Riverdale Imagines

Professional Affairs**- Cheryl Blossom

The only plus side Cheryl found to finally being eighteen and in college was the fact that she no longer lived at Thornhill. Living in the dorms became her only escape. College was a lot harder than she thought it would be. Classes were hard. She wasn't top bitch anymore and people were mean. Not to mention, Toni dumped her before the start of their second semester. She felt more than alone, but that was better than being at home.
When she walked into her Fiction Workshop class, she wanted to turn around and run the opposite direction. Toni and Jughead sat at one of the rectangular tables in the back by the windows. The tables were in the shape of a large square, chairs lining the outside. She sat near the front on the outside opposite corner, as far from Toni as she could. In that moment, she hated herself for wanting to try something new.

"Sorry I'm late. I'm just going to be honest, didn't really want to be here." A young woman said, maybe in her late twenties. Everyone laughed. Cheryl could only stare. From head to toe, the woman was stunning in her black skinny jeans and tight army green T-shirt, hair in a messy bun on top of her head.

"You're our professor?" She heard Jughead ask. The woman nodded.

"Mhm. Albeit, probably the least professional one you'll have." She joked. "My name is Y/N L/N. You can call me whatever, I really couldn't care less. Don't expect me to show up in formal wear with assignments at the ready. This is a workshop class, most of the time I just wing it and make sure I'm meeting the minimum requirements I'm supposed to." She sat at the table at the front of the square that only had one chair at it, which is probably why no one else sat there. "While I am rather relaxed, I do expect more than the bare minimum from all of you. I love fiction and writing, and I do take the assignments I give seriously. This isn't going to be a blow off class, you know, unless I blow it off, which might happen."

"This is my first workshop class. What does that mean?" A random guy asked.

"Thank you, I'm getting there. You'll have regular assignments you'll turn into me, and then you'll have workshop prompts. If it's a workshop prompt, you'll submit your work online. Each week, a handful of you will be workshopped, we just don't have the time to get to everybody for every assignment. I'll choose at random. It'll always be five students at a time. At the end of each week, those five students will bring enough copies of their work for each student and one for myself. You will spend the first half hour of class reading each one and writing your thoughts and critiques on the papers, kind of like you're editing something. Then the last hour and a half, each of the five will read their work and we'll voice our thoughts out loud. Yes, this is a two hour class. If your opinion is NOT constructive or helpful or kind, you do not say it, understand me? We aren't here to put each other down. For some of you, writing isn't your thing and it isn't what you want to do, so I'm fully aware you're just here because you needed a filler class or you thought it would be fun. So, like I said, if I think you are being hateful, if I think what you're saying is mean and not helpful in the slightest bit, I won't hesitate to give you an F on the assignment. I don't care that it's your opinion, if it's not nice or doesn't contribute to the students work in any way, it doesn't need to be said. Got it?"

"Got it." Everyone agreed. Y/N nodded proudly.

"Okay. I'm not going to give you an actual assignment for this week. I will be giving you all a prompt to write and submit to me online though. I want to spend the rest of class getting to know all of you and then I'll give you the prompt and choose five of you to bring copies to class on Friday." Y/N spent the rest of class asking them questions, everyone generally just chatting with her. Cheryl found herself watching her the whole time.

"Are you going to tell us about you?" Toni asked. Y/N smiled.

"When did that become part of the deal?" Everyone laughed again. "Alright, alright. I'm twenty-six, I started teaching here a year ago, this is my second here. I used to live on the west coast. I'm married to a wonderful woman, her name is Delilah and she's a doctor. I'm a published author. Don't worry, I'm not going to shove my book down your throats."