Page 26 of How to Lose at Love

Get a grip, Dallas. They do that shit in Hallmark movies.

You don’t watch Hallmark movies, idiot.

Yes, you do…

I tap my pen on the desk I’m seated at, not having heard a single word the professor up front has said. Have barely glanced up at the PowerPoint presentation she has up on the screen, ignoring it for the conversation playing on a loop in my head.

The page in the notebook in front of me is blank.

And yes, I have a notebook and not my laptop—the morning went to shit and I forgot to throw it in my backpack, so now I’m kicking it old-school by taking notes by hand.

Except I haven’t written a single thing.

I glance to my left.

Glance to my right.

Tap the pen again, distracted.

Check my watch to see how many minutes of torture I have to sit through before this class ends.

Twenty.

My eyes continue to roam the room, which is uncharacteristic considering I typically keep my head down or my eyes to the front. My future might already be mapped out, but it’s not my goal to flunk out of classes, especially easy ones.

Duke still checks in about my grades, even though our ma doesn’t.

My perusal dips to the left.

In my same row, a young woman with long brown hair has her arms in the air, stretching. Leans to the left, to the right, looking over her opposite shoulder each time she bends.

Black turtleneck. Laptop open in front of her.

She wiggles her fingers over the keys but doesn’t use them to type anything.

Rests her hands on the desk.

She looks vaguely familiar, though I can’t place her face.

My regard homes in on the high neck of her shirt, the only one in the room.

She’s pretty, if her profile is any basis for judgment.

“…it wouldn’t hurt you to be seen with a responsible young woman.”

I shake the feathers out of my brain, shifting my focus back to the front of the lecture hall.

Check my watch.

Five minutes…

Two.

I shrug into my winter coat and tug on my knit cap before the professor officially ends class, wanting to avoid the crush at the door and in the hallway but failing once she says there won’t be any homework but that the final will be a three-page paper rather than an exam.

There’s a collective buzz of appreciation amongst my classmates as everyone gets up and out of their seats, gunning for the exit. I wanted to be one of the first out the damn door and here I am, jammed in the middle of the herd like a sheep, staring over the top of everyone’s heads.

The shuffle is slow, has me bumping into a few people and making me apologize. One girl I smash from behind turns and almost curses when she spills her coffee, but then she sees it’s me and clamps her mouth shut.

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