“What about it?”
“For your paper,” he clarified. “You could do a detailed history about the origins of policing in America. Did you know that most police departments started off as slave patrols?”
“Yay, oppression,” I said dryly.
He jettisoned an individually wrapped slice of American cheese at me. As I freed it from the plastic, Franklin, the scraggly pug-and-yellow-lab mix that had followed Wes and me home one day, trotted into the kitchen, collar jingling, and sat at my feet. I sniffed the cheese, wrinkled my nose, and tossed the entire slice to Franklin. He gobbled it down without chewing. Unlike me, Franklin didn’t discriminate against highly processed foods.
“I’m just saying,” continued Wes. He knelt down to give Franklin a rub, who promptly rolled over to offer his belly up for a massage. “That would be so easy for you. You could even interview me.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“Har, har,” I said, wrapping up my cheeseless burrito in aluminum foil so I could eat it on the go. I checked my watch. “I have to head out. O’Connor’s expecting me at ten thirty.”
Much to Franklin’s dismay, Wes abandoned his role as doggie masseuse to collect my black peacoat from the hook near the door. As he helped me into it, he asked, “Are we still doing lunch today?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
He handed me my keys, draped my messenger bag over my shoulder, and took me by the waist. I reached up, standing on my toes to make up for our height difference, and interlaced my fingers behind his neck.
“You’ll do great, Nicole,” he said, giving me a little squeeze. Then his mouth turned up in a mischievous smirk. “The ten-minute walk through campus is more than enough time to come up with an idea for an eighty-page paper that you were supposed to have finished last semester.”
“Weston!” I smacked his shoulder and tried to squirm out of his grasp, but he laughed and pulled me closer.
“I’m kidding, baby.”
He bent down for a kiss. As I hugged him tightly, the stiff fabric of his collar poked me in the neck, but I still appreciated the warm press of his arms around me. Wes and I had met as undergraduates during an ill-fated freshman orientation that might’ve ended in tears had I not been susceptible to Wes’s goofy brand of humor. Even so, it wasn’t until I was zipping up my graduation gown and batting away Wes’s attempts to tickle my ears with the tassel of his mortarboard that I realized I wanted him in my life as more than just a best friend. After the ceremony, when I kissed him for the first time, diploma holders in hand, he only said, “Shit, finally.”
In the years that followed, Wes and I made sure to factor each other into our plans for the future. Wes joined the police academy, which was what he had always wanted to do. With my nearly obsolete history degree, I didn’t have a whole lot of employment options. I bagged retail job after retail job until I realized doing inventory and pasting a benign, vacuous smile across my face to trick customers into thinking I cared about their dress sizes wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. Wes was the one who had encouraged me to go back to school. He even helped me sort through piles of brochures advertising prestigious universities and programs. When I got into Waverly’s postgraduate history program—quite the feat considering how long it had been since I’d completed my bachelor’s degree—Wes didn’t hesitate to ask for a transfer. We moved into Waverly’s on-campus graduate housing, Wes started working for the local police force, and I was free to actually pursue the education and researching career that I wanted.
With one last kiss from Wes and an affectionate goodbye rub of Franklin’s chin, I left the apartment, jogged down the steps, and started off across campus toward the Arts and Humanities Building. Despite the fact that it was freezing, it was a gorgeous day, the first in a while in which blue sky was visible. An icy breeze played with my hair, whipping bright blond strands into my eyes. I unearthed a knit hat from the pocket of my coat to subdue my rowdy hair and wrapped my scarf tighter around my neck. Last night, a thunderous rainstorm had swept through the area, waking me up with its raucous clatter on the roof and scaring the literal shit out of Franklin. On the upside, the storm had cleared out the gray slush that had been lingering around campus since the last snowfall. It was mid-March, and I was ready for some sunshine. Even the pale, half-hearted glow of the sun that morning was enough to put a little bounce in the soles of my boots.
Waverly University was all a woman like me needed in higher education. Established in the early 1700s, it was one of the oldest schools in the United States, lesser known than its other Ivy League counterparts but just as reputable. The grounds were vast, the buildings brick, and the students fashionable. I had been to Oxford once for a study-abroad trip, and as delighted as I was by Oxford’s extensive history, Waverly pursued me with a romanticism for education that I couldn’t help but fall in love with. As I crossed one of Waverly’s many lawns, I tipped my head back, inhaling the sharp scents of pine and wood smoke. There was no place I’d rather be.
I took the long way across campus so that I could pass by my favorite building; the Waverly library was one of the original structures of the university. Its marble floors, hallowed hallways, and great stained-glass dome were home to thousands of books, and the library even had a special section, the Rapere Wing, dedicated to rare manuscripts and other invaluable acquisitions. The first time I set foot in the Waverly library, I was overwhelmed. Never had I cried at the mere sight of
