19. Laura
19
LAURA
I sat at the library with my laptop open and my books surrounding me. Even though he wasn’t supposed to be here for another hour, I had no time to freak out about how he’d act around me after I showed up at his frat house. After he’d kissed me like I’d secretly always wanted to be kissed.
The way a man kissed a woman he needed .
It felt good to be needed. That was basic human nature.
But feeling like the object of Jason’s hunger was a heady sensation that still filled me with equal parts glee and terror.
I’d already made my mind up about how I’d play this out.
I would act like it never happened. Much like he’d done after I called him pathetic and put him in his place about wasting our time. After that session, he carried on as usual. And so, post-kiss, I’d carry on as usual.
I wasn’t tense leading up to our Tuesday night session, though. Distracted by the emails from the engineering department, I was excited and impatient to research more of what I could do.
More about what I could try to do if I ever got the courage to change my major.
Killing the time until Jason would show up to be tutored, I fell down a rabbit hole of reading through what my bio-chem instructor had sent me. While he seemed convinced I would excel in a pharmaceutical career—which I hadn’t fully crossed out as a daydream—he was very much a fan of giving me tips on how to look into switching into bioengineering.
Reviewing the criteria for the other majors filled me with excitement, and then when I researched potential grad schools I could go into, I completely lost track of time.
“Oh.” I whispered it to myself when I glanced up to check the clock on the wall.
Jason should’ve been here forty-six minutes ago. I hadn’t realized, so stuck in what I was looking at. I fell under the spell of fantasizing about having a career that excited me and challenged me, so much that I didn’t realize Jason’s tutoring hour had started already.
He wasn’t here.
A pang of disappointment came, but I dismissed it quickly.
Fine.
Whatever.
Jason was the kind of person who would always do what he wanted, and there was simply no control over that. Before I could wonder or worry if he wasn’t showing up because he’d finally decided to listen to my advice and quit wasting my time, I dove right back into what I was reading up on.
Because if he were to ask me again, now, if I still thought he was a waste of my time, I wasn’t sure I could answer the same.
I ended up staying at the library until nearly ten o’clock, but when I went home, I was still so keyed up and intrigued about this research and this program.
Most of the lights were out in the house, but I was too awake to rest. In my room, I opened my laptop again and started seriously considering how I could make this switch. Cross-referencing courses and seeing what I’d need to enroll in, I again got so absorbed in it all that I barely registered a knock on my bedroom door.
“Laura?” My dad entered, looking like he’d just come home from a night out. He and Mom were too “dignified” to party or anything like that, so his appearance in a tuxedo made me suspect that they’d gone to a fundraising gala.
“Oh, hi, Dad.” I started to organize my papers and close my laptop, but it was too late.
He furrowed his brow, entering my room fully. His serious and unpleased gaze was on my desk. “I wondered why you were wasting the electricity to leave your lights on so late.”
Yeah, like that matters. He was a former doctor, part-time professor, and current dean. He had other things on his mind than caring about the environment or our carbon footprint.
“But now I’m wondering why you are wasting your energy looking into all of this.”
The irritation he didn’t try to hide came out harshly. Scowling at me as he picked up a printout of a research scholarship application, he practically fumed. “What the hell is this?”
I licked my lips then sighed, reaching for the paper.
He held it out of my reach. “What is this, Laura?”
“Just something I was looking into.”
“Why?” he demanded as he skimmed it before tossing the sheet of paper back onto my desk. “What for?” He shook his head, not giving me a chance to answer. “How dare you go behind my back like this.”
He could chastise me all he wanted. I refused to let him see me frown or cry. This was precisely why I never defied him. It was hard enough to live with the fact that he and my mother didn’t love me, but to hear him rant and scold me like this? It was salt in the wound.
“I thought you were just curious and bored when you were researching those drug trials. But now I agree with Mai. You lied that day I saw you with that material. You intended to present about that crap at the symposium. Didn’t you?”
I shook my head, stunned. How could he, the dean of the college that dealt with pre-med students, call cancer drug trials crap ? As though it were frivolous?
“Now I know otherwise. You dare to think about changing majors?”
I opened and closed my mouth.
“How can you ever be so short-minded as to think you know better than me? That you know what belongs in your future more than I do?”
“I never said that,” I muttered. I just want something else. He made it sound like I was checking out a pole dancing contest with the goal to be a stripper or a hooker.
“This is outrageous, Laura,” he scolded. “I refuse to stand here and let you think you’ve got any right to change your major. This late?” He scoffed. “You think you can throw away all the education you’ve achieved thus far just to switch to some lame bio-engineering hobby?”
“It’s not a hobby,” I protested. I wasn’t brave enough to face him. If I did, I had no control over keeping my expression neutral. He’d see how much he pissed me off, but he wouldn’t care.
“You are expected to graduate and join your sister at my alma mater. You have known your whole life that it is an honor to continue the family tradition of practicing medicine.”
But that’s not what I want. I can do more if I’m challenged and pushed to succeed in my own way.
“Where do you even begin to think this way? Mai never questioned her path. She does as she’s told. She is proud to give her best and stay in medical school. But you have to be such an ungrateful brat and think you need something else?”
Frustrated to the point of boiling over, I sat stiff and rigid. My limbs felt leaden and heavy, locked with my muscles bracing for impact.
Or the need to flee.
I couldn’t run from him. I couldn’t change this situation. I just had to endure it and count down the time until he would leave me alone.
“It goes without saying, Laura,” he dictated, “that you should forget about this. Now.”
I didn’t flinch at the rip of paper. He tore the application in half.
“Don’t bother spending another second thinking about pulling off a sneaky switch like this. I will know. Just like I know that you have wanted to make it a habit to enroll in those organic chemistry courses you don’t need. I can pull you from them all. I can drop you out of them until you focus on what I deem necessary for your graduation.”
I stared at my hand flat on the desktop. If I lifted my fingers, they’d tremble with how this rage coursed through me.
“Because so long as you call yourself my daughter, you will do what I say. So long as you live in this house and have your expenses covered, you will complete the education chosen for you.”
Of all the variables in this situation, those were the hardest ones to swallow. I’d never had a job of my own, expected to be a perfect student. I didn’t have an income of my own, too busy trying to be a perfect second-best to Mai.
If they kicked me out of this house, I’d have nowhere else to go. It was only by going to med school that I could move out, and still, as they paid my tuition and board, they’d be in control.
“I will never approve of paying a single penny to a stunt like this. How do you expect to pay for this other program, Laura? Because I won’t.”
I steadied my breaths, inhaling as deeply as I could through my nose before exhaling as carefully as I could. If I opened my mouth, I would shout at him. Blurting out what I thought of his treatment wouldn’t help me.
What could help me was what he’d just ripped up. I could print another form. And I wanted to. Because I knew my parents wouldn’t fund my going into something they didn’t choose. I’d apply for that scholarship, even though I’d already been in college this long. The one program that my instructor had sent me information about was for a research-work situation, all to fund the tuition and then some.
Of course, my father wouldn’t support my dreams. That was why I’d been so excited all night to look into how I could independently make my dreams come true.
“I won’t stand for this nonsense,” he vowed, standing up taller. “It seems like it’s too much to ask for you to be more like your sister, but mark my words. You will not have my support in this distraction to the future I’ve carefully planned for you.”
He left at last. Stewing in my chair, I slapped my laptop shut roughly and fumed a little more.
This was what Kristin had been urging me about, to defy him and do what I wanted. At least I’d be happy to go for my dreams.
But I wasn’t so sure. Would I be happy to defy him and do as I wanted? Or would this stupid guilt cling to me like it did now? He’d left me raw and wounded, second-guessing myself and hating that I lacked the clarity and courage to stand up to him—ever.
Too mad to pay attention to any of the papers again, I got up and showered. I couldn’t rinse off this ugly feeling either, so when I lay in bed and punched my pillow to try to get comfortable, I gave up the notion that I’d sleep at all.
But I did. Because in the middle of the night, I woke up with a start from another dream.
Jason.
I gulped, breathing hard before trying again to force down a swallow. My throat was parched and my mouth was dry. In contrast, the stickiness of my panties adhering to my skin proved that I was very wet in another way.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
Sitting forward as the erotic dream slipped from my mind, I covered my face with both hands.
Just how frustrated could a person get before they screamed endlessly?
Between my father berating me and reminding me that he would dictate my future and my bully taunting me to let him touch me and kiss me so naughtily in my subconscious…
I was stuck.
Unable to fight for what I wanted both in terms of my education and my physical needs.
“Fuck it all,” I whispered as I slumped back onto the bed and squeezed my eyes shut tight, willing my heart to slow and my pussy to stop aching with need.