Bring Down the Stars

This is my fucking class. My refuge. My outlet.

“You’re auditing this class?”

“I sort of have to.”

“Why?”

He shifted in his seat. “I figure I should learn a thing or two about poetry, now that Autumn and I are a thing.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What’s that mean?”

His smile widened, blinding me with white teeth and triumph. “We did the deed last night. All night.”

“Congratulations,” I said through clenched teeth. The words coming out of his mouth hit me like fists to the gut all over again. “That’s not what I was asking. Why are you here?”

Connor was lost in his memories of last night. “Sorry if we kept you awake but damn… She’s nothing like I expected. A firecracker.”

Nausea boiled in my guts. I glanced at the nearest classmates who didn’t need to hear these private details about Autumn.

“She’s also really fucking intelligent,” I muttered, as if I hadn’t been jerking off to her in a goddamn public bathroom hours earlier.

“She is,” Connor said. “That’s sort of why I’m here. If I hope to keep her, I need to brush up on my romance.” He gave me a knowing, hopeful look. “I was hoping to enlist your help—”

“No,” I said loudly.

Professor O turned his gaze my way. “Not a fan of assonance, Mr. Turner?”

The class tittered.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

The professor resumed his lesson, and after a moment, Connor leaned over my shoulder again.

“So, here’s the thing…” he whispered hesitantly.

“No, there is no thing,” I hissed back. “You need to shut up. I’m trying to actually learn something.”

Connor was stunned into silence, and sat back in his seat, his confusion wafting over my shoulder.

After class, I gathered my shit and headed up the auditorium stairs instead of down, to the back stairwel

l without a word to Connor. He followed, his voice echoing down the two flights in the back stairwell.

Outside, he grabbed my shoulder on the back pathway of the Creative Arts Building and turned me around.

“Wes, Jesus, will you wait a second?”

“I don’t have a second.”

“Dude, talk to me.”

“I’m late for—”

“Autumn read your poem.”

I froze. My stomach tightened. “What poem?”

He rummaged in his bag and then he handed me a paper. One of my papers with my words on it.