“Unrefined? You listen here, you pedantic asshole. I’ll have you know that—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re still going to listen to it.” He smirked at me before opening the office door and walking through it.
I stood from my chair. “Always with the last word. You dick.”
“I heard that!” he shouted from down the hallway.
Before I switched off the light, I looked back just once. The office seemed so empty now, but I knew it wouldn’t remain that way. Soon someone would be in here who loved this place almost as much as we did.
“See you soon,” I whispered.
I switched off the light and closed the door.
Chapter 17: Bigots Can Suck My Dick
I HATED to admit it, but Jeremy was right.
Once school began again, I had time for little else. It wasn’t just the amount of coursework or meeting with my academic advisor on a weekly basis while he rolled his eyes at my panicking. (Usually done in a high-pitched voice while demanding he explain to me how the hell he’d let me get this far, the asshole, what was he thinking?)
It was also doing the one thing that many unfortunate twentysomethings had to do, the one thing that was the absolute worst thing in the world: planning for the future, for a life after graduation.
The very idea was paralyzing. While I got back into the swing of things relatively easily, the thought that this would soon all be over and the rest of my life would begin wasn’t something I had prepared for. I hadn’t been much of a procrastinator; I wouldn’t have made it as far as I had if I had been. But frankly, knowing that all my hard work was about to pay off toward… something was almost more than I could take.
Sandy steered clear of me, for the most part, unless I absolutely needed him. And when I did, he was there with food or a back rub or a bitchy clap back, telling me that I really needed to get over myself when I snapped at him a few times too many.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered in the second week of September. “I’m not trying to be an asshole.”
“Good,” he said with a sniff. “Seeing as how you’re not necessarily trying as much as you’re succeeding.”
I bit down the retort, knowing it wouldn’t help matters. And Sandy didn’t deserve it. At least not today. “I’m just… fuck. I don’t know.”
He sat down on the edge of my bed. It was almost ten at night, and he was wearing his ridiculous robe and a green face mask that made him look like he’d eaten out an amorous head of cabbage. “What’s important right now?”
I squinted at him. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “Are you worried about school, or homework, or….?”
I snorted. “Homework. Cute.”
“I don’t know what it takes to get your master’s,” he said. “I never went as far as you did. It never interested me, so I can’t imagine the type of work you have to do or the stress you’re under.”
“Yeah,” I said, rubbing a hand over my face. “It’s not just that. I think. It’s… everything, you know? Like some weird existential bullshit. What does this all mean? Am I doing the right thing? Is this what I really want?”
“And do you have the answers to those questions?”
“Nope.”
He nodded. “And you know that’s not a bad thing, right?
“But—”
“You don’t have to have all the answers now, Kori. I know you think you might, but I don’t know if you do.”
“I know that,” I admitted. “But I’ll need those answers sooner rather than later.”
“Which is why I asked what’s most important. What’s the thing weighing on you the most?”
I looked down at the papers spread across my desk, at the screen of my laptop with seven different tabs, all unrelated but necessary. My hands were shaking, and I was exhausted. “I’m worried.”