Private Affection

Chapter 2

Two weeks of school had flown by. I'd auditioned for choir already and was first alto up for most of the solos. I'd also auditioned for band and made first chair in flute.

I wanted to be a music major at UVA and minor in psychology. My dream was to be a music therapist. I'd have to go to graduate school to get my masters once I was done with my undergraduate degrees but it would be worth it. I loved music and I loved helping people.

It was also practical. There were tons of different career paths.

Mikey and I had both known what we wanted to do from a young age. I'd always assumed his would be a pipe dream. But it seemed like he may actually make it to the NBA after all.

I was steadily working through the college applications and essays and almost all of the teachers I'd asked for recommendations had gotten them back to me. As soon as they were ready, I was going to apply early admission.

Things with Reggie were still strange. He was currently dating Becky, one of the cheerleaders who sat with us at lunch. I liked her; she was nice and friendly and had never shown any interest in my brother. That made me think that all the interactions we had were more genuine. But despite his girlfriend, I still felt like he was staring at me more than usual. Every time we had to do a partner project, he chose me, even if one of his friends and teammates was also in the same class as us.

Which was how we ended up in the library together working on a history project. Apparently senior year was the year of partner projects because we had one in almost all of our classes.

Reggie was also smarter than I'd given him credit for. Obviously, I knew that he was smart being in AP classes, but I was still surprised. That was a horrible thing to say about someone, but it was true.

He was currently taking notes on World War One while I was taking them on World War Two. Our project was to compare them and determine if we believed World War Two could have been prevented had the Allied powers chosen different repercussions for Germany in World War One. The assignment was clear, there was no right answer. And as a perfectionist, that wasn't something I liked to hear. We'd be graded on the foundation of our arguments, not what the outcome of those arguments was.

I wasn't even sure what that meant.

"It's like being a lawyer," Reggie answered me when I asked him the same thing. "The answer that the judge or the jury hands down isn't always the right one. It's about the content of the argument, the skill the lawyer presents his case with."

"Are you going to be pre-law?" I asked jokingly.

"Hell no," he scoffed making me laugh. "But it's the way I made it work in my own head. So what lawyer's do is decide the outcome. They decide that they're going to win, and they make their case around that. They make counter arguments for anything and everything that could potentially harm their argument."

"Okay. That makes sense."

"Good. So, what is your answer?"

"I can't decide now," I exclaimed, making the other students in the library glare at me. "I need all the information first."

"No," he said. "Your'e still missing the point. A defense lawyer for example. He doesn't care if his client is guilty, in fact, he probably-"

"Or she," I cut him off.

"They," he emphasized. "They assume their client is innocent and build their narrative around that. So, could world war two have been prevented?"

"No," I said immediately. Maybe it was the wrong answer, there wouldn't have been a real way to tell, but my experience was that people like Hitler and other dictators, they used whatever means necessary to come to power. Sure, it may have been harder for him had the Allied Powers handled the Treaty of Versailles differently, but ultimately, I believed the outcome would have been the same.