. I’m just teasing you,” Cameron coos. “I’m not stupid enough to think you’d go from dating me to fooling around with this asshole. And everyone knows Miles Morino doesn’t do relationships.”
I can’t stand him. I can’t stand the smug way he speaks to me about Miles. I can’t stand that I dated this absolute jerkface for as long as I did. And I can’t stand here and not try to take a big swing back at him as he mouths off.
Without thinking through the consequences, I whirl around to face Cameron and let myself sink back against Miles. To his credit, he plants his weight to let me lean on him and puts a hand on my waist to steady me instead of backing away and letting me fall right on my ass.
“That’s weird because Miles and I started dating the same night I dumped you and things are going great so far.” The lie falls so smoothly off my tongue that I have no choice but to commit to my ruse.
I let the words hang heavy in the air and wait with bated breath to see if anyone will call my bluff.