17 DATES

CHAPTER 6: CHANGING DATES

Ruby: date III
Flynn: date III

"Give an article, take an article," professor Barthes yelled into the classroom. People dragged themselves from chairs, bouncing down the stairs and dropping pieces of paper onto his table. He handed back the pieces, smiling and offering advice.

Ruby watched Mia converse with Julie and Abigail, two other girls that joined the Journalism major. She slouched in her seat, her foot taping an unknown beat on the carpeted floor. Not even four months ago, Ruby was drinking hot chocolate with Julie and Abigail in a cafe and gossiping about college life. Mia wasn't even as sociable as her and often ran home right after class. It seemed like Ruby was easier to replace than she thought.

When Ruby distanced herself from Mia and the whole fake friend situation, she lost too many friends, if she could even call them that. Her social life went from a hundred to a zero really fast. If she hadn't had Olivia and Peggy, she would wallow in her room and read crappy romance novels. Even if she did have the pair, sometimes she felt like an outsider, because they often spoke of things they never shared with Ruby. Since losing Mia, she lost someone who would choose her over someone else. At least that's what she thought, until Mia did exactly that. Choose someone over her. She presumed that being a second choice was her fate.

Mia's hair was longer, her clothes trendier. She tried out new hairstyles that Ruby used to wear. She was slowly forming into someone else. Ruby wondered if Mia was even still the same person as she used to be. Did she still believe in the occult and reincarnation? Did she still order latte macchiato when she went out with her friends?

Mia offered a dashing smile to the professor and flipped her hair over her shoulder, giggling at whatever he said. She bounded off to the side, meeting Will, who stared at her with a look that made Ruby's stomach turn.

"Can you move?" A girl to her right was waiting to drop off her article to the professor, but was stopped by Ruby, who hadn't moved from her seat. She quickly stood up and rushed down the stairs, looking over her shoulder at the girl who narrowed her eyes at her and stopped beside her.

Professor Barthes took out a sheet of paper and gave the girl by Ruby a court nod. "Great article."

The girl ran away before he said anything else. Ruby was familiar with harsh words from Barthes and his shiny bald head that reflected the light from the windows. She dropped the piece she had worked on the pile with his laptop. It was one of the pieces she was most proud of. It included a five minute interview she managed to pull out of Noah about students and their housing. The boy she went on the first and second date of the deal on, made out to be a very useful friend.

"Ruby Jackson. The headline was too long and there should be no punctuation marks in titles. There are also way too many subtitles." There were three. He told the students there were supposed to be around two. Ruby didn't see the problem.

"Yeah, sorry. I know there shouldn't be a comma, I must have missed it." She uttered under her breath, hand behind her back. She bit her lip, staring as his eyes roamed the paper.

"Don't apologize to me. It's your grade. Also you don't quote directly, make sure to change up the sentences. A lot of the time, when we're interviewing, people make zero sense. You have to fix their mistakes. If a reader goes skimming your piece, they might assume you're illiterate. Fix that." He sternly nodded, "otherwise, it was good. Nice job."

Bile threatened to rise past her throat. It didn't sound good to Ruby. He picked apart her article, but told her she earned a good grade. Her skin boiled, every professor gave different instructions. The one she had last semester, told her to not change and quote people directly how they said it. Barthes wanted the exact opposite of what the professor from the winter semester taught them. How did others barely have any mistakes while she struggled like she was underwater, only learning how to swim? Ruby was drowning, her schoolmates driving by with motorized boats.