Page 6 of Courting Clemson

The house was quiet when I stepped inside. The cool air conditioning felt so good on my sun-warmed skin, I took a few minutes to lean back against the door and let all my systems center. I needed a shower and to treat my pool-damaged hair with some extra love. All the hours in the chlorinated water were hard on a natural blond, and I’d been neglecting my body right along with everything else.

When I came out of my room afterward, intent on making a protein shake and taking a long nap, I ran into my roommates in the kitchen.

“Hey, girl,” Avery said. “Haven’t seen you all week. How you doing? Did you see they posted grades last night?”

I groaned. “No, I haven’t checked yet.”

Inside, I knew how badly I had been dreading this moment. If I didn’t pull a certain GPA, I would lose everything I worked so hard for. I hadn’t opened up to anyone about how real the fear was. I’d been beating myself up for not taking classes more seriously, and even while facing pretty certain doom, I couldn’t bring myself to look. No matter how honestly I’d tried to examine the situation, I couldn’t come up with the reasons why. It had never been like me to blow off commitments, and this would be a real black eye if I lost my scholarship.

A few loose threads were forefront in my mind, but I was too much of a coward to pull on them. If my current plan unraveled, where would that leave me? They were consequences I couldn’t face emotionally or even rationally, so I’d been burying my head deeper and deeper in the sand and trusting the universe to right the ship.

Guess I was about to find out how that approach worked out for me. I made my shake even though my stomach had completely turned inside out and trudged back to my room and opened my laptop.

The four items on my desk were in perfect alignment to the edges of the desk and to each other. I had developed a handful of odd rituals throughout my day and had to ensure everything was just so, especially before tackling something so uncertain like viewing my grades.

Control became a big issue for me as a very young child and manifested in my daily life with these routines. Only the people closest to me identified the habits while everyone else just thought I was a neat freak. People didn’t understand that my brain truly believed if things were in their rightful physical place, everything else would line up too. Conversely, things out of place guaranteed utter chaos in my world.

And how’s that working out for you?

My sister’s bitter voice played on a loop in my mind as I waited for the school’s website to load. It was exceptionally slow today. Likely every other student was trying to log on at the exact same time I was.

I took a long pull of the chalky drink on the cork coaster and wiped the condensation off the outside of the glass with the sleeve of my hoodie. Of course there was a spec of residual protein powder somewhere on the glass, and now there was a brown streak on my white sleeve.

“Goddammit,” I mumbled as I inspected the stain. Making a mental note to pretreat the smudge before throwing it in my hamper later on, I refocused on my computer when the screen flicked to the university’s homepage.

I logged in through the student portal and sat through the loading process once more. Scrolling through the website to the grades, my heartbeat pulsed in my ears. I took a few calming breaths and clicked on my name.

And the world came crashing down around me.

Three of five classes failed, and the two I passed were with low B’s. Immediately I slammed my laptop closed and rested my forehead on the cool brushed-metal case.

How could this be? Now what? My parents are going to flip their shit.

Maybe I could appeal to the professor of the class I nearly passed. Or offer to do extra credit or be her assistant or something? Maybe if I explained my sports scholarship was on the line, she would show me some grace. It was only two points, and I either botched the final or was missing an assignment. I had calculated my average in that class just a few days ago and thought I would pass.

I had to do something. That much was clear. For now, though, I curled up on my bed and pulled the chunky throw blanket from the foot up and over my head. All my energy leaked out in persistent tears as I lay there hiding from the world.

There was no way I could go home. I’d rather bribe a top-level school official than do that. Hell, I’d rather do almost anything than go back there.

A soft knock on my door woke me hours later. The sun was far off to the west side of our little house, and my room was dark. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, not even my roommates.

“Clem? You awake?” Grace’s voice came through the door.

Without making a sound, I lay there praying she’d go away. But no, I couldn’t be that lucky. My door slowly opened, and the creak it made at the halfway point bounced around my quiet room.

I still had the blanket over my head, so I watched her through the loose-knit fabric as she peered into my dark space. How she knew I was awake, I’d never know, but she stepped into the room and quietly closed the door behind her.

“Hey, you okay?” she asked softly and sat down on the edge of my bed. She rubbed her hand along my blanket-covered thigh as I pulled the thing away from my face.

“My grades are really bad. I’m so fucked. I don’t know what to do. It’s my own doing, but I can’t pack up and go back home. I just can’t…” The last part came out on a broken moan. My emotions got the better of me again, and the tears were back. I rarely cried in front of people, so it said a lot about how much I trusted this girl to be so vulnerable in her presence.

“How bad is really bad?” she asked, turning to face me fully. She continued to rub my leg, and I wanted to kick her to make her stop.

I wasn’t a touchy-feely girl, and even though there were several layers between my skin and hers, it felt like sandpaper on the side of my thigh.

“I failed three,” I croaked. “Please stop rubbing my leg. Sensory issues and all.”

She immediately pulled her hand away. “Sorry. Habit.”

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