Page 12 of You've Got a Place Here, Too
“He’s fine,” she replies. “He had an emergency and won’t be administering your exam, but it’s all here.”
She points to the whiteboard behind her where three writing prompts are scrawled.
“You have an hour.” She smiles and settles in the seat behind Dr. Lowe’s desk. “Good luck.”
I’m so dazed that for a few minutes I am completely still. My classmates scribble their responses all around me, but I’mpractically catatonic, eyes fixed on the floor. A hot tear plops onto my hand, startling me out of whatever reverie has me in its grip.
Damn.
Am I really going out like this? Letting a man whom I know even less than I thought I did derail my final? Dent my hard work?
Hell no.
I glance up at the board to read the first prompt and begin writing, my pencil flying to make up for lost time.
The things I felt seemed real, but they were a girlish delusion. I need to compartmentalize this irrational heartbreak and focus on the last days of my college career. Like any self-respecting journalism student, I have a low-paying, entry-level, grunt-work job waiting for me in New York. As complicated and sometimes difficult as my relationship with my father has been, I find myself dodging his shadow but following in his footsteps. He began here at Finley, and the whole world opened to him. I believe those same possibilities can open up for me if I’m focused and don’t let my emotions rule me the way they did with Dr. Zekiah Lowe. Even thinking his name makes my heart pound a little faster, harder, but I ignore that misguided organ and focus on the exam in front of me.
Focus. That’s the key.
I won’t lose sight again.
Five Years Later—Finley College
Zekiah
“Did you get the tour dates I sent?”
I glance up to stare at the cell phone on my desk, splitting my attention between the call and the student’s paper I was reading before my agent interrupted.
“Uh, yeah.” I lean back in my office chair and squeeze the bridge of my nose. “I’ll check the schedule.”
“The publisher needs us to confirm by the end of the week,” Hani says, her voice a little tinny over speaker.
“I know. I’ll get to it. I’m juggling a lot with the new book release happening during the semester. I can get my classes covered, but it’s still disruptive.”
“I don’t understand why you accepted that guest lecturer gig at Finley anyway.” Hani’s deep sigh relays her exasperation with my inexplicable—to her at least—decision. “I mean, I know it’s your alma mater, but—”
“I needed a change of setting.” I run a hand over my face and blow out a tired breath. “I needed to feel inspired for this next book.”
“And traipsing around campus playing professor does it for you?” Faint amusement threads her words.
“I need to remember why I love writing before I tackle this story, and the semester I subbed for Dr. Ackerman—teaching those students inspired me. I’m hoping to recapture some of that borrowed passion.”
“Speaking of borrowed passion, did you see Lilli tied the knot?”
“I missed that,” I reply with real—not feigned—indifference. I haven’t given my former fiancée much thought in a long time. “Who’s the lucky guy?”
“Name’s Will Schroeder. He’s a casting agent.”
“Sounds about right,” I say with the slightest hint of a scoff. “Lilli always had her ambitions. Maybe marrying a casting agent might actually get her cast in something.”
“Ouch.” Hani lets out a low whistle. “Cy-ni-cal. Don’t believe it’s true love, huh?”
“I can only speak for how true our lovewasn’t.Admittedly, her sleeping with her agent while we were still engaged may have disillusioned me a bit.”
“I know that hurt, but you channeled that heartbreak into aNew York Timesbestseller, so you can’t be too mad about it.”
“You’re mistaken if you think that book had anything to do with Lilli. This place, my time at Finley teaching that semester—that’s what pushed me to write that story.”
