Trying

Chapter Two

Past ten PM was when the words flowed easiest. Tiredness was rawness. Rawness was good writing. And good writing was a good grade.

(Also, most sentences you speak past ten are composed of noun, linking verb, noun. Possibly adjective.)

Mom had just left for work when I started my poem assignment. Poetry was so structured that I often didn't enjoy it. The prose, the freestyle stuff was the best kind, especially for this prompt. I loved meaningful writing, writing that teaches lessons. I decided to write about an extremely destructive societal habit: the lack of care for caring a lot. I refer to it as the Nerd-Shaming Epidemic.

why do we look down

on Passion?

not caring is more acceptable

than Loving Unironically, Completely.

nothing

can

justify

making a person wish

they were someone else

that Cared

less.

Being enthusiastic is not wrong.

Faking indifference is.

Look, even emphasized capitalization. Ooh, fancy.

And then I was asleep. Hopefully thirteen lines were enough to get one hundred percent. Knowing Ms. Piper, it would be. As long as the words were important, the quantity didn't matter.

I woke up around three to my phone vibrating. I had forgotten to face it down before going to bed, so the screen's light exploded into my bedroom, all across the walls and mirrors.

I flailed an arm around on my side table, in search for the headache-inducing light screen. It was a text from an unknown number.

Hey, Emily. How is your poem going?

I blinked twice, then replied.

Who is this?

Iain

?

Iain Oldman? Creative Writing? Do I have the right number?

Yeah, but how did you get my number?

I sat up now and tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes. Did Iain not have a sense of time or awareness of a common sleeping schedule?

I found it on your writing notebook.

What? Did Iain steal my notebook? I refused to leave the warm confines of my bed to check my backpack, so I would just have to ask him out front.

Did you steal my notebook?

While I waited for him to reply, I began panicking. Suddenly it was very evident that Iain could have gone through everything. My sociopath/cabbie story, my prose, my silly little drabbles and personal memoirs. My Orphan Black fanfiction.

I was startled from my self-consuming anxiety when the phone buzzed in my hand.

Yes. But I only read the story you told me about in class.

How could I believe him, though? He was practically a stranger. There was really no foolproof way to find out if he was telling the truth or not, and I was too tired to problem solve right now, though it would likely plague me for hours.