“Okay,” I said finally, knowing instinctively that Devon wouldn’t let go of the idea until I had given him the chance to say his piece. After all, hadn’t he tracked me down to a movie theater off-campus to get me to go on a date with him? “I will hear you out.” Devon smiled and steered me towards one of the tables just outside of the Library; in spite of the fact that it was getting busier, no one was sitting outside just yet.
“I wanted to tell you that you’re absolutely right,” Devon said, sitting down across from me. “You’re totally right in everything you said. It was incredibly stupid of me to risk my future the way I did, and the fact that the only thing that was on my mind was losing basketball was even more stupid.” I looked into Devon’s eyes for a long moment in silence, trying to decide—trying to determine—whether he was really being honest, whether he really had come to the conclusion that I was right, or if he was just, as Kelly and the other girls had accused him of, saying what it took to get to me.
“How long did it take you to come to that conclusion?” I asked, a little more harshly than I intended. Devon didn’t seem to mind; he smiled slightly, reaching out to try and take my hand. I pulled back a little bit, not ready to let him touch me, not ready to let myself melt into him and believe him.
“I had started to come to it before you ran out last night,” Devon said, the ghost of a smile curving his lips again. “I’ve actually always felt a little bit bad about the whole thing. Guilty, you know?” I raised an eyebrow as I nodded; I knew that if it had been me in his place—though that wouldn’t really be possible because I couldn’t imagine making the choice he had—I probably would have been so wracked with guilt over it that I would have turned myself in before I’d even gotten to orientation. The fact that he could go three years without caring enough about it to come clean didn’t make the fact that he was coming clean now that much better.
“So what happened at the meeting today?” I remembered that Devon was supposed to meet with the investigatory board; if he was going to be expelled because of it, I doubted that he’d take the trouble to find me. Of course, they wouldn’t expel one of the star players on one of the teams, I thought bitterly. If it had been me who had paid someone to take the test for me, I’d be out on my ass before the day was over. And that was how it really should be—there should be no place for cheating in college.
“I’m on suspension; I can’t play. But they’re going to give me a chance to re-take the test, and take it honestly. And they’ll evaluate from there, they said.” Devon gave me a hopeful little smile, reaching out for my hands again. “I couldn’t think of anyone who would be better at helping me study for it than you, Jenny. Would you help me out?” I stood quickly. The fact that he was audacious enough to use the nickname he knew I hated at a time like this, when I was already mad at him, and the fact that I was still so worked up, confused and uncertain, made it impossible for me to think of anything I wanted to do less than help him out.
“I have my own studies to look after. And I told you I hate that name.” I turned on my heel and walked away as quickly as I possibly could before he could say anything to stop me.
Chapter Three
Before I was more than a dozen steps away from the library, I began to feel guilty about what I had said and even guiltier about the way I’d said it. Devon was being honest with me—at least I had to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was. And making an honest effort at taking the test again was surely something that I should be supporting, wasn’t it? If I cared about Devon—and I knew that in spite of my anger towards him, I did care about him—I should be happy that he was getting another chance, and I should be helping him to make the most of it. If he really wanted to turn over a new leaf and put his best foot forward academically, then who else would he turn to other than his girlfriend?
I ducked into the dining hall to grab something to eat, thinking to myself wryly that part of my bad temper was almost certainly due to the fact that I had gone past my usual breakfast time. I grabbed a few handy items and booked it to class, my mind still full of the whole stupid mess, and whether I had said something I could justify or not.
I might as well have not been in my classes at all; in spite of the fact that I went to each one, and had all of my materials ready and took notes, not a word of any of the lectures actually filtered through my brain, and I knew that I’d have to borrow a lecture recording from one of the other kids in class with me to make any sense of what I had written down. I was completely consumed with what I had said to Devon, and what he had said to me, and the unfairness of the whole situation. He had cheated on the test—by all rights, he should have been thrown out as soon as they could prove it, and that should have been the end of it.
On the one hand, I had to admit that I was at least a little bit glad for Devon that he had managed to kind of get away with what he’d done. It was so long ago at this point that it wasn’t as though his test scores actually even mattered anymore; he had already proven that he was capable of doing decently in school, which was all the tests were supposed to predict. It was actually a little bit stupid that they were making him re-take the test, because he must have had at least a 2.0 average in order to play during the season, and if he was making a passing grade, he was doing what the test had proven he could do.
But on the other hand, it was just like college sports everywhere. Of course Devon was re-taking the test. Anyone else who had been found out would have been kicked out over cheating, but because the school wanted to keep people coming to games and save face over having admitted someone they wanted for the team with fake test scores, they were going to bend over backwards and nearly break the rules of academic integrity completely to justify it. Then they could point at his new test scores and say “See, if he had taken the test in the first place, he probably would have done just as well, so we didn’t really make a mistake in recruiting him.” Anything that any of the sports guys ever did wrong, they somehow found a way around. The only thing I could think of in the school’s history where that wasn’t the case was when they had nearly thrown out one of Devon’s fellow frat brothers—a member of the hockey team—over allegations that he’d been involved in some kind of gang-rape of a girl back in high school. Even then, I thought I remembered that the guy had left of his own will to clear his name.
But it wasn’t as if me helping or not helping Devon was going to do a thing about the system of college sports. They would keep pulling things out for their beloved sports stars to be able to keep playing no matter what I did. The real question was whether or not I specifically should help Devon. Did I like him enough, did I care about him enough, to help him get a passing grade on the test? Or was I so resentful, so bitter about what he had done, and so distrustful towards his motives and reasoning that I would let him hang in the wind?
If he didn’t get help from me, I had no doubts whatsoever that he would get help from someone else. The thought occurred to me as I was walking from one class to another that there were plenty of pretty girls on campus who were just as smart as I was who could help him study. A flicker of jealousy and rage washed through me at the thought—even if I was still angry with him, the thought of him flirting with another girl made me feel as if someone had just plunged a sharp knife between my ribs. But how could I trust him? Even without taking into consideration what Kelly had said to me, and the fact that she had tried to sabotage any chance that I might have with Devon by making me think he had forgotten about me within a day of meeting me, the other girls in our circle of friends had gone on and one about what a player he was, how manipulative and how easily he got what he wanted whenever he wanted it.
But Devon had said that he was trying to be different and that he wanted to be serious with me. He had been honest about everything; he had been honest about the test, even. He could have just told me that it was a lie, and gone into the investigation meeting and told them. God knew that the academic integrity board would have loved to just close the case r
ight there and say “Nope, nothing to see here, we have no reason to doubt his word.” They probably wouldn’t have even had the investigation in the first place if they didn’t think they had to answer the allegations. I wonder who had come forward, and how they had gone about making their disclosure. If they had threatened to go to the press, that would be enough heat to make the school want to actually investigate it. The integrity board would investigate anything—but I had no doubt at all that if the Dean had told them that they were supposed to find nothing at all to substantiate it, and if Devon had gone in and sworn up and down that it was a lie, they would have let it drop.
So Devon was trying, obviously, to clear his name, to turn over a new leaf. If I cared about him, I should be encouraging him. If I was in love with him—and even though we’d only been together a few times, even though we’d barely been seeing each other for a couple of weeks, I thought that it would be easy for me to let myself go and actually fall all the way in love with him—I should help him. I should be right there by his side, taking him to the local bookstore and helping him pick out prep materials. I should be gearing up for him the way I’d geared up for myself, and making him take practice tests until he knew the material so thoroughly that he couldn’t help but get a high score, and vindicate himself.
But was that fair to me? Even if what I had said to Devon before, when he had initially asked me for help, had been rude and cruel, it wasn’t entirely false. I did have my own studies to worry about. I had as heavy a class load as I could possibly manage, and I needed to stay on top of it. If I devoted the kind of time that Devon might really and truly need to get him ready to take the test, then I might fall behind. How could Devon ask me to fall behind for his benefit? He wouldn’t ask you to fall behind, he just wouldn’t think about the fact that you could.
I somehow managed to eat lunch without having a clue of what I was even putting in my mouth; I ate alone, taking a table in one of the remote corners of the dining hall to avoid having to talk to anyone at all. All throughout my afternoon classes, I went back and forth in my own mind, unable to come to a conclusion about how to feel or what to do. I couldn’t believe that my life had fallen into such a stupid dilemma within only a few months of me becoming an adult and going to college. It wasn’t as though I was making some life-changing decision like whether or not to donate a kidney. I was just trying to decide whether or not I would continue to be with Devon. I was trying to decide whether to help a guy that I had feelings for or stand on principle. I shouldn’t be so uncertain and confused.
And yet the more I thought about it, the more uncertain I became. I cared about Devon; there were no two ways about it. Even if he had been a total player in the past, even if he had slept around and cheated and dropped girls the moment they were no longer interesting to him, I cared about him. He might break my heart in a month, in a year, or never at all. Hell—I might end up being the one to break his heart if he was really serious about a relationship with me, and I eventually got tired of him.
Could I live with myself if I decided not to help him, and he wasn’t able to find someone who could really coach him through the test and ended up failing it? If he did, they’d kick him out of college completely—and without a good test score, combined with the stigma of having cheated the first time around, he would never get into another college. He’d be without a degree, with a ton of black marks against his name, and instead of going on to some stable, solid career—or, possibly, going on to the NBA, if he continued to play the way he had been playing all season—he would be stuck in menial, dead-end jobs. All because I was unwilling to compromise. Mighty big opinion you have of yourself there, Jenn, if you think you’re the only person who can help him pass. But he had come to me—he could get help from someone else, but he had come to me first. If he didn’t pass, because someone else helped him instead of me, then I knew I would feel guilty.
The ultimate question, I decided while I as in my last class of the day, was whether I wanted to keep having a relationship with Devon or not. If I wanted to have a relationship with him, I needed to help him. There were no two ways about it. If I didn’t want to have a relationship with him, I had absolutely no obligation whatsoever to help him in any way. But that was the question I couldn’t answer. As my last class of the day began to wind down, I felt as lost as ever, and I wished that I had another two or three classes that day if only so that I could have some relatively quiet time to keep thinking about it, even if it was so far getting me nowhere. I wished that I could just put my entire life on hold so that I could actually make a decision, on the whole, stupid mess.
Chapter Four
By the time my classes for the day were over, and it was getting to be evening, I had no idea of what to do with myself. I could eat dinner alone in the dining hall, and I could kill a little bit of time in the student union or possibly the library, but eventually I would need to spend the rest of the night somewhere. If I waited long enough, Kelly would have to go to sleep eventually, at which point I could be in my dorm room without having to make nice with her and figure that situation out.
I had been avoiding Devon all day; since he was suspended, it wasn’t exactly difficult. When I wasn’t going from class to class, I managed to think of where Devon would most likely not be—even if he were on campus, which seemed unlikely. In spite of being able to avoid him, and in spite of the fact that I was spending all this time thinking about how I felt, and whether I had been in the right to turn down his request for help so brutally as I had, I still had no idea of whether I should be begging for his forgiveness or just writing him off entirely.
The worst part of the situation was that I really didn’t have anywhere realistic to go. I didn’t want to run into Kelly, who would either be as unpleasant as she had been before, or would be trying to convince me that she was right and that I should take her side on the whole mess.
Even if I had been able to get back to my dorm and just hang out there, without risking running into Kelly again, I had to admit to myself that I missed Devon. As I wandered around the less-busy areas of campus, trying to decide what to do with myself, I couldn’t help but remember how it had felt to fall asleep in his arms, how he smiled and the charm in his eyes. I couldn’t help but remember how good he felt inside of me, and how much I liked spending time with him. I rolled my eyes at myself, feeling like an idiot. Just because I liked Devon and thought he was hot and charming, didn’t mean that I should be with him. If he isn’t serious about his education, you have one very big obstacle between you. But did I know for sure that he wasn’t serious about his education? Not really. He hadn’t been serious about it in the past—but that didn’t mean he wasn’t serious about it now.
But I still wavered. I didn’t know how to feel, or what to do about the situation. I wandered around, not yet ready to give in and go back to my dorm but without any particular other destination in mind. Just when I would have retreated back into the Library, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I thought for a moment that it was one of my friends; I didn’t really want to talk to anyone, but it would be a good idea to at least check my phone. Jenn, I know you don’t want to hear from me, but will you at least give me a chance? Let me talk to you? It was Devon. I hesitated for a moment. He was right; I didn’t want to hear from him. But I needed to know what was going on. I needed answers. Logically, the only thing that would get me the answers I needed was to talk to Devon. I took a deep breath.
Okay, I wrote back. Let’s meet up. I’ll hear you out. I thought to myself that I was probably the world’s most naïve idiot for going along with it, but I was tired of wandering around aimlessly, my mind a spinning confusion. I needed to know if Devon really meant to be a better person, and if I should invest anything of myself into him. I needed to know if I should cut my losses.
Can you come to Greenway Park? I’ll meet you there. The park was within walking distance from campus; it was dark out, but it wasn’t so far that I’d need to take my car to feel comfort
able. I sighed and messaged Devon back that I would meet him there in fifteen minutes. I tried not to feel like a fool, preparing myself to be fooled not a first or second time, but a third. If Kelly had been there, if she had known what I was about to do, then she would give up on me completely. I’d be practically dead to her. But she didn’t know, and I had no one else to ask. I owed it to Devon to give him at least a little bit of a chance, didn’t I?
I made my way off-campus, walking quickly in spite of the fatigue that had already set into my legs. “He’s just going to tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear,” I told myself as I walked. “Don’t give him the benefit of the doubt. Listen to what he has to say, and figure it out for yourself.” I knew I looked like a crazy person yet again—talking to myself as I walked, muttering under my breath. I felt badly about how I had spoken to Devon earlier in the day, but I still couldn’t quite shake the rumors I had heard about him, even though he had been honest and candid with me. I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe that a guy who could take such a huge gamble on his future could even be remotely worth my time…and yet, until that had come out into the open, I’d thought things with Devon were great.
I found my way to the park, which was thankfully well-lit in the darkness; even with the yellow and blue-white security lights shining down on everything, it still felt a little creepy, deserted as it was, and I looked around for any sign of Devon. If he tries to pull something to scare me, that’s it, I thought firmly. I was not going to play games; if this was some kind of petty prank, then I would not only not help him, I’d go out of my way to get friendly with Kelly once more and watch his whole academic career go up in flames.
Just as I was beginning to fidget, Devon appeared, his keys clinking in his hand. He closed the distance from the parking lot to where I stood in a few fast steps, wrapping his arms around me tightly before I could even say anything. “Thank you so much for meeting with me,” he murmured, brushing his lips against my temple. I squirmed free of his embrace, perversely angry with him in spite of how relieved I felt.
Hooped #4 (The Hooped Interracial Romance Series, Book #4) Page 2