After narrowly escaping senior year -- and the complicated grips of her first love -- Bridget Montez is now a junior in college, living out all the things she wished for, and vowing to keep her past in the past. Only, she's having a hard time keepin...
My eyes popped open and my breath stopped short as the book on my lap spilled to the ground. I looked up to find a set of frustrated eyes burning holes into my forehead.
"Yes, I'm here. Yes. Yes." Stop saying yes idiot.
"Thank you for being here." She deadpanned. "Are you ready to present your article?"
"Absolutely. Yes, it's on my laptop."
I rummaged through my bag only to remember that my laptop had died halfway through my Philosophy seminar earlier. In my rush to leave, I didn't pack my charger in my bag. I looked around the room at my peers. Their faces were a mix of pity, confusion, and amusement. Right at the center of them all stood Maeve Stewart. The Cruella DeVil of undergraduate student papers. She spewed venom in her critiques of our writing. It was only made worse by the fact that she was right more time than not. Every piece that she made notes on has turned out better and it made all of us unwilling fans of hers. Needing her input and despising the way she gave it.
No matter how many awards I win for my short stories — and I have snagged a few during my time here — I'll never have the gift that she has for non-fiction writing and reporting. Something about writing about the truth crippled me. I'd much rather play around with the imaginary. What I wrote fictionally didn't impact any real-world people. It filled a safe space. I don't know why I even had to be here. I wanted to write novels, not be a damn journalist. But my advisor told me it would help to strengthen my writing and make me more lucrative for the Master's program. So here I was. A regular bootleg Ida B. Wells. It was embarrassing.
"I forgot my charger. I can send it to you as soon as I get back to my room. Or can I borrow your laptop I think I saved it on the cloud? If I can just log in." I spoke in an anxious whisper that I had developed only for this group of people. It was a scared tiny voice that ached under the tremble of my vocal cords and it was amplified in the quiet room. I swore I could hear each individual breathing as they waited for me to be eviscerated. A snicker started from the other side of the room.
"Have you already mentally checked out to be a basketball wife? Is your application sitting on an executive's desk at VH1? I mean, inquiring minds want to know." Devin. I didn't think there would be actual bullies in college. I thought that was pure high school shit. We were all adults here or at least putting on our best performance as one. No one would choose to be an adult bully right? But here stands Devin. A slight six-foot-three menace, dressed from head-to-toe in European designers, forever armed with a sharp tongue that made me consider dumping poisons into the Matcha iced tea he always carried even in the dead of winter. I welled up all the hate I could muster in my body and shot a look of pure vitriol out in his direction.
"It's not like that—" I was still whispering. That tiny voice struggling against the lump in my throat. What the fuck? I wanted to yell and be spicy but my body was too tired to manage it.
"Then make it seem like it's not that and turn in your work on time. Everyone else has their work ready." Maeve redirected the attention back to her but didn't take any of the heat off of me. Her Puerto Rican accent slipped through adding a sharpness to her rebuke. I remained rigid.
"You may be waiting for your box seats at MSG but some of us still have to hustle." Devin threw another dagger. His long legs crossed at the knee and stuck out from beneath the desk. They seemed to go for a lifetime and ended in stylish Dr. Marten loafers perched on his huge feet. I hated him and those loafers. I hoped his Steve Jobs turtle neck tightened unexpectedly and choked the life out of him.
"Dev. That's enough." She held two fingers up in his direction but kept her gaze fixed on me. She was on a warpath. Maeve made her way over to me in small menacing steps. My body tensed at the threat. I was under assault, it was convinced. I tried not to sink into the wooden chair beneath me. I wanted to bark back. Say something snide and keep her off my back but my mind was still struggling to stay awake. Before I knew it she was bending over eye level to me, hair gel that locked her curls in a severe slicked back ponytail twinkled before my eyes as it caught under the fluorescent lights.
"Writing takes discipline. Awareness and introspection. You have to allow yourself the time and space to think. Spend time with the ideas and realities of the world. If you don't, your writing will suffer. No amount of natural talent can compensate for that. You are good Bri, but not that good." She leaned in closer. "And you smell like a dispensary." Her words hit my face. My voice struggled to release itself from the choke hold my throat placed it in and the hot tears pressed against the backs of my eyes.
"I don't need—" I started a sentence without knowing the ending. I struggled to find the words to keep speaking.
"I have an article. I could really use the feedback since I'm including it in my piece for grad school ." Maya, a senior who had done an article on the tribulations of DACA students that made me weep, piped up from across the room. Maeve narrowed her eyes at me, daring me to say something before she pulled back. I shot a gracious look to Maya who nodded.
I spent the rest of the class trying to keep my eyes open. Though they continued to fill with tears, partially from my exhaustion and partially from how upset I was. All year I've been trying to keep it together. Traveling to spend time with Yuri. Balancing work, school, and social life. Regardless of how close I came to not delivering I actually delivered. No one ever saw the craziness going on behind the curtain. But today my curtain slipped and everyone saw how shotty the whole production was. A tear tumbled over my lower eyelid just as Maeve drew the meeting to close. I swiped up all my things quickly and was the first out of the door to make my great escape. As soon as my foot crossed the threshold I smashed into someone. I was about to whisper quick apologies and duck into a stall in the bathroom to fall apart in peace but the figure grabbed me by my shoulders.
"It has not been that long for you to not even see me here." I looked up and immediately felt the tears pressing forward.
"What's wrong...and what's going on with this situation?" Rita ran a gentle hand along my raggedy edges. A sob escaped my lips as I clutched at my best friend.
"Oh, okay. Shh. Shh. It's okay. Let's get you out of here."
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