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The College Years (Chapter 29)
By Vader
THE COLLEGE YEARS
Entry III: Time of Conclusion
Continued from Chapter 28 . . .
CHAPTER 29
The number ‘102’ seemed to sway back and forth, rolling ever so slightly on the faint grain that covered the slip of paper. When you fixated on a single figure that small for that long, I guess your eyes played tiny tricks on you. It was the endmost question of my last Health exam, which I’d begun an hour ago, just after I’d finished my Algebra final. Having two tests this long in a row, with no space for a breather in between was as distant as could be from fun.
My knuckles were white, gripping the wood of a pencil that had been chewed on several times. I scratched my soggy forehead with bitten fingernails, hours of anxiety all building up to this one moment – the most credit-worthy inquiry of them all. I nervously set the tip of my pencil down on the paper as if I were to write the answer, and then took it off a split second later – I lost count of how many times I’d pulled that move. I had narrowed it down to two answers, absolutely sure that either one could be right.
My brain had been focused on a single subject for so long, it began to shift gears, awakening the memories of Erin, Kevin, and Rachel, recalling a churn in sadness. Stop it . . . concentrate. I closed my eyes dwelling on the two options I could put down, searching, searching . . . until suddenly, another fact seemed to randomly pop into my head. The chromosome count isn’t equal to the DNA count. It can’t be choice ‘D’.
I quickly shaded in bubble ‘B’ and closed the pamphlet. I’d completed it. As always, I had that sudden urge after the test to go back and revise each answer. However, I was sure of the correctness of most of my answers, and due to the time limit, there wasn’t much of a possibility to do any more. As the last person left, most likely because I’d spent so long on the last few problems, I grabbed my back pack and headed up to the front of the room, where Professor Hopkins was waiting with a kind, yet subtly annoyed look on her face.
“Sorry for taking so long. Just wanted to be sure,” I shrugged, tossing the packet into the pile along with the others. She picked up the stack and placed it into one of several boxes sitting next to her, the keys from her pocket drawn. “Need any help with lifting those into your car?” I offered, motioning to the crates.
“Oh no, that’s fine. I already asked someone to come help me,” she hastily returned. With a simple nod, and one more thoughtful look around the classroom, I approached the door and pushed through, stepping outside.
Immediately, I bumped right into someone headed inside, finding myself glowering right into an icy, instantly recognizable face.
My mind sputtered - could it really be him?
It sure was.
After the split-second of surprise passed, the features of Scott contorted into a hateful scowl so distinct, it almost felt like a direct flashback to our confrontation outside of the Health building ages ago. The ghost from my past nightmare had come back for another haunting, this time more shocking than ever before. We stood there, locked in our steps, towering over one another, tension building.
Yes, it was almost exactly the same . . . almost. This time, I wasn’t afraid.
As he raised his middle finger up to my path of vision, I calmly pushed it back downward, forcing my way pass him and briskly walking in the other direction. I didn’t turn to see his reaction. No, I didn’t look back.
And that was the last time I ever saw Scott again.
Just as I got over the unanticipated and strained reunion, feeling slightly lightheaded while rounding the hallway and entering a corridor, I bumped into yet another familiar face - or rather, a familiar surfboard. I rebounded off of the bright yellow-and-red waxy surface of my English teacher’s board as he spun around with a grin. “Dude!” he greeted, “What’s up?”
“Oh, sorry about that. I wasn’t looking where I was going,” I chuckled, rubbing my neck.
“No worries. This baby took more of a beating out there in the surf this morning – aw, bra there was a freaking awesome swell!” he laughed, patting his cargo. “I caught some major air!”
“That’s great, Sim,” I smirked, my amusement over how he was actually a professor still having not been sedated since the first day of class. The first day of class . . . when I first met Erin . . . No, stop thinking about her!
“By the way, Erin stopped by my office this morning to turn in her paper early since she can’t come to class today,” he enforced my reflections on the young woman, the very mentioning of her name causing my heart to skip a beat. “She wanted me to give this to you.” Extended outward before me was a plain, wide, envelope, not so much as my name marked upon its front. The envelope looked uninviting, chilly. I didn’t want to take it, but after a short period of silence, I gulped and slowly reached out to grasp it.
Sim must’ve noticed my apprehensiveness, looking upon me with a raised eyebrow as I kept my pupils glued to the object I held in my hand. “Breakup letter?” he tersely questioned. I raised my face back up to his, giving a forlorn and barely existent, lop-sided smile. “Hey dude, just remember – life is like surfing. If you see huge waves coming, you can’t fight it, you’ve got to surf with it. Sometimes, those really big waves totally wipe you out. After that, you might get a little uneasy about surfing again, but you’ve just to get back out there and do it.” When he first started to say those words, I was ready to not pay attention, because they were so typical from Sim. But underneath their sounding unusual, semi-comical, and cheesy . . . they somehow made sense, and in their own way, sounded remotely wise.
I chuckled quietly, shaking my head. “I guess you’re right,” I told him, furrowing my eyebrows. I felt a slap on my shoulder as he gave the common surfer sign of his thumb and pinky extended.
“Take it easy bro,” he smiled. “I’ll see you at class.”
He left me there, standing in the middle of the hallway, with nothing to do but look down at the piece of paper that was so light, yet so heavy at the same time. I knew the message that would be revealed inside, I knew reading it would hurt me. I wanted to just throw it into wastebasket placed beside me, its mouth wide open, calling for me to toss it away. But amidst my inner conflict, I found myself opening the outer flap, and pulling out the words that were about to hit me like a brick . . .
(More to come)
4/7/2003 11:27:57 PM
(Updated: 4/7/2003 11:54:44 PM)
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