about a boy,
who was lost,
and thought he was found,
until he meets a girl,
the same girl,
who makes him wonder
if there's more to life
than just getting by.
-
[a Jem-centered novella/sequel to The Girl Who Saw Through Jem]
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Chapter Twelve
One Step Forward, Three Steps Back
Ellis
By the time I got off the waiting list for Shakespeare's Life and Times, it was well into the second school year and winter break had just begun.
The professor, Mr. Robertson, had sent me an email regarding a second-semester enrolment as one of his students dropped out halfway through the school year, which meant a slot had opened up.
There was no point enrolling in a class halfway through the semester, this I know, but for some reason, before I could write an email declining the offer, I hastily typed out a reply expressing my interest and how I was more than willing to put into the work to catch up to his students. I pressed send without a second to waste.
Before I could regret my decision, I was too embarrassed to rescind my expression of interest. Thus, we come to where we are now: me hopelessly lost, the first day back at school after winter break, wandering aimlessly through an unexplored university campus I've been at for a year and a half, trying to find the goddamn English department.
As a pre-med student, my time on the Harvard campus was spent mostly at the Science center, located at the very top of Harvard Yard. The English department was tucked in the east corner of Harvard Yard, just off the path of Quincy street. Stepping into the classroom for Shakespeare's Life and Times was like stepping into an entirely different school than the one I've attended for the past four months. Instead of a giant lecture hall, which was where all my science courses were located, it was a tiny, intimate classroom, the kind we had in high school. There were no desks, just bean bags arced into a U, around a lectern in the middle. And the students sitting on them, they were different too. Lip rings and hair-dyed colors not found naturally on the human head. It was a sea of well-manicured alienation. A whole world full of Calista Dames.
Compared to them, I looked practically Republican in a simple cotton-and-silk Graham and Spencer pale blue skirt with a white Cynthia Rowley sleeveless blouse. A Burberry coat draped over my shoulders and I uncomfortably bunched it around my waist as I came in and looked for a seat.
I took a beanbag seat on the floor, near the door, for an easier escape. Doubt puddled in my stomach as I sank into the soft seat, my short legs nearly flying out and flashing my La Perla underwear. I might be struggling in Chemistry but I certainly didn't belong here either.
When Professor Robertson walked in five minutes late, looking like Calista's long-lost father- shaggy graying hair, beat-up Doc Martens, and an eyebrow piercing, he stepped on me. As in, literally treading on my foot, my Chanel flats squeaking under his steel-toed boots.
As bad as my other classes had been, no one had ever stepped on me. Not an auspicious start, and I almost left right then and there, but my way was now blocked by the overflow of other students.
