Page 89 of Olivia's Only Pretending
A few students plopped down beside me, unzipping their backpacks and pulling out thick textbooks for a study session. Chit chatting about an upcoming test that seemed like it was going to bepainful. I got up so they could have the whole spot by the tree to themselves.
I wasn’t ready to go back to the office yet. I wandered over to the bulletin board I’d shown Victor weeks ago, when he accompanied me on that first date. I eyed the pinned-up anonymous love notes.
Some of them were old, the edges faded, and I’d nearly memorized them after all these years.
There were a few new ones now, though. I read the one on the upper right corner:
Dear Ivy, your blue eyes are brighter than the sky. Love, your secret admirer.
Another beside it read,
Dear Sutton, I like your laugh and the way you think. Want to get a drink?
My eyes dropped to a yellow sticky note I hadn’t seen before on the bottom of the board. It was in Latin—my favorite language. The note already had me smiling.
The greeting and signature were both in English.
Dear Pretend GF,
Quid non est pretensione? Quantum ego te desidero.
Your Pretend BF
My breath caught in my chest. I mulled over the words in my head.
Dear Pretend GF, What’s not pretend? How much I miss you. Your pretend BF
I knew that handwriting. I knew that pretend boyfriend who’d been studying Latin for me. This was from Victor.
He’d come by campus just to leave a little note on my favorite bulletin, respecting me and my requested space by not showing up in my office or blowing up my phone, but still finding a small way to show up for me.
To make me smile.
And in Latin. I could imagine him working with his Latin dictionary and Google Translate to find a way to string this message together.
It was definitely against the unspoken rules of the bulletin board, but I tore the note down. Holding it in my fingers, Iimagined him pinning it up for me, his dark hair falling in his eyes as he found a free corner of the board to hang it.
I snapped a photo on my phone, tears pooling in the corners of my eyes. I typed up a message with the photo for Victor.
Me
Found this today! When were you on campus?
I headed back toward my office, not watching where I was going as I hit the send button and bumped into someone. “Sorry,” I said, glancing up to realize it was my student, Chloe.
“Dr. Rhodes.” Her eyes lit up when she saw me. “Fancy meeting you here.” She waved a pink paperback book in front of me.
I took in the group of girls sitting on the steps of the arts building with the book in their hands.
“We’re having an impromptu book club meeting!” Ashley said, sitting cross-legged on the bottom step, her white Converse had Sharpie hearts scribbled on the top. “We’ve had a lot of thoughts while reading this one and needed to discuss stat.”
I chuckled.
Ashley’s eyes dropped to the yellow note in my hand. “Is that from the bulletin board?”
I looked down at the note. “Oh, yeah, it is. It was left for me, though, so I think I’m allowed to take it.”
“I saw that one this morning,” Chloe said, then her cheeks went pink. “I’m a hopeless romantic, so I might check the anonymous love note board every morning while I walk to class.”
