“What are your thoughts about Public Speaking class?” she asks. “Do you have any concerns about that?”
“Concerns? Yes, you can call it that. I would say that it’s more like I’m terrified and hopeless about the whole thing,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“Dylan showed me a way I could get through the speeches and I was really happy about that. I even got a B+ on the first speech, which is like a miracle, but now that my old strategy won’t work anymore…” I say with a sigh.
“Alice, I wouldn’t call drinking before class a strategy,” Dr. Greyson says, flashing a smile.
“Why? I would.” I shrug. “It was the only thing that calmed my nerves. Now I have no idea how I’m going to get through the next one. Which, by the way, is in two weeks.”
“I’m going to give you a pamphlet about this next time you come in,” Dr. Greyson says. “It will have a list of actual strategies for dealing with stage fright.”
I shrug. “Okay,” I say. I don’t have my hopes up. I’ve read a lot of things about it on the Internet and none of them have been particularly helpful.
“You know, of course, that you can’t drink again, right?” Dr. Greyson asks at the end of our meeting.
“Yes, of course.” I roll my eyes. “I’ll get kicked out of school for sure. Unfortunately, I think I’m going to fail that class either way.”
“No, you won’t,” Dr. Greyson insists. She seems so certain about it, but I’m not sure. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I will fail. What else can happen if you stand up there without saying a word?
I walk out of her office and back into the cold bleakness outside. This semester was supposed to go differently. It was supposed to be fun and exciting. Hudson and I were supposed to be together. We were supposed to actually take advantage of everything that college and New York City have to offer. So why did it all go so terribly wrong?
I decide to walk through Riverside Park to clear my head. I’ve been dwelling on this for far too long and I know that I’m nowhere close to being done. Juliet will come home tonight wanting to talk about this weekend, wanting to offer her advice over the whole thing without really telling me anything I don’t already know. Then Tea will call, I’m sure. I haven’t talked to her at all since all of this happened except for one or two texts asking her to keep this weekend to herself. Then, of course, there is Hudson. He has texted me a number of times since the weekend, trying to set up a time to talk. He wants to talk about our break and I don’t want to. I don’t think I can face him. I mean, I don’t think I can face him and keep this weekend to myself, but, at the same time, I also can’t tell him what happened. It will crush him and us. Our break will definitely become a breakup. Then what? Will it mean that we’re really over? That there’s no more Alice and Hudson?
No, that is not how this semester was supposed to go. I walk past a couple kissing on a bench in Riverside Park. They are wrapped up in each other’s kisses. Their hands are intertwined and their legs are pressed closely together. That was supposed to be us. We were supposed to be sitting on that bench and kissing, not caring that it’s nearly fifteen degrees outside.
21
I’ve managed to avoid Hudson for a whole week. I thought it would be hard, but it wasn’t. His work schedule has remained pretty much the same since our fight. He works late Monday through Wednesday and has classes all day Thursday and Friday. A couple of days, he came home way after eleven and left before I was up.
On Thursday, in Victorian Literature, I space out for nearly the whole lecture thinking about him and Kathryn. Why does she have to be so hot and so nice? I’ve never felt this way before. I never thought of myself as a particularly jealous person, but thinking about him and her working late at night at the office makes my skin crawl. I know we’re not together anymore. Worse yet, I’m married and he doesn’t even know it, but still. I don’t want him to be around her, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
I stay out late this evening. I know he won’t be home and I just don’t feel like sitting around my dorm room all day, staring at the walls or reading a million BuzzFeed articles and making extra boards to pin more curious but completely unimportant things on Pinterest.
I stop by the coffee shop that Tea and I frequent often and order a cup of green tea.
“Hey!” I hear a familiar voice.
“Hi, Hudson,” I say, turning around and forcing myself to smile. What the hell is he doing here?
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
“Just getting some tea and you?”
“My class got cancelled. So, I thought I’d waste some time here,” he says with a shrug. “Oh, man, I haven’t seen you in forever!”
Hudson puts his arms around me. His body feels warm and firm, comforting. For a moment, I’m transported to another time. When we were still together and in love. When everything in the world was right and nothing could break us up.
“You smell so nice,” he whispers, giving me a chaste peck on the cheek.
He leans over to kiss my lips, but I turn my head away. I move away from him. My whole body tenses when he puts his arm on the small of my back and doesn’t remove it. Eventually, I just take a step to the side to get myself some space.
“Listen, I’m glad you’re here,” he says.
His face
