Brie Sheridan has had her heart broken way too many times. Rhett Price is usually the culprit, but, this time, he might be the solution.
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Brooke 'Brie' Sheridan wouldn't necessa...
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BRIE
My days have successfully become so boring and repetitive that, after the whirlwind my senior year of college has been so far, I'm starting to see it as a welcome change.
I attend my lectures, making sure to behave like a model student, and be the apple of every professor's eye to ensure I'll still have a shot at becoming someone in life in case plan A and plan B don't work out. At least I won't be a friendless, contactless loser, even if my only friends in life besides my immediate family are my college professors, feeling sorry for me.
Just thinking about that being an actual possibility sickens me with humiliation. It's never been a feeling I've been comfortable around, the way it sits on my chest like an anchor tied to my heart. I don't want to be the type of person that fails to properly enjoy their college years because they're so preoccupied with the opinion of every single person on campus, but my people pleasing tendencies will always be too overpowering.
I care too much, love too hard, and cope too little. What a fantastic combo.
At first, my ambition was praised, as the drive to succeed runs in the family and we're known to overcome hardships like it's no one's business, like it's second nature, and I sort of went with what has always been expected of me. I push through, I fight the system, I don't quit. My heart is a stubborn little muscle, but that also means I never know my own limits.
So, when I'm finally offered a break from the mindless stress my academic life has been pushing down on my shoulders, I'm not entirely sure what to do. I haven't known what it's like to not feel suffocated (there goes that horrid, vile word again, following me around like a raincloud during a thunderstorm) by academic pressure since freshman year, when I realized all the extra work I'd have to put into my career in comparison to the majority of my peers.
I have a scholarship to honor, not to mention my entire family's hopes for me, and, at my core, I really am just a girl. A girl needs a break every now and then—unless her name is Brooke Sheridan, of course; in that case, she needs to square her shoulders, force herself to smile, and act like everything is fine.
Realistically, though? Everything is fine. Somehow, that's the worst part.
I could have it so much worse and yet I don't, so it feels fruitlessly selfish to constantly complain when I'm being offered so many things I've always dreamed of, regardless of how hard and tooth and nail I've fought for them. They're still there.
Rhett has proved to be a saving grace—something I never thought I'd say this time last year, two years ago, or even at the beginning of freshman year of college, back when I was still an open wound, mindlessly walking around campus while praying we wouldn't run into each other too often. Back when I thought there was no going back, no way in hell he would ever change.
