She didn’t have to feel anxious, waiting for one of them to ask the wrong question.
Four years ago, she never would have felt like this. She never would have thought this would be where she would be sitting.
This November should have been about preparing for her last semester and looking ahead to life after graduation. She should have chosen a graduate school or a study-abroad program. It should be her life she was looking ahead to, not another year of undergraduate studies.
But she wouldn’t let herself sink any deeper than that. The choices that were made were hers. Maybe not completely. She made the choice set in front of her, because she felt as if it was the only one she could make. It was what she had to do. For herself. For everyone.
Looking back, she still thought she’d done the right thing. She wished it wasn’t. She wished there had been another way.
“It’s good to see you are so interested in today’s lecture you can’t even come up with an answer to my question. I wouldn’t want you to miss anything. See me after class,” Professor Murillo said.
Julia’s stomach sank. She didn’t have time for that. She barely even had time to be here in class. There were so many other things to do. Sometimes she wished she could just say no. No to all of it. To class. To graduating. To expectations. To promises. To everything.
In those moments, she didn’t want anything over-the-top. She didn’t want anything outlandish or extreme. She just wanted her own life.
But then she was reminded of all the reasons she kept going. She would eventually have what she wanted. She just had to keep telling herself that. It wasn’t now and it wasn’t the plan she’d originally had. But it would be there. She just had to push ahead.
When the lecture finished, the floor nearly shook with the weight of the hundreds of students filing up the steps and out of the hall in one stream. Julia took her time packing up her notes and putting her books back in her backpack. Again, she pretended nobody else was around her. She pretended she didn’t hear the whispers or feel the people pushing past her to get out of the row of seats as quickly as possible.
When they were finally gone, she walked down the steps toward the professor. Murillo didn’t even look up at her as she approached. She was wiping notes away from the projector she was writing on and going to great lengths to make sure every hint of the green marker she used was gone from the acetate.
She was the only one of Julia’s professors who still actually wrote when giving notes. Everyone else used a computer that projected up onto a screen. But Murillo was stuck in her ways. She still used the same clear sheets cast up onto the screen with a bright bulb. She wrote with handwriting that required interpretation and shorthand she didn’t care to explain.
Students just had to figure it out. That almost seemed like part of the class. If you could decipher the professor and her notes, it gave you a chance for success. Julia wanted to think there was some sort of meaningful reason behind that. Some sort of lesson she would look back on when she was an adult and know it influenced her in some positive way.
But she doubted it.
Instead, it seemed more like a vindictive ploy, another way to wind the futures and the anxieties of her students around her fingers.
Julia didn’t want to be the one to crack. Every interaction with Murillo was a standoff. One of them had to be the one who spoke first, and she never wanted it to be her. She despised handing over the power and giving the woman any more validation.
But she couldn’t keep waiting. The seconds ticking by were piling up around her feet.
“You wanted to see me?” Julia finally asked.
“I wanted to see you at the beginning of class like all the other students,” the professor fired back, continuing to wipe the projector.
“I’m sorry I was late,” Julia said.
She didn’t want to apologize, but it was a small price to pay to get out of the room and to the next class. She was the teaching assistant and couldn’t afford to scrape even an instant off the beginning of the lecture.
“Everyone else in the class seems to be able to get here on time.”
“I will from now on,” Julia said.
“See that you do. I know you don’t want your grades to suffer.”
“I’ve had an A the entire semester.”
“We’ll see if you can maintain that,” the professor said, finally looking away from the projector. Her eyes met Julia’s in a gesture that only seemed to emphasize the threat in her words.
Chapter Nine Now
The very first glimmers of sunlight are coming through the window when I wake up. I remember what Xavier said and hop out of bed. Without even bothering to change out of my pajamas, I sit up and stuff my feet down into boots. Before I head to the living room I dial my phone. There’s no answer, which doesn’t really surprise me.
“What are you doing?” Sam asks. “Get back in bed. It’s cold out there. And dark. And not bed.”
A sleepy smile crosses his face, and I smile back. Leaning down over the edge of the bed, I kiss him.
“It’s not dark. It’s morning. Which means I have to go find Xavier,” I say.
He rolls over. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. Because if I heard it, that means I have to wonder what’s going on. And I just don’t want to.”
“Go back to sleep,” I tell him. “I’ll be back soon.” I step out of the door. “I hope.”
With any luck, Xavier hasn’t
