[Highest ranking: #72 in General Fiction]
Spring semester is here!
Classes are back in session but will the girls be able to handle the struggle or will they get taken down like 'hay fever'?
College wasn't easy before but throw in a proposal, newbo...
Safiya didn't have much time to fret with her wardrobe that morning. She was usually known for honing girly and up to date outfits. She had Pinterest boards with fashion for every season and shoes to match every outfit but now she was a jean and t-shirt girl.
She paced in her seven by five-foot office at T.U.G with her cellphone pumping tunes. Her laptop was opened to a blank document and her notebook opened to a page scribbled with writing that was linear and nonlinear as her Human Rights textbook was open to the chapter she had dog-eared; she had a test in two hours and needed to finish reading the last few pages.
Safiya stared longingly out the glass door at her peers in the bullpen with a sense of envy lingering in the pit of her stomach. Carefree laughter and rambunctious horseplay ensured while others typed busily away on their computers, none of them had the burden she had. They weren't responsible for someone else's life—a four-month olds life.
She stepped over her sandals and stopped in front of the bassinet. She lowered Ameera onto the bed regardless of the fussy cry and languid kick of her chunky limbs.
"Nap time is nap time." Safiya insisted fixing Ameera's yellow plaid dress.
She knelt lower and placed a soft kiss on each of Ameera's puffy cheeks, "Sleep tight, sweet girl."
Quick rapping of knuckles on the glass door ended Safiya tender gaze at her child. She stood straight, pulling her shirt back over her jeans as she placed eyes on the girl in the pink dress on the other side the door.
Safiya waved the girl in, "Come—" The door slid back before she could finish the statement.
"Damn, girl." Emma forged deeper in Safiya's office as she twisted her auburn hair that was blonde three days ago into a bun and stabbed a pencil through it. "You good at this mother-thing."
Safiya let out an exhausted exhale as she fell back in her chair, "Naw...I'm just winging it." She lifted her textbook of the desk then glanced over at the bassinet, "But she's training me well."
"She's a cutie." Emma chided stealing a peek at the slumbering baby. "But..." She spun back towards Safiya. "Have you had time to read the comments on your article? It's blowing up. It's been retweeted eight thousand times."
Safiya pulled her eyes away from the book with big eyes, "Eighty..."
"Thousand." Emma completed with a cheeky grin on her face.
"What?!" Safiya gasped shocked. She minimized the blank document and clicked on Safari. "I haven't looked at it since last night when I posted it." She clicked on the T.U.G icon in her Favorites. "I hoped the title was an eye-catcher but I wasn't sure about it."
Emma tsked grabbing hold of her wide waist, "Rough Sex or Rape. All those words are attention grabbers."
"That's not..." Safiya's words fell silent as the screen loaded and the title popped up with her name under it.
"Five hundred comments." Emma reached over her shoulder and pointed at the screen.
Safiya backed away from the desk. "Watch her." She told with fury staining her caramel cheek rouge. She rushed out her office, weaved through the bullpen and stormed into Jack's office.
"What the hell did you do to my essay?"
Jack pushed his black-rimmed glassed over his ruffled hair in need of a brush, "I erase the biases you polluted it with."
"Bias." She laughed to herself; he had some nerve calling her bias. "I wrote a true exposé about your little friend, Jacob." She marched up to his desk. "I can't help it if your friend's a rapist."
Jack abandoned his relaxed posture, sitting erect. "His words firmly stated that the victim enjoyed rough sex." He flicked his wrist. "She was into the Fifty Shades of Gray, bullshit."
His was caused Safiya's eyes to blaze. She was happy she withheld Alyssa's identity and just adopted the moniker Bridget Doe.
"If you're speaking of BDSM." She clarified. "They use code words to let the other party know they wish to stop but during the night of the attack Bridget Doe used all the words universally known that one doesn't wish to participate in such an act, No and Stop; two-words of which he didn't comply too."
Jacob steepled his hands on the cluttered desk, "He said...she said. Now, since DNA under her fingernails has been thrown out."
"Jack, have you heard of CCTV?" She sarcastically asked knowing he had. "There's footage that of Jacob—"
"There's footage of Jacob but not of an alleged rape." He jumped in. "He also has footage of him and the victim's sexcapades during their time as a couple." He relaxed back in his chair with smugness painted over his freckled face, "Now, how would a judge perceive her then."
"As a young woman with a healthy libido." She backed up away from the desk and folded her arms, "There are two truths here." She took small steps backwards to the door, "People have sex and your friend is a rapist. Deal with that." She pointed to his computer. "Fix my article or I'll report you to the new dean...and she isn't a friend of your family." She rolled her eyes then dismissed herself from his office.
She trod back to her office. Her gait stopped at the cracked door. Emma was gone but Ameera wasn't alone. "What are you doing here?"
Who do you side with Jack or Safiya?
Who do you think is watching Ameera?
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
