**THIS BOOK IS ON HOLD UNTIL I'M DONE WRITING LOVE CONSEQUENCES** Linda Baxter's trust fund makes life easy, but she learned that things in pretty packages are not worth her time. By twenty-nine, she tried marriage, fabricated a fake relationship, a...
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Today is Merida Agneu's workshop class number two. The thought enters my brain the moment I open my eyes before the alarm goes off to start the day. Through the splatters of toothpaste and an odd smear I can't name the origin of, the mirror in my bathroom reflects a gleam of a mad scientist and a blush of a virgin bride that makes me look more alive than I had in years.
After late nights of studying and taking notes, I have gray-green circles under my eyes. I'm also the proud owner of a rabid stream of adrenaline coursing underneath my skin, covering my body in an electrical mesh of excitement and determination.
Learner is the first strength I got on the personality test our branch had us take as part of the development program a couple of years after I joined as an assistant clerk. Some people can speed read, do math in their heads, come up with a meal from random ingredients that make no sense, take a device apart and put it together better than it was before, or walk down the runway looking like they are the epitome of style.
I can research, locate the books on the subject, devour them, and create a web of information on the topic I can access with ease. That's always been my superpower: books and organizing information. Library science as a major made perfect sense.
The textbooks Merida assigned range from dry high-academia language you need a dictionary next to you to get through, to flowery collections of articles from the New York Times to a simplistic poetry-for-dummies-lookalike tome with cartoon drawings to entertain in case the eighth-grader-friendly reading level is too boring. My brain translates the dense vocabulary—the honor badge of textbooks you can comprehend best with a battery of undergrad English Lit courses under your belt—into notions I store for further use.
Chapter after chapter I filled my well of knowledge, savoring the odd pairings of words like ponderous, austere, and taxonomy, and almost giggling at the gem phrases like 'traditionally depersonalized narrative'. The secret code of high-brow words I know and understand has always made me feel like I belong to an exclusive world more than my family's money ever did.
Armored with facts about poetry form, distinguished poets who wrote in each style, and examples of their work, thanks to my personal strengths, and the ability to call a ride share, thanks to Am and Ben's loan, I arrive to the classroom straight from work, a full half-hour before the start of the class with confidence I didn't possess last time I was here.
