Still Loving You (SAMPLE)

Chapter Two

SEPTEMBER 2009 – BEST FRIENDS?

By Monday Quad showed up at her dorm with a box of Sour Patch Kids candies (her favorite), a pint of Mint Chocolate Ice Cream (her other favorite), and an apology. He even offered to spend the day watching all her favorite movies. Before she accepted, she made sure to give him an earful about disrespecting her. No matter his reasoning, it wasn't okay. He apologized again, and everything was how it should be. That was two weeks ago. Today was the first week of September which meant that the football season officially began in four days. The anticipation consumed the campus. Professors offered extra credit for going to the first game of the season. Luckily this season the first game was a home game. There was a big pep rally being held on the practice field Friday night. The football players were being treated as heroes.

Wynn marveled at it all. So far college was turning out to be much different than she expected, especially the five-page paper on the history of education in America that she now had to write for her American History course. It was their first official assignment worth ten percent of their final grade. Their professor, Dr. Knight, felt it was a good way to warm them up. Whatever that was supposed to mean.

It was Wednesday afternoon, and Wynn was done with her classes for the day. She decided to head to the library to work on the paper. The comfortable study areas were her go-to study spots. Her favorite was a booth located on the ground level with long purple leather couches and a large rectangular table. There were also plenty of outlets, so she didn't have to worry about her laptop's battery running out.

After stopping by the on-campus convenience store for some snacks, she made her way to the library ready to settle in her favorite spot. When Wynn got to the spot, there was already a chocolate skinned boy with tall coarse hair, hanging out there. She frowned slightly and turned looking for somewhere else to study.

"Don't go," he called out to her. She stopped looking back at him with a curious expression. "I'm Darryl Parker from Dr. Knight's American History class. You're in it too, right?"

"Yeah, I am," she answered.

"You sit right in front of me," Darryl admitted. "I'm guessing you're here to work on the paper."

Wynn sighed heavily. "You mean the new bane of my existence." Darryl chuckled and motioned for her to take the seat across from him. "We're still discussing colonization, so I have no idea why we have to write this paper," she complained.

Darryl shook his head. "Dr. Knight has a reputation for being a strange professor. I only ended up in her close because the others were full. Did you check her out on Rate My Professor?"

Wynn's eyebrows knitted together as she frowned. "What's that?"

Darryl's eyes widened. He was surprised by her question. "It's a website that is going to change the way you sign up for classes."

Her mouth twisted in disbelief. "I'll let you know if you're right next semester."

"Deal," he muttered while looking back at the screen of his laptop. "I've been searching through the library's database for sources, but I've got nothing so far."

"Oh great," Wynn groaned. She had a feeling that this assignment wouldn't be an easy one. "Maybe Google Scholar will be more help."

Darryl shrugged his slim shoulders. "I'm going to do something our ancestors did, scour the bookshelves. If I don't return in ten minutes, they swallowed me whole." He slid out of the booth and walked away.

Wynn was elbow deep in search results when an eerie feeling overcame her. She looked up in time to see Nicole and Aaliyah walking together with large designer bags hanging in the crooks of their arms. She'd had very limited interactions with them since the Friday they were introduced. In fact, the last time she saw Aaliyah was when she was coming to Quad's dorm as Wynn was leaving. The girl had scoffed and rolled her eyes, but Wynn hurried away before she could be pulled into any drama. She didn't understand why Quad was wasting his time with Aaliyah. She had a terrible attitude, worse than any girl he had dated before. Of course, she didn't say that to him. She'd known Quad long enough to know that complaining about his girlfriend would only lead to him accusing her of being jealous.