Five Steps | Chaelisa

Chapter 13

Lisa's POV

The second Roseanne said "Intro to Fiction," I knew she was in my gen ed class.

I smile to myself and stretch out my legs, tapping my pencil against my notebook as the teacher—or as he wants us to call him, Jon—starts to rattle off the attendance from the front of the classroom.

And she was giving me shit for being late.

I half raise my hand as he calls out my name, and a girl with faded red highlights from two desks in front of me glances behind her to give me a once- over, like she does every class.

I look away so I won't even be tempted to so much as wink at her, my eyes flicking to the wooden door as Jon calls out, "Roseanne Park?"

But there is no Roseanne Park to be found.

"We got a Roseanne?" he tries again, the knob twisting as if on cue to reveal a familiar, disheveled shape.

"Here! Sorry," Roseanne squeaks from the doorway, smoothing down her blonde hair and fixing her shirt, her eyes widening as they land on me.

I grin at her, patting the empty chair next to me.

And, naturally, she gives me a murderous look that was worth sprinting up the three flights of stairs on the opposite side of the building to beat her here.

"Take a seat, Miss Park," Jon calls, peering at her overtop his glasses. "Class starts at eleven o'clock."

Roseanne mumbles an apology, scanning the room for another seat option before plunking angrily into the one next to me.

"Why didn't you just show me where to go if you knew I was in your class?" she hisses at me when the teacher turns his back.

"Roseanne," I say, crossing one leg over the other. "I can't fix your love life and your internal GPS. I'm only one woman."

She rolls her eyes and pulls out a binder and a worn copy of Twelfth Night, one of my favorite Shakespeare plays and also the assigned reading for the first two weeks of class.

As Jon starts the lecture on the themes in the pages we read, her words from the library come back to me.

Well, you clearly don't feel as strongly toward your girlfriend, or else you wouldn't be flirting around with Suzy at a party.

I can't even enjoy this lecture on my favorite freaking play because I can't get over how much they bothered me.

I mean, she's probably never even kissed anyone before—what does she know?

I shake my head and glance out the window to see students milling about on the other side, my skin prickling as I see Roseanne's reflection in the glass.

"And what about you?"

I blink, my eyes deglazing as I glance up to see the professor looking at me, a few heads turning in my direction. He's got his glasses pulled down almost completely off the tip of his nose, and he's looking over them at me with that teacherly arrogance that is just the worst.

Roseanne raises her eyebrows at me, absolutely loving this.

I clear my throat and fix a confident smile on my face. "Who?" I look left and right. "Me?"

"Yes." He could not be more smug. "You."

His condescending look borders on pity. Like I haven't read this play a hundred times. Like my lesbian ass hasn't religiously watched the movie adaptation with Helena Bonham Carter a thousand times more than that. "I asked what points you thought Shakespeare was making about romance."