Let's Get Ethan ✔

Chapter 20

As soon as the weekend was over Ethan felt relief. It was a long one, and as badly as he wanted to let go of life with no abandon, schoolwork and routine needed to be accomplished. Though Ethan was glad he was only working after school on weekdays instead of weekends. Those weekends were fun, and he enjoyed the company he kept, except Lincoln. That guy just needed to cool it with his "kumbayas."

Ethan flew down the stairs of his dorm and got dressed quickly that morning. He had avoided talking to Lincoln the entire last half of the weekend. Lincoln hadn't spoken a word to him either after he came back around dinner time Sunday night. Ethan felt Lincoln's eyes bore into his head as he did homework all night last night, it was an uncomfortable experience, like pulling teeth. Lincoln would not be, Ethan figured, easy to win over with a sandwich and some apologizes. Ethan didn't feel the need to apologize either, it was Lincoln's own fault that his girlfriend hated him.

Ethan then decided to head to the cafeteria early that morning for a bagel. The cream cheese topping was calling his name. Plenty of kids usually waited till noon for lunch, but he was wide awake. But given the massive student population the "caf" was always pretty busy, but it was an entire swarm of students around noon.

Ethan ate while imagining himself on a desert island, something about eating alone in a crowded room was both sad and cathartic. He knew that this was probably just circumstance, he had friends and a budding social life, but eating alone at school just reminded him of that stereotype of the nerd sitting on a toilet seat eating lunch, sobbing, but Ethan would not go as far as to eat in a stall, no way, it couldn't come to that.

After Ethan finished up his light breakfast, he made it to his first class of the day. As always, his favorite professor, Dr. Jones, stood at the helm of the class. His face bright and ready to start lecturing. Ethan watched him putz around for a while on his laptop before class began. Ethan took copious notes. Today Dr. Jones made an analogy, for every business there is a demand, just like for every will there is a way. He compared monopolies to the game monopoly, and then finally rounded out class with a lecture directly from the textbook, which he wrote himself. Dr. Jones was a character and Ethan could see why he was teaching a freshman business class. You needed someone like Jones to hook students into business before you could get them to hit their nose to the grindstone.

His other classes drew to a close soon after. It was already three o'clock and he was going to be late for his shift at work if he didn't rush, funnily enough he was looking forward to work. He enjoyed the freedom from homework or other obligations. Plus, he didn't have to go back to his dorm to try and patch things up with Lincoln. If Lincoln was even there of course. Lincoln spent a lot of time with his friends or Stephanie.

Just for Stephanie's sake, Ethan hoped Lincoln spent most of his time messing around with his friends.

Ethan went up to Stewart after clocking in.

"Okay, second week—oh, I know. Come along." Stewart smiled and coaxed him along with the wave of his hand and Ethan trailed after him.

Stewart led Ethan past the groups of students settled in pods at tables, past the shelves of books, and isolated desks. Ethan wondered where he would lead him but figured out pretty quickly as he was given an empty cart.

"Think of this as like—inventory, Ethan. Today, I want you to inspect some shelves for backward spines or check out some ends for extra books, just organize, don't sort, yet, and put everything misplaced on this cart. If the books are about where they need to go sort them. But when you're done, roll that cart over to the desk, and I'll have you start shelving on the second floor, okay?"

"Okay," Ethan replied taking the cart from Stewart, who quickly left to go check out a book for a student.

Ethan then took the orders and ran with them. His cart was filled to the brim of misplaced books in completely random locations in no time, granted he looked on every single floor, so it was a collection of misplaced books. Ethan drove the cart over to Stewart when he was done, taking into account the expression on his face. He wasn't shocked at the number of books Ethan had picked up at all. Didn't people ever put back books correctly? Ethan guessed that this amount was average.