Break Even

Chapter 1

       HARTFIELD UNIVERSITY WAS infamously known for not having air conditioning installed in any of their common buildings.

It was a college on the outer ridges of Sunnyvale, California with one of the most prestigious liberal art programs in the country, so going green was kinda a mandatory asset to their sales pitch.

And don't get me wrong, I was all for being friendly to the environment. In fact, I usually prided myself on being able to endure a little discomfort in my lecture classes for the ability to be a small mechanism in the greater machinery of it all.

But that was before having to sit three feet across from my Prose and Poetry professor as she dissected everything irrefutably wrong with my writing through an assignment I turned in only sixty-five percent completed and approximately two days late (if you don't count the weekend).

God, it felt hot as fucking hell.

"April, what is this?" Professor Wang --  whose opinion I cared a lot more about than I would care to admit -- just asked.

I shifted nervously in my seat. That's really not the question you want to hear out of the mouth of the person who held the fate of your final grade in their hands.

As I was about to open my mouth to respond, Wang beat me to the mark and continued.

"I mean, the writing alone is impressive. But where's the rest of it?" She leans back in her office chair, holding the loosely stapled papers of my assignment back up at me. It felt like a scolding. "The assignment was to write twenty pages and you wrote eleven."

Okay, I lied earlier when I said it was sixty-five percent completed it was fifty-five but when you're trying to complete a paper by only sleeping four hours in the span of three days, the details get a little muggy.

I suddenly felt the need to defend myself. "I've honestly just been so swamped with work everyday. Plus my tutoring position on the side--"

"If your schedule is too rigorous then drop one of your classes."

"But then I won't qualify for my scholarship, which I need to keep my apartment."

The grimace on Wang's face was telling of the fact she wasn't liking any of my excuses.

I twiddled my thumbs and stared up at the cobweb in the corner of her dull office as the silence in the room grew heavy. I could feel her hooded dark eyes boring into me, trying to decide what to do with me but failing.

I knew that look all too well which was why I couldn't find it in me to look back at her. It was one of those morally conflicted looks of realizing how difficult it must be for poor students to keep up with an education system created for the rich but also not wanting to tread on the line of special treatment.

It was pity. I really hated pity.

As I was readying myself to take the final blow of defeat, the professor suddenly let out a sigh that weirdly sounded sympathetic. 

"Look.. your work has potential I would hate to not see come to fruition. So I can give you a two day extension."

My attention snapped back to her in surprise. The college gods were on my side today.

"Oh my God, thank you. Thank you, Professor."  I was so relieved I could kiss her. But that wasn't appropriate, so instead I settled with telling her, "I won't let you down. I promise!" Again, correction, I won't let you down again.

I hurried out of her office in a sort of short and frantic frenzy after, making my break before she had time to change her mind. 

Despite my glee I wouldn't have much time for celebration. My five hour shift at Timeless Bites was starting in fifteen minutes so I somehow had to book it across the quad to a destination that at fast walking pace usually took twenty-five.