A Necessary Struggle: Fall Semester

Part 35

The Writing Center was practically empty. Besides the two boys huddled around the laptop like it held the secret of life, it was just Safiya and the guy whose paper she'd been checking for two hours straight. She wondered how he passed high school English with the number of comma splices flooding his paper. Regardless, she tried to do her job even though he couldn't stop talking. He'd been rambling on and on about random topics since he sat down at her table.

"All politicians are liars so what's the point." He read the red marks she made on his double-spaced paper.

Safiya stopped crossing out the middle paragraph of his essay, "The point is we still have to vote. Make sure  the right people are in office so the legislature that we need has enough votes to pass."

"Our parents have tried that and our grandparents and we still have to fight for freedoms that are freely given to others." He leaned back in the hard plastic lime chair like he uttered the debate winning the argument. 

"We still have to try." She added. "We should get back to work."

"No." He dropped his pencil to hold his head. "I can't organize any more subjects, verbs, and adjectives around on paper and try to make them agree," he whined closing his notebook. "Let's get something to eat. I'm hungry and I know you are." He stole a peek at her belly.

"Why?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "Because I'm pregnant."

"Precisely!" He zipped up his backpack rising from the chair. "You catch on fast. I like you." He smiled plucking the plastic leaf of the massive plant next to the table.

"Well, maybe you shouldn't" Safiya pushed her chair under the table, Lauren was a real stickler about tidiness. "Cause apparently I'm the campus slut."

"You are?" He gasped. "I follow campusslut.com and I've never seen your selfie."

"Campusslut.com, that's not real." Her heart sped up. She hoped her face wasn't plastered on some website for the entire world to see.

"I mean..." He shrugged. "Slut just means an overly happy girl from an overdose of orgasms."

She narrowed her eyes at him, "Are you serious." She prayed he was playing but who would play a joke like that. It was probably Garner's doing. He must've gone home after he smashed her car window and hunted for the best place to shame her.

"Unless you get paid for it because I know McDonald's isn't hiring anymore and it's hard out there for a...." He smiled then burst out in laughter. "I'm just joking."

She punched him hard in the side and her doubled over. "You're a jackass." Her phone chirped. She grabbed it out of her purse and read over the text.

"Your article is playing out in the Yellow parking lot." He read aloud holding on to his side like it was going to fall away from his body.

Safiya held her phone to her chest, "Dude. Privacy."

He backed away from her shoulder. "So, we're going to the Yellow parking lot before we get something to eat?" He asked heading towards the door.

She pushed her phone back in her pocket, "We aren't going anywhere."

He stopped in his tracks and whipped around, "If you think I'm going to let a pregnant woman walk around campus at this hour you'd be incorrect."

Safiya looked out the window as the sun sat tucked behind the trees in the orange sky, "It's not even dark yet and I don't need an escort."

His gray eyes sparkled as he pushed his thick black hair out his face, "By the time you penguin walk to the Yellow parking lot it'll be the witching hour."

"The witching—" She laughed. "You are a freak of nature." She tried to rid her mouth of the smile that hung on her face as she pushed him out of the doorway but she couldn't. She walked around him hoping the rumbling in her stomach was ­­­­­­her baby kicking around and not butterflies.

He skipped to her side, "A freak of nature that'll be walking with you."

Safiya rubbed her stomach. Nope, those were butterflies. She inwardly sighed as he held the door open for her. Her conscience asked her one question, why do you always fall for boyish charm and beards?  Yes, she had a weak spot.