By Ivy Jordan
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Ivy Jordan
Chapter One
Channing
I was sitting at a table in the corner of the courtyard with the sun pounding on me. It was sending sweat streaming down my face, pasting my golden curls to my forehead. I wouldn’t have been sitting out there at all if I had any choice, but the dorms were crowded, and I was the guy that everyone wanted to talk to. The courtyard was safe, and it gave me time to work on my technique.
I was busy moving blocks around on my phone, desperate to keep them moving before the timer ran out. The game was just a mindless distraction, but right now it was all I could focus on.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of white and blue lettering. Mike was walking up, wearing the same jersey he was wearing last night at the party. His black hair was cut almost to the bone with a part shaved on the side. He gave me a nod and walked up.
“You had fun last night.” I put my phone in my pocket.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Mike sat across from me.
“Uh-huh, we whooped their asses.”
“Cause we know how to hustle.”
“You know the Dolphins haven’t lost a single game this season.”
“It’s beginner’s luck.”
“Bull.” I slapped my leg. “You know darn well it’s these guns.” I pointed at my arm. “That last pass was not easy.”
“Well, it wasn’t easy to catch either.” Mike stood up.
“Do we have to go?”
“Yes, we have to,” Mike said.
We walked across the courtyard into the science building where students were running back and forth. “Did you study for the chem test?” I asked.
“I tried, but by the time I got back to the dorm, my balls were drained and the room was spinning.”
“I knew it.” I stopped in front of the classroom and leaned against the wall. We were early.
“I should’ve been studying,” Mike said.
“This class doesn’t matter. I’m thinking of transferring. I really don’t feel like dealing with the teacher’s crap.”
“It’s too late, man. The last day to transfer was Tuesday. You’re stuck.”
I laid my head against the wall. “It won’t matter.” The class door opened and students started flowing out. Jessica was one of the first. She flipped her red hair in my face and threw her head up when she passed by. I decided to ignore her.
“You’re a dog,” Mike whispered.
She stopped in the middle of the hall and turned around. “Hey, Channing?”
“Yes.”
“Did you take notes in psych last week? I totally zoned out.”
“If you give me your number I can take them up to you tonight.”
“Sure,” she wrote it down on a scrap of paper and handed it to me.
I flashed her a grin before she walked away, and she blushed. Mike was staring at me with his mouth slightly open. “It’s got nothing to do with looks. You know that, don’t you?”
“Come on,” I laughed, “they like these baby blues.”
“It’s cause you’re the quarterback.”
“I’m the apex predator.” We started walking inside.
“Apex predators are superior in every way. You are nothing but meat.”
“We’ll see about that.” I took a seat in the back row and waited for the teacher to come in while I scanned the room. Mike was the teacher’s pet. He thought that sitting in front and raising his hand every few seconds would get him an ‘A.’
I preferred to stick to the sidelines. I was a listener, not a talker or a showman. I postured, sure, but just enough to get respect. Observing the crowd was so much better than being a part of it.
If I had a choice, I wouldn’t be in school. I’d seen the way the administrators ran things. Every year tuition went up because they had control of their own salaries. They made a big show of holding meetings in the auditorium. Protesters would always show up with signs, so they hired a small army of guards to watch the place. That way they could vote on their salary and get away without getting hurt. But they didn’t stop there. They were too greedy for that.
They had a full racket of useless courses, everything from advanced calculus to oceanography. Every student had to take them, regardless of their major. That meant years of crap and less than a handful of classes relevant to their chosen career.
I called it financial aid fraud, and that’s exactly what it was. They trumped up the cost of school as high as it could go, then raked in charity and government money, all while forcing students to take as many impossible courses as they could.
The worst part was the warm and fuzzy feelings people got when they talked about the school. Teachers were authority figures, and the administrators were the guys you were supposed to listen to, not because they were in charge, but because that was the right thing to do. Only bad kids got in trouble with the principal.
I was a slave to the system, but I wasn’t about to buy into it, not fully. I was there to play football. If that meant that I had to jump through some hoops, I was willing to do it.
Professor Hamburg walked into the room toting a cart of mismatched boxes behind her, with her loose gray bun bouncing up and down. She left the cart next to her desk and looked up at the students. “Are we ready to start?” she always yelled, as if the sound didn’t carry through the room.
The students stopped talking and sat down in their seats. “I am very disappointed in all of you,” she went on, and held up a stack of papers that was sitting on her desk. “Seventy percent of you are going to walk out by the end of the month. Twenty-five percent of you are going to fail, and four percent will barely pass. Disgusting,” she handed the packet of papers to a student at the front of the room. “Take your paper and pass it on.”
Hamburg took her time to stare at the despondent faces of the students around the room. “How many of you got drunk instead of studying for your exam last night?” Four boys sitting next to one another raised their hands. “I want all of you to take a look at these smart-asses, because these are the guys that will be serving your food in two years.”
“Hey, screw you, old lady.”
“Who said that?” she scanned the crowd.
“I did,” a man stood up. He was wearing a black cap to the side and sagging jeans.
“Get out.” Hamburg pointed at the door.
He stared at her, then started squeezing past the other desks to the aisle. His knee hit the desk at the end of the row, flinging a blonde girl to the side. “Hey, watch it!”
“Sorry,” he brushed past the desk and fell over.
“Hah!” Hamburg laughed. “Get going, boy.”
He struggled to get to his feet and ran out the door.
The papers were coming closer. Hamburg sat down at her desk and pulled her laptop off the stack of boxes on her cart so she could start her presentation on the projection screen behind her.
I watched with disinterest as she went through a series of incoherent equations, detailing a process so complex that even she must’ve had trouble understanding it. It didn’t take long for my eyes to start drooping. I knew that I had to stay awake, but it was early, and I was up late the night before.
My head hit the desk and somebody tapped on my shoulder. I shot upright. “What?” When I looked around, everyone was staring at me.
Hamburg drew out the moment and stared at me as long as she could. “This is not nap time. Now take your paper. You’re holding everyone else up.” The guy in the seat next to me was holding it out for me. I snatched it away and passed the stack to the person on my right. “Are you done?”
“Yes, Professor Hamburg,” I sounded off.
“Good, and next time you come in here, make sure you get a good night’s rest. That’s probably why you got the grade that you did.”
I looked down at my test. Hamburg went the extra mile and wrote, ‘You’re a Failure,’ in big red letters at the top. “You could’ve just written the grade,” I said loud enough for her to hear.
“I tell it like it is.” Hamburg went back to her presentation.
The guy to my left laughed and held up his paper for me to see. It said, ‘Dumbass.’
“You know what I’d write if she got a ‘B?’” I whispered. We both laughed.
When the teacher finished her presentation, she lectured the students on the merits of not being stupid and went on about the evils of having too much fun. I barely noticed when the other students started shuffling out of the room.
I met Mike at the bottom of the stairs. “You failed.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“And you’re falling asleep in class.”
“I really don’t want to hear it.”
“You’re gonna have to do something.” Mike dipped down and grabbed his backpack next to his desk. I could feel Hamburg behind me. She was listening.
“Well, what am I supposed to do, huh?” I wanted to run out.
“Study, you idiot. You know you have to pass two-thirds of your credit requirements for the semester.”
“There’s gotta be a way around that.”
“Hah!” I turned around. Hamburg was leaning back in her desk chair with her feet up. She was holding her phone. “I’m sorry.” She pretended to go back to reading.
“It doesn’t matter.” Mike motioned for me to follow him into the hall. “Look,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “You need to go to the tutoring center. Here’s the number.”
I snatched the paper away.
“You’ll be fine. Come on, let’s get something to eat.”
“Alright.”