All of Me

two • the creep and the knight

• • •

From the way the professor is talking about the first assignment for my Literature of the Past course, you'd have thought it's the most important essay of my entire degree, let alone the first piece of work I'll ever complete. It's hard not to let his words get in my head as he spends almost the entire lecture outlining specific criteria and ways in which we'll fail.

Beside me, Gray is furiously scribbling notes while I've got the lecture pulled up on my screen to annotate the slides. I always type; Gray always writes everything out by hand, and when I drive him home each day, he compares our notes. His are usually better. I get lost in thought sometimes and realize I've missed a slide or two when he nudges me.

I've always been one to get tangled in the spider webs of my thoughts and it doesn't help that this course is dedicated to classic fiction. I can't stand the classics. I read enough of them in high school to know that: I hate the language and there's nothing I can relate to. I'd much rather lose myself in the latest releases, filled with voices that feel more like me.

When I can drown out the lecturer, I can see that this assignment is a drop in the ocean, only ten percent of one course out of five I'm taking, but I was there for that terrifying introductory lecture. A smiling woman stood at the front of a lecture theatre packed with English students, scanning us like a lion assessing her prey, and drilled into us that every assignment counts for our GPA.

It's not like I'm trying to get a 4.0. I haven't had such high grades since the first semester of sophomore year, and it's been a downward hill since there. At the end of my junior year, I was just about clinging onto a 3.7. Then Dad disappeared. My GPA plummeted to a 3.0 and the world didn't end any more than it already had.

I don't care about straight As. But it's hard not to be scared by the repetition that every moment of the next four years matters. I know it's not really true, but that doesn't make it any easier to digest.

Three fifty. At last. I heave a sigh when the professor reaches the end of his slides and I can stuff my laptop into my bag. Gray slings his satchel over his shoulder. He's got the put-together college student look down pat, though I know he's as confused as me most of the time. All the ACTs and SATs in the world couldn't have prepared me for the college reality.

"You ok?"

I press my lips together so hard it hurts. "Stressed."

"It's all scare tactics," he says. "We've got two weeks; we can figure it out together. It'll be fine."

I know he's right, and he's not saying anything I don't already know, but there's a difference between knowing and believing. It makes more sense when he says it. "Yeah, I say, holding my breath for a moment before I let it go.

"Storie?" He waits until I look at him and when I smile, he does too. "See you at nine?"

He knows my schedule better than I do. I have a five-hour shift at the bookstore today, inventively named South Lakes Books. It's my fifth and final shift of the week, and the latest. It'll be way after ten by the time Gray and I get back. Mom'll still be up though. She never goes to bed until I'm home.

"Yup. See you then."

I feel bad that he's stuck here, forced to hang out in Starbucks until I'm done, but he doesn't seem to care. He always has his e-reader in his hand when I pick him up, headphones clamped over his ears and an empty mug or two on the table in front of him.

He gives me an exuberant wave and heads off to the opposite end of campus. It's not far. South Lakes is a small city with more of a big town feel, and SoLa – what everyone calls the university – is even smaller. There are barely five thousand students and campus isn't even a square mile, including freshman accommodation.