Page 5 of In the Net
I look across the room to Harper sitting at her desk. I wish I could say that this is the first time I’ve done so during this class session, but I’d be a liar.
With that strappy shirt she has on, showing off her smooth, shapely shoulders, and the way her auburn hair looks resting against her glowing skin, my eyes have strayed in that direction far too often today.
Harper holds some stapled sheets of paper in front of her and says, “The short story I’m critiquing is titled,Third Shift.”
Tension knots inside me. Shit. That’s my story. Which means Harper’s about to absolutely tear it apart in this peer critique session.
Short Fiction Composition is the one class Harper and I have together this semester. I was surprised when I saw her here the first day. As far as I know, Harper doesn’t have much interest in writing fiction, though she’s an English major. Her goal seems to be getting a PhD and becoming a professor.
Maybe the fact that critiquing classmates’ stories is a major part of this class is what drew her.
Something tells me that Harper can spot my voice through my writing. She just knows me too well. When our eyes briefly catch as she glances across the room before launching into her critique, there’s a flash in her emerald greens that confirms that suspicion.
“This story starts with an interesting premise,” she begins, and my chest leaps thinking that maybe I don’t have anything to worry about after all—until she continues, “but it’s almost immediately undermined by the fact that the author is clearly writing to impress the reader, rather than to actually tell their story.”
She doesn’t relent. “It’s almost like this author was determined not to use the same word twice. I’m all for having an expanded vocabulary, but there’s a line you can cross where it just looks like your writing is showing off how many different words you know, undermining the flow of the prose. And this story doesn’t just leap over that line, it books a long-haul plane flight over it.”
My lips curl down as Harper’s quip draws some laughs from the class.
“Toward the middle of the story, the author kept trying to describe the way the protagonist was feeling through clumsy, convoluted metaphors. Again, they were clearly trying to show off and impress the reader, but they tried so hard that they lost track of the different metaphors and dissolved into sheer incoherence.”
I’m like a boxer on the ropes. All I can do is cover up and try to withstand the blows raining down as Harper continues to dissect my writing style, clearly without the slightest interest in sparing my feelings. Or my ego.
“On the plus side,” she mercifully concludes, “the plot was interesting. I actually cared about what happened and wanted to find out how it ended. It held my interest. And the protagonist was sympathetic.” She slides her eyes toward mine again for a brief moment before finishing, “though I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was sort of a self-insert.”
“Very thorough, Ms. Brees,” our professor nods in approval. I get the sense from his old-school vibe that he isn’t easily impressed, but his arched brows indicate that Harper’s critique managed to do it.
I wish I could deny it, but it impressed me, too. She’s not wrong about anything she called me out on.
I should be grateful for genuinely accurate criticism, I guess. It would probably be easier to be grateful if it wasn’t obvious how much she enjoyed dishing it out.
Shit. Now that my gaze is already pointed in Harper’s direction to listen to her, I’m having a damn hard time ripping it away.
The next students’ turns at peer criticism filter in one ear and out the other as my attention remains pointed at the redhead who seems to always have my number. The sun coming through the classroom window falls on her in just the perfect way to turn the hair resting on her neck and shoulders into a copper-gold blaze.
Not to mention how it highlights the outline of her collarbone.
And those cutoff jean shorts she’s wearing …
It’s not until I see her move to put her stuff into her bookbag and feel everyone around me doing the same that I realize I’ve tuned out the entire rest of the class session while staring at the girl who can’t stand me.
I’m just lucky that Braxton didn’t call on me.
I pack my stuff away and join the mass of students quickly heading outside.
It’s a gorgeous day. The sky is smooth and blue, the sun is bright and warm, and only the gentlest breeze brushes through the air. Campus is packed with people having picnics on the grass, sitting on the benches, playing frisbee and other games.
Up here in Vermont, we know that days like this are scarce and are going to abandon us before we know it, so everyone wants to take advantage of them while they can.
Harper’s auburn hair flashing in the sunlight makes it easy to spot her several paces ahead of me. I catch up.
“Couldn’t take it easy on me even after I did a good deed, huh?” I say, falling into step next to her.
She glances at me, and her nostrils flare a little. “You’d rather I sugar-coat my judgment instead of giving it to you straight so you can actually improve?”
“I’m sure it was pure selflessness that drove you to tear apart my story in there. I detected no glee at all in your voice when you called my metaphors clumsy,” I say sarcastically.
“The story was anonymous. How was I supposed to know it was yours?”
