Tell Me What You Hate About Me

28: Winds of Change

"I thought you said you weren't coming to class today," Dominic said from his usual seat in the ASL classroom.

Of course, he wasn't there when I almost tried to catch up on all the material I had missed, and that was several courses' worth of signs. And I was glad he didn't see that. He would probably convince himself that the effort was meant for him like the egotistical jerk he was.

I smiled and took my seat. "I changed my mind, if that's okay with you."

He didn't respond to that. He just went back to his notes.

Although I didn't carry it with me the same way I always had the gold one, I still hadn't given the silver talisman to Sierra like I said I would. I most likely would eventually, but I was too tired for that after getting yelled at by Harvey for no good reason.

There was a reason for Dominic not to like me. There were a couple of reasons for Sierra not to like me. There were a million reasons for Jack not to like me. But I hadn't given one to Harvey except that I thought he sucked, but I never even told him that.

"So what's been going on in this class? Anything exciting?" I asked Dominic.

He didn't even look up from his work. "Nothing that would excite you, I'm sure."

Smartass. "Then how about anything boring?"

"Well, we're a few weeks behind, so we're supposed to start working with a conversation partner to make up for the lost time."

"Conversation partner? Does that mean we have to work together again?"

He shook his head. "It's supposed to be with someone farther along in their ASL classes. And I already did mine."

"Kiss-ass," I muttered.

"What?"

I was pretty sure he heard me, and if he didn't, he could probably figure it out.

Before Dominic could ask me to repeat myself again, Dr. Rainier (if I remembered the new professor's name correctly) walked into the classroom with a briefcase in one hand and a stack of papers in the other. Busy man. He wrote signing only! on the board, wiped the chalk dust on his pant leg, and turned back around.

How did I always manage to pick the worst days to come to class?

The one thing I liked better about our ASL class now that Dr. Roberts was gone was that he and Dominic couldn't team up and make fun of me anymore. I knew Dominic would say just about anything to get the chance to make himself look good for authority, but why did it have to be at my expense? But with Dr. Rainier, that wasn't a problem. He had bigger things to worry about as the head of the languages department.

I took out my book from my backpack. I was pretty sure we were somewhere around chapter four, but after I spent a whole three minutes trying to commit chapter one to memory, I wasn't sure how well this was going to go.

Before he sat down at the desk at the front of the room, Dr. Rainier dropped the papers in his hand, and since Dominic always took the seat right in front, one of them feathered to a rest at his feet. Dominic picked it up and handed it back.

"Thank you, Dominic," Dr. Rainier said.

Dominic looked over at me and didn't reply with "no problem" or anything along those lines. Either he didn't hear him, or there was something on that paper that Dominic didn't like to see.

Maybe he failed a quiz.

I kept my smile to myself with that thought. As pleasant as the idea of his failure was, what were the odds that Dominic wouldn't just kill himself right there if he scored that low?