How His Gift Saved Me

A First Thought

Dedicated to LilyAvenue for this incredible cover!  :)  Thank you again!!!

A/N: First of all I want to thank everyone who has read this story for your encouraging words and gracious votes.  You all are why I write.  I'm a college student taking 16 hrs. and working 16 hrs., so this is what I do for FUN.  I apologize in advance for the flouncy wording and potentially overdramatic sentence structure.  After reading a shitton of scientific reports, historical writing, research write-ups, and textbook "prose", I miss "pretty" writing.  I didn't mean to over-write this, but I've been told I have a tendency to do that. :/  I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

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A young student sat cross-legged, her arms folded tightly across the front of her sleeveless cherry sailor dress.  Allowing one of her arms to escape, she tousled her thin fingers through her jaggedly layered champagne locks.  The repetitious tapping of her mustard ballet flat increased ever-so-slightly the longer she sat, as evidence of her waning patience.  She received an email from her academic advisor asking her to come by at 3:30pm, which is where she now waited half an hour past the proposed time. 

The advisor’s convoluted message, lacking an official rationale behind the abruptly-called meeting, caused Liese’s imagination to fabricate a number of theories.  Her overactive conscious could not handle the ambiguity and began to doubt itself.  Currently chewing on her finger nail, she postulated accidental plagiarism as the cause even though she always took pride in being an honest “A” student.  The anticipation was too intense, and she might have lost her composure if it were not for animated receptionist chirping that the advisor was ready to see her now. 

Liese often travelled down this particular hallway throughout her time at Boston University.  She remembered how frightened she felt as she ventured to meet her advisor for the first time.  She recollected back to when she had been a peer mentor with her advisor.  She even recounted the time she almost changed her major from English to Government in a moment of frustration and panic.  She felt a twinge of sadness as she considered how this trip might be her last before graduating at the end of spring term.  Arriving outside of her advisor’s office, she paused for a moment contemplating the thought. 

Hearing two voices instead of the expected one, her heart dropped.  “Oh God, it must be the dean,” she thought, discerning a deepness in the second voice.  Rapping her knuckles rapidly against the solid door, almost immediately Liese wished she had restrained herself a moment longer.  An abashed expression spread across her face when Liese was met by the plumpish face of her advisor.  Throwing a fleshy arm jovially around Liese’s shoulder, the advisor ushered her into the quaint yet cluttered room.

“Liese, I’m so glad you could make it!  We were just talking about you.  I hope we didn’t keep you waiting too long.”

“No ma’am not at all,” Liese politely lied in response.

“Honey, I know you’re from Texas and you guys might say ‘ma’am’ down there, but sweetie you just make me feel so old!  Please," she pleaded, patting an open hand on Liese's shoulder, "call me Susan.”

Liese nodded, but she knew her father would die if he knew she called her advisor by her first name.  She let out a small chuckle as she imagined her own dad having a rather animated stress attack.  The thought of it aided in calming her nerves.

A silver-haired man who sat in a large velvet olive chair in the corner cleared his throat.  His somewhat feeble arms stabilized themselves on the worn arm-rests as he pushed himself up to join the standing women.  He wore an argyle sweater vest of matching blues over a pale blue button down, which was neatly tucked into his khaki chinos that hovered far above his penny loafers.  It could not be more obvious that his wife laid out his attire the night before.