A Necessary Struggle: Spring Semester

Chapter 14: The Way I Feel

Alyssa didn't go home after her two o'clock class ended. She went directly to Jolt. As of two weeks ago, she had a one-track mind. The night at the bowling alley was her last event of enjoyment. She didn't have time for fun. Fun was a luxury she couldn't afford. She put fun on hold until May 19th; when the semester ended and summer would begin.

Alyssa sat in the corner claiming the entire L-space seating area as hers. She was hunched over the wooden square table, with her laptop on the corner displaying a map of The United States of America as big as the screen. The rest of the table space was taking up my index cards; one-third was hot pink, one-third with highlighter yellow, and one-third was luminescent orange. She heard somewhere that yellow helped you remember and she just threw in pink and orange for the hell of it.

"Do the color's mean something?" Quinn asked looming over the table with a mug in each hand.

"Each color is a region." She grabbed the handle of the mug her handed her. "Pink's the Native American tribes in the Northeast. Orange's the Southeast and yellow's the Midwest." She took a small sip of the hot latte and sat the mug on the floor.

There was no way she was putting the coffee anywhere near that table. If she kicked the cup over, she looked behind the counter at the Mohawk guy frothing milk, she'll just ask Wayne for a mop.

"Tell me about the Natchez." He pointed to an orange card while keeping his mug away from the table.

Alyssa looked down at the card reading the tribe named that she tried to her best to write neatly but the stem of the 'h' was still too long for her taste. "The Natchez..." She stated raising her eyes up to him. "Are a people that originally habituated in the Lower Mississippi Valley, they had a matrilineal society, their chief was called The Great Sun and he had to be the son of the Female Son."

Quinn's eyebrows bounced as her twisted his mouth.

"Don't ask me what it means. I don't know." Alyssa flicked her wrist. "It won't be on the test."

"Oh!" She scooted to the end of the seat. "If the Great Sun died his wives had to  commit suicide." She leaned over the table and flipped over the card, "I thought that was interesting."

Quinn plopped down next to her, spilling a dot of Americano on his dark khaki slacks. "You would."

"I like history." She dropped back down on the cushion, her knee slightly touching his. "You know diseases can greatly impact it; like the Bubonic Plague, Smallpox, Polio."

Quinn cleared his throat, "Speaking of illnesses that infect humans. Have you given any thought to the Lambda Phi Valentine's dance that's coming up?"

"Not at all." She lifted her glasses off the table and fitted them on her face. "Why? Are you thinking about going?" She pulled a yellow card off the table.

"I mean..." He trod his hand through his silky auburn mane, "I thought...maybe we could go together and you know..."

Alyssa raised her eyes off the card and looked at him sideways, "You know...what?"

"Go there, party...get something to eat." He gesticulated with his mug-free hand. "Go back to my place." He half shrugged. "Make a date out of it."

"A date."

"Yes."

"Us."

"I'm not into the threesomes so..." He nodded. "Just us."

"No." She shook her head quickly and then looked back at the card in her hand. "I don't have time for that.

"What do you mean you don't have time?"

"Just how it sounds." She placed the card in her other hand. "I'm taking a full course load this semester and—" She looked ahead, her face dulled as a storm of emotions surged behind her eyes. "I don't have time. Sorry, Quinn." She dropped her eyes back on the card. "Wrong time."

"Wrong time" Quinn repeated the words as he raised the mug to his lips. He clenched his jaw before he took a sip. 

Do you think Alyssa's course load is the reason she shot Quinn's date proposal down?