I'm Normally Perfect (re-upload)

Chapter Sixty-Three

As she was better before the next meeting we attended it. Everyone congratulated me on the success of my book, except Sir Charles who said in a grand way, 'My books would have been bestsellers if I chose to write for hoi polloi.'

Georgiana asked seriously, 'Oh, you write, Sir Charles? I had no idea.' Sir Charles' books were rather legendary at the University. Sure fire cure for sleeplessness was the word. He had an affinity for writing about little known rulers throughout history. Usually kings and emperors who had ruled for brief periods of time and done nothing of interest. He had a great passion for the most boring people in history and didn't seem to see any reason to sex them up for public interest. Sir Charles regularly held forth about how people didn't want to work when they read. 'Fast food for the brain! That's all anyone wants these days! Pointless and bad for you!'

During one of his tirades Professor Louden had whispered to me, 'Well, at least fast food tastes good whilst you're eating it.'

I tried to not move my lips as I asked, 'Are his books not well-written?'

'I couldn't say on the whole. The two sentences I managed to get through read were properly constructed, though.'

I tried not to smile, 'You only made it through two sentences?'

'The man didn't meet a semi colon he didn't like. It was as if I were reading a grammar textbook on the proper way to use every sort of punctuation in paragraph length sentences.'

I pretended I was sneezing to mask my snicker.

Alex spent the evening chatting with everyone except Geoffrey; I thought it awfully considerate of her to take into account my stomach lining that way. To my mind Professor Holbrook very obviously wanted an audience with her. Pathetic of him, really. Cass wasn't there, which I thought disappointing, as I wanted to have someone to hint about Alex and my active break. I found people who discussed their sex lives with other people hopelessly tacky and yet I got some thrill out of someone else knowing about us. I suppose it was because she didn't seem judgemental and even happy for us. That gave me hope that other people might think Alex and I were great, as well.

Things weren't great, though. The more time went on the more jealous I became. And I didn't like the person I was when I was jealous. I considered asking Alex to stop going to the dons' meetings, as they drove me mad, but I didn't want to be like my father. He'd not allowed my mother to have friends because he was jealous of them and I'd sworn to myself I wouldn't be like that. I thought of not going, but allowing Alex to go, as I'd always been perfectly fine not having loads of friends so I didn't think I would miss the group as much as she would. Then I realised that I'd be horribly jealous at home while she was at the meetings and concocting all sorts of ridiculous scenarios in my head about whom she was meeting and becoming friends with. No, it was better for me to go and get over my insecurities. I only wished she'd tell Geoff that there was no possible way anything was going to happen between them. She didn't have to say she was dating anyone-she only had to say she wasn't available. Why was that so hard?

Perhaps she still thought of herself as available. Perhaps she didn't think our relationship was real because there were two women involved. No, that couldn't be. She wasn't like that. There was probably a very simple explanation...that I couldn't work out. Perhaps my loving her wasn't enough-she needed to know that men still found her attractive. No, that didn't sound like my empowered Alex at all. I hoped eventually she'd just tell me why she didn't want anyone to know about us. I was so proud of her I didn't understand why she wasn't proud of me, as well.

By the time the term ended we were again hardly speaking to one another. I figured we'd already said everything that needed saying and restating our feelings would do no good, as we only went in circles and got frustrated and short with one another. We never shouted-exactly the opposite, actually. I couldn't ever be with someone who shouted a lot. I'd met my life quota of being yelled at.