Chapter 3
Three
Mitch had wanted to take a full course load of kinesiology courses this year, but his academic advisor had strongly hinted that it would benefit him to take a few courses outside his major.
Apparently, it would make Mitch seem like a more well-rounded person.
Plus, he still needed to fulfill his general electives.
So instead, he found himself with two non-kinesiology courses: geography—which was hella interesting—and creative writing—which was not.
Creative writing was, in fact, kicking his ass.
It was just his luck that he’d ended up with the TA who was rumored to be a hardass. A rumor that had proved true when the TA had called Mitch’s previous assignment amateurish.
“It lacks substance,” he’d said.
Substance. How was Mitch supposed to inject substance into a short story of five hundred words or less?
When class started, the TA, John, handed him back his assignment. As Mitch had suspected, it was marked with red pen. Everywhere. Instead of a grade, he had a note written in all-caps at the top—again in red pen: SEE ME DURING OFFICE HOURS.
Fuck.
Mitch read through John’s comments, which spanned everything from grammar and sentence structure to character development and setting.
He should’ve ignored his academic advisor and gotten a head start on next year’s kinesiology classes, at least the ones that didn’t have a second-year prerequisite.
Math and science were way easier than this writing shit.
If he failed this assignment, would that bring his GPA down enough to affect his scholarship?
Heart pounding, he ignored the TA droning on at the front of the room and flipped his assignment over.
He drew two columns on the back with shaking hands.
The number of credits for each course went into one column; his anticipated grade on a 4.
0 scale went into the next. Assuming he’d ace his kinesiology and geography courses—they were no-brainers compared to this—and failed creative writing, or did poorly enough that his grade hovered just above passing… He did some quick math, and…
Shit. It would bring his GPA down just enough that he’d be below the cut-off GPA for the scholarship.
When the TA turned his back, Mitch got his phone out.
I’M GONNA FAIL OUT OF SCHOOL! He texted Cody. Fail out of school and prove to his mother that he really was irresponsible and immature.
Losing the scholarship, despite it being a partial, meant he wouldn’t be able to pay his tuition. No tuition money meant no school, no hockey, no eventual Frozen Four, no draft, no Bachelor of Science with a major in kinesiology, no job as a sports science and rehabilitation specialist.
Okay, wait. No need to panic. Don’t panic. Not yet.
He was panicking. So much that he didn’t realize the forty-five-minute tutorial had ended until the screech of chair legs on tile floor and the mass exodus of a dozen students brought him back to the present from a future where he really did work on a bee farm.
“Mitch?” John said. “My office hours start in fifteen minutes. Drop by if you’d like to go over your assignment.” He smiled and it was a friendly smile, not one that said I can’t wait to fail you, plebeian!
Mitch nodded, but he had no intention of going, not today. The TA packed up his bag and left, leaving Mitch sitting alone in an empty classroom.
Eventually, he had to get up and go when students started pouring in for the next class. He met Cody at the car, convinced he’d never listen to his academic advisor ever again. Not that he’d have to, seeing as he was about to fail out of school.
Cody took one look at him and said, “Tell me what happened.”
So Mitch did, and got no sympathy from his best friend.
“Literally nobody fails creative writing,” Cody said, navigating out of the student parking lot. “Don’t you think you’re being overly dramatic?”
“I’m allowed to be, since I’m going to fail out of school.”
“Why don’t you just drop the class?”
“Can’t. The drop deadline’s passed. I wouldn’t get a refund and it’s too late in the semester to join a different class, which means I’d be down a credit that I’d have to make up next semester or next year, but I don’t have time for an extra class and—”
“Okay, breathe.” Cody squeezed Mitch’s knee. “Breathe, Mitch.”
Doing as ordered, Mitch took a deep breath in, then let it out slowly. He waved a hand at the Green Day song on the radio. “This is going to be me any day now. Walking on the boulevard of my broken dreams.”
Cody laughed and couldn’t seem to stop. “You’re ridiculous. And you’re not going to fail. When you stop being all princess-y over it, you’ll realize that it’s early in the year and that there’s still plenty of time to make up your grade.”
Mitch didn’t know what being all princess-y meant, so he ignored Cody and stared out the window at the rolling Vermont hills they passed on the way home.
At this time of the year, the colors were vibrant reds and golden oranges and sunny yellows.
It was fall tourist season in Vermont, but he rarely bumped into visitors unless he ventured into Montpelier.
Glen Hill wasn’t a big enough town to warrant a visit, and it wasn’t on the way to anywhere that was. Mitch liked it that way.
“Did you talk to your TA?” Cody asked.
Mitch sighed and rested his head back against the seat. “No, I just…couldn’t. He has office hours on Monday. I’ll go then.”
“It’s probably a good thing that he wants to talk to you,” Cody said. “And you said he didn’t actually grade your assignment, right? Maybe he’s willing to give you a chance to revise and resubmit.”
Good point. In which case, he could do more research on what substance was.
And if the TA wasn’t willing to let him resubmit, Mitch could ask for an extra credit assignment and/or work harder on the next two assignments to get a better grade.
He did some quick math in his head. If he brought his mark up in the class by a few points, it should bring his GPA back up to where it needed to be for the scholarship.
He’d work extra, extra hard and put some serious mojo into the next assignments, since they weighed more in the final grade calculations.
If he failed those too, he’d really be in the sin bin.
“Maybe I overreacted,” he said.
Cody laughed. “Nah, you just needed to have a meltdown before logic kicked back in. Trust me, you’re not going to end up working at a bee farm for the rest of your life. If such a thing even exists.”
“They must. Isn’t that where honey comes from?”
Cody pulled into their driveway. “I guess?”
“Speaking of honey, do we have any food?”
“Besides Cheese Whiz?” Cody made a dubious face. “Fruit. Bread. Mama Jean’s?”
“Can we afford it?”
“If we split a pie.”
“Let’s do it.”
* * *
“Dude, it won’t work.”
“Oh, I’ll make it work.”
Alex sighed and let JP attempt to use correction tape on the purple cock and balls on his cast.
“It didn’t work when I tried it earlier,” Alex said. He nabbed a slice of pizza with his free hand.
Like during their college days, Alex and JP found themselves at Mama Jean’s for dinner on yet another Thursday evening. Also like their college days, they were trying to deal with another sample of Jay’s crude artwork.
They were tucked into a booth in the back corner, where the lighting was dim and the smells coming from the kitchen made him crave a second pizza.
“Looks like it works okay to me,” JP said.
“It’ll flake off in an hour.” And now, instead of a purple cock and balls, he had a stark white cock and balls that stood out like a sign on his cream colored cast. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure which was worse. Fucking Jay.
JP ran his thumbnail along the edge of the correction tape. It flaked right off.
He huffed and sat back against the booth. “Well, that sucks. What if we expand on the drawing and turn it into, I don’t know, balloons?”
“Like party balloons?” Alex tilted his head and peered at the drawing on his cast. “That might work. But I wonder if it’ll only make things worse.”
JP got a spiral bound notebook and pencil out of his bag. He replicated the drawing from Alex’s cast onto the paper, added a third circle in between the two balls, colored in the cock head and added two triangles attached to its sides, forming a bow.
“Now it looks like a cock with three balls being offered as a present,” Alex said.
“Think it’s possible for a dude to have three balls?”
“Yeah. It’s called polyorchidism.”
“You would know that.” JP paused. “Why do you know that?”
“I don’t know. Probably research for something I was writing.”
JP drew another replica of Alex’s cock and balls on his paper and added…a tail?
“What the fuck is that?” Alex asked.
JP added two small triangles on top of the cock head. “We might be able to turn it into a cat.”
“I don’t want a cat on my cast.”
“Do you want a cock and balls?”
“Well, no. But I don’t want your creepy cat wannabe either.”
JP drew a big X on the cock and balls turned cat and snapped his notebook closed.
Alex kicked JP’s foot with his under the table. “What’s going on with you today? You’ve been in a mood since we got here.”
JP stole the crust out of Alex’s hands and took a bite.
“Hey!”
“I have a student,” JP said around his mouthful, “who’s this close to failing out of my class. Pretty sure he knows it too, but does he come see me during my office hours today? No. I don’t want to fucking fail this kid, but if he doesn’t show up to talk to me about it, what am I supposed to do?”
“Who the hell fails creative writing?”
“Right?”
“He’s not turning in his assignments?” Alex guessed.
“No, he is. They’re just not any good.”
“So, he’s half-assing them?”