Princess {Currently Being Updated}

Chapter 2

I made to my class with some time to spare. It is still beyond me but there seems to always be seats in the front of the class no matter how late or early you come to class. I take my usual seat in the front of the class and nodded a silent hello to my professor who was already setting up today's short powerpoint. It was the last class of the semester, so I was even surprised to see her bothering to set a lecture. After securing my seat and setting up a notebook and pen, I approached her front desk.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Hill."

"Good afternoon, Bethany!" She beamed and corrected her glasses. "You finally happy with that paper?"

"Yes ma'am. I finally found some sources that actually checked out. Forgive me for saying this but I never want to go through that nightmare again."

She laughed and patted my shoulder, "Well after today, you won't have to. I looked over your grade, you should have an easy A with or without this paper. I'm sure you did a fantastic job."

"Thanks. Can I ask what we're doing today?" I motioned towards the projector.

"Oh, you'll see in a minute." She winked.

I nodded and sat back down, where I could already see the room filling up with more disgruntled faces. I shook off the feeling of being watched and opened my bag to retrieve my paper. I double checked. Then a final check. It was the final draft for sure and perfect, or at least the best I could possibly write with so little time. Naturally if I had more time, I would have slept more and cried over this paper less. Only kidding.

I turned the paper in and for the rest of the class period we enjoyed watching a movie provided with free popcorn for all the students. When I tell you Dr. Hill is one of the greatest professors in this university, I'm not lying. Several times in the semester I had come to class dead beat tired and fell asleep in the front of the class. She didn't call attention to me, or give me a hard time, or do something mean like give out a test question while I was out. She let me sleep. Afterwards, she gave me a copy of the lecture notes and made sure I was all right.

That was the night mother was up until four in the morning crying herself to sleep.

Two finals later, I emerged a new person. The last two were an arts credit and a history. Simple things really, in comparison to the core science classes I had already finished. They were some of my last general state regulated classes. It made my heart a little more happier knowing from here on out was core classes. Classes towards my actual degree. No more nonsense. Thinking about it gave me excitement and anxiety. First off, they were core classes, meaning they will be hard. Much more studying time would be needed to be invested. Paired with the worry that I might not have time to give them as much attention they deserved. I wanted to have my mother checked by a psychiatrist. Her progress was much to slow in my opinion. Its been years since he left. She barely laughed and smiled until recently. Also, work time would need to be increased to meet book prices as well as rent and food.

I knew I was going to pull it off. I just needed to figure out how, and at what cost?

Since I didn't have any school left, the next day was a whole day at work. Well, not just the next day. It was about four days straight of work. If not here with Jacob, my usual morning partner, then another coffee shop on campus. Always the drink maker, away from people. After closing on the fourth day, I received an email at home from school. It was from Dr. Hill.

Good evening,

I hope you've had an exciting beginning to your Christmas Holiday, however I need to have a meeting with you two girls before I can submit your final grades. There seems to be an issue with your papers and I need to further speak with you about the subject. I will be in my office in the Maxwell Dworkin Building at 1:00pm on Monday.

I look forward to seeing you,

Dr. Lasandra Hill

I took a moment to breathe. What was so horribly wrong with my paper? I thought back to it, I was pretty sure I cited all my research material. As for the experiment, I did everything following protocol. Actually, everything was well documented and there. There shouldn't have been anything wrong with it. We had read over it several times, I had everything that I needed there shouldn't have been a problem. I glanced back to the email and read it again. 'an issue with your papers.' Yes, something was wrong. I might have accidentally plagiarized something. Or I've heard of professors saying they don't believe a student wrote a paper and then they completely reject it. But surely not Dr. Hill.

Who is this other girl?

The email address read Jennifer Adams. A name I'm not sure of, at least not from any of the high placing students here. Must have been another student who's caught with the wrong citations. I closed the email and checked on my mother, who was just watching the sky and the moon.

"Hey, mommy." I hugged her from behind. Even though I just came from the cold winter air, she still felt cold to me. And it scared me. I love the cold, but some things need to be warm, like a home, a bed, or a hug.

"I rented a movie from Red Box. Do you want to sit and watch it with me with a warm cup of hot coco?"

"My little precious girl, of course I would." She stretched out her long legs from the curled up position they had stayed all day in, and next her arms as well from hugging them. I helped her take a few steps towards the couch and wrapped her up with my comforter. I took two cups of hot chocolate form the kitchen and gave her one. It was her favorite mug, or at least the one she would always recognize.

"Oh, I know this cup." she started. "It was the cup your father got me when we were first dating. He forgot to get me a Christmas present. He lost his silly mind looking what to give me. He was a clever one, let me tell you. He bought a mug and filled it with hot coco and rented all the best christmas classics he could find. All of them. Rascal. He said my present was a special night of Christmas Spirit. We went to see christmas lights after that." She sighed.

And I waited until she was done with her story before starting the movie. It was an old movie. I think it was Back to the Future. I can't remember which one though, like this time and many times before, I fell asleep towards the beginning. I never complained. I just wanted to be with my mom. A perfect moment watching a movie snuggled up to the only person who loved me. She wrapped an arm around me and I was fast asleep in her arms like a child.