Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 163387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 654(@250wpm)___ 545(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 654(@250wpm)___ 545(@300wpm)
She looked cute as hell in her little summer dress, and I realized how nice it was to see a female dressed like that for a change in this sea of low rider jeans and belly-baring crop tops. I didn’t kiss her though I wanted to, and not because of the nosy ass people I could feel peeping out at us, but because I wanted our first real kiss to be something special. What a sap!
I opened the door and helped her in, taking note of the fact that she wasn’t half as nervous as she had been the night before. Once I had her buckled in, I walked around to my side and hopped in for the three-minute drive to the library.
There were even more eyes on us when we walked in, more eyes and more whispers. I ignored them all for now since she didn’t seem bothered, but the first sign of discomfort, and I’ll start butting heads together. They were acting like they’d never seen a couple before.
I could well imagine what was going through their minds, though. Especially the females I’d spurned in the past with the excuse that I didn’t have time to date and didn’t plan to during my time here. Some of them did not look pleased, to say the least. Fuck them; I don’t owe them shit.
I didn’t see Susie, hadn’t seen her since the night she supposedly drugged me, and then that short stint in the cafeteria, in fact, and was able to relax as I walked her to one of the empty tables as far away from everyone else as possible. It was the first time I’d set foot in the place in months.
What’re you studying?”
“Microbial Science.”
“Don’t you usually take that the second year?” It sounded familiar since I’d started showing an interest in those courses after dad’s diagnosis. She blushed and stared down at the book she’d just opened.
“Yes, but I’m taking accelerated classes.” She mumbled it like it was a bad thing.
“My baby’s smart, huh!”
“Your baby? Who me?” I looked around at the empty space around us.
“You see anyone else around here? Problem?” She shook her head and kept it in her book, but I didn’t miss the smile that came across her face. Damn, sweetness overload. For the first time in a very long while, I was excited to be here. What’s more, I was starting to look forward to the days to come.
CODY
It’s all anyone would talk about, like there was nothing else more exciting going on-on campus for them to stick their noses into. I guess I didn’t give it as much thought as I should’ve, but I obviously didn’t expect for almost half the campus to have such a vested interest in my private life.
Everywhere I went that first day after our trip to the library, people were all but pointing and staring. You’d think they’d never seen two people studying together the amount of fuss they made, jackasses. I knew what their problem was, though. I was breaking my long-held moratorium on dating. It still wasn’t their damn business.
When it got to be too much, it only took a glare or two to get them moving and out of my way, but then I started thinking about how she was handling it. With that shy personality of hers, I can’t imagine she was having too much fun being the subject on everyone’s tongue.
We’d been to the library a time or two since then because, as I’ve mentioned before, she’s serious about her shit. But funnily enough, that got me back into the groove of things, and I’m actually enjoying being here again. Especially when she breaks things down for me better than any professor ever has.
I was able to concentrate and feel real-genuine interest for the first time since I came back, and it was due in large part to her presence. Who am I kidding? It was all thanks to her being there with me, close enough to touch, smell, and look at whenever I felt the need.
I can’t quite put it into words, but she seems to have some kind of calming effect on me. But it’s not just that, not just the way being with her seems to untangle the knots in my gut; it feels almost like I’m this whole other person when we’re together. A person not even I have ever met.
It’s not the young me that I was before I came here, or the me I’d become after learning of my dad’s illness, but different, something…more. The raw edges in my mind that had been plaguing me for weeks and months were smoother when I was with her.
When I finally opened up about my dad after our first week, the way she just listened and actually answered like she knew what she was talking about and didn’t just spout platitudes made me feel for the first time that there might be hope. She seemed to know about the subject, and when I asked, I found it almost too unbelievable that her dad is one of the best oncologists in the country and that her dream was to follow in his footsteps. Fate!