Page 8 of Gay for Pray
My college life has never been less sexy.
The broad main doors let me into a foyer with a shiny, laminated floor. A hush sweeps over me, making even my footsteps feel loud in the enormous building. The lighting is sedate, but the décor sure isn’t. Every wall bears art. Every stairway and railing and corner is ornate. This could be another church like the one where Theodore and I will be singing this semester.
A desk sits in the foyer. The bored girl staffing it gives me alook, but I hurry past her without asking for directions. I head through a set of doors and into a big room containing rows and rows of shelving. The scent of old paper hangs in the air like the dust filtering through the shafts of sunlight cutting into the room through the large windows.
I find a curling staircase in one corner and follow it upward. The stairs creak, the wood exposed for decorative effect. Everything here absolutely reeks of age, and it instills a weird sort of reverence even in me.
The second floor contains a huge, open study room with a stern sign warning against any and all conversation. But past that is a broad hall, and a little way down it I spot the study rooms. The glass boxes line each side of the hall, adorned by plaques indicating room numbers. To my surprise, most of the rooms contain at least one student. I guess Theodore isn’t the only complete and total dork at this school. I should have expected more nerds at a university, but neither Nick nor myself have ever bothered coming to this place, and none of our friends or acquaintances have either.
I don’t need the number in my text message to find the correct room. Theodore sits at a table inside one study room, his laptop open in front of him and books strewn around him. When I open the door, his head pops up like he wasn’t actually expecting me to show up. His eyes are bleary, and he has to blink before he can focus on me.
The second he does, a scowl digs into his face.
This is going to be a long Friday afternoon.
I head inside as though he’s not glaring his way through me and set my bag on a chair. I sit across from Theodore, using the excuse of the table to give myself some breathing room.
“You’re late,” he says.
I check my phone. “Five minutes? That barely counts as late.”
“We said two.”
I roll my eyes. This is going to be such a great semester if he’s starting it off by criticizing me for being a whole five minutes late.
“Fine, whatever,” I say, hoping to move this horrible afternoon along. “What are we doing?”
He hesitates as though he’d prefer to scold me some more, then concedes and turns his laptop around to face me. The screen shows a word document already filled to the brim with notes.
“Our topic should be predestination,” he says.
And by “should,” he means “will.” Our topic “will” be predestination because that’s what he’s already decided.
“Predestination?” I say. “Like the idea that we don’t have any free will?”
“It’s more complicated than that, but yes, basically,” he says.
“Okay, and where are we coming down on the idea of free will?”
It figures this guy wants our entire project to be about whether God is puppeteering our lives personally or not. I certainly havethoughtsabout that, but I try to keep them off my face and seem open to whatever he may want to say.
“The point isn’t to take a stance,” he says. “The point is to explore a philosophical debate and be able to present it to the class. Did you even listen to Professor Demsky?”
This time I can’t stop from rolling my eyes. “Yes, and she said we need a thesis. I’m pretty sure our thesis can’t be ‘lol I don’t know.’”
“Will you just read the outline? I already laid it all out. This doesn’t need to be complicated. I have it handled.”
By which he means, “Just shut up and do what I say.” Again, I consider retorting, but this is not worth wasting my Friday night over. Nick and I found something way more fun to do tonight than sitting around in a library, and I’m not going to miss it tomake a point to Theodore.
I start reading the notes he typed out, but his document is already several pages long. My eyes begin to glaze over somewhere around the third or fourth deep theological argument he has outlined here. He might as well write the paper at this point. It’s basically done already. Clearly, I’m not a part of this project. I’m a child he has to carry along to his perfect grade.
That shouldn’t rankle, but it does. I can’t help myself. I’m not going to let someone like Theodore tell me how worthless and stupid I am, even though agreeing would get me out of here way faster.
“I think we should make a strong argument for or against,” I say.
“That’s not—”
“Whether it’s required or not, it shows a deeper understanding of the concepts and a more thorough philosophical exploration of the materials. I think Professor Demsky would be more impressed with that than with some bland non-answer.”
