I looked across at Tim, who sat idly staring around at the sullen faces of the freshers. He didn’t believe in taking notes. He believed that his subconscious mind would simply absorb all the information he needed, and he’d be able to use it later. It was that kind of thinking that meant we were doing a Criminology course together, instead of Forensic Psychology. His grades just simply weren’t up to scratch, but mine were. We compromised, and now here I was, surrounded by sneezing students and listening to Mr. Osidipe’s meandering philosophy about the process of learning.
***
“The Stanford County Prison Guard experiments showed that anybody –when given authority- has the potential for sociopathic behavior,” Mr. Osidipe spoke. “It also showed that the institution of imprisonment has the potential to propagate and create criminal behavior.”
The seminar had been an interesting one so far. Mr. Osidipe had separated us into two groups, one labeled as ‘Guards’ and the other as ‘Prisoners’. The prisoners were not allowed to leave their desks, nor move their thumbs from the tables, whilst the guards had to ensure that none of the prisoners moved their thumbs or left their tables; if they did so, they could subject them to the punishment of writing the line “I am a criminal”, as many times as they deemed fit.
I had been labeled a ‘Prisoner’ and had been assigned a guard. After my thumbs began to ache, I moved one slightly, without removing it from the table. My guard - a tall, dark-haired man - demanded that I write ten lines. I protested my innocence. He increased the punishment to one hundred lines. Eventually, I began throwing my pens at my guard, and - like many others - became angry and unruly, as the guards handed out harsher and harsher punishments.
Mr. Osidipe’s micro-demonstration of the Stanford County Prison Guard experiments was quite effective. As criminals, we became angry, insubordinate, some even tipped over their tables. As guards, we became cruel, loud and demanding.
I personally remembered my guard - whose name was Nathan - and the cocky smirk upon his face as he doled out punishments. There seemed an arrogance about him that I did not like, a cocksure attitude possessed by entitled public school boys with wealthy parents. Despite Mr. Osidipe’s demonstration being little more than a microcosm of a wider societal issue, I still harbored resentment for Nathan.
I told myself not to be childish; it was just a game, nothing serious. Let it go and move on.
“Now as you can see,” Mr. Osidipe explained, “my teaching methods are unusual, but tell me which one of you won’t remember this seminar in the future?”
The class collectively nodded in agreement.
“Now, I have an assignment for you,” he continued. “A presentation on the Stanford County Prison Guard experiments. It can be a PowerPoint, it can be done on paper – however you choose to do it. And you’ll be working in pairs.”
I breathed deeply, knowing what his next words would be.
“The same pairs you were just in,” he announced. “And you have three weeks.”
Chapter 2
“How was your day?” Tim asked as I crawled in beside him.
“Weird,” I answered. “Very weird.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked with the interest. “Why’s that?”
“We had to do this weird experiment in my seminar. Mr. Osidipe is an unorthodox teacher, to say the least.”
“Really?” Tim inquired, massaging my shoulders meanwhile.
I arched my back, letting his thumbs undo all the knots in my upper back.
“I didn’t even go to mine,” my boyfriend suddenly confessed.
“What?” I asked. “Why not?”
“I don’t really learn much from seminars, to be honest,” he yawned.
I pulled away from the massage. “Are you joking?”
“What? Cara, I’ve told you this before!” he snapped.
“I’ve seen you in lectures, you don’t even take notes!”
“I don’t need to take notes, Cara.”
“So what’s your grand plan here, Tim?” I was becoming increasingly annoyed with his attitude. “Take no notes, attend no seminars and somehow pass this course? You can’t just coast through everything Tim!”
“You know me,” he grinned. “I always pull through in the end.”
“No, you don’t!” I said furiously. “I didn’t even want to do Criminology, I wanted to do Forensic Psychology. Remember? But you couldn’t get to university I wished to study at. I’m only here because of you!”
***
Next morning I was heading down the campus to attend another seminar while my boyfriend was still in bed claiming he had no school until the afternoon. I could not get his behavior out of my head. Well, to be honest, I always knew he was the laid-back type of guy and I would usually admire this quality, however, this time, his attitude really worried me. We were no longer kids at the high school, but instead, young adults with their responsibilities. And he seemed to not get it.
As I was walking, I couldn’t stop thinking about our last argument. It is going to be a very interesting year, I thought to myself, when somebody interrupted me by calling my name. I turned around - it was my ‘Guard’, Nathan.
“Hey, how are you?” Nathan yawned. “We should meet up some time and get this project done. What are you thinking? PowerPoint presentation?”
I looked at him, there were bags under his eyes and he smelled faintly of beer.
Great. I guessed that meant I was going to be doing all the work whilst he sailed through everything and took half the credit. What’s going on with these guys? Ah well, at least the subject matter wasn’t too difficult, but I did a few presentations in high school and they were always dull. They were dull to create and even duller to watch.
“I don’t know about a PowerPoint presentation,” I said hesitantly. “Everyone does them and they--”
“--Yeah but they’re easy,” Nathan interrupted me.
I swallowed a sigh.
“I just think that we could--”
“--Well, whatever, we’ll figure something out,” he interrupted again. “Hey, we should swap numbers,” and mischievously winked at me.
I frown at Nathan. “I think email will be fine.”
“Even better,” a gorgeous smiled formed on his face. “Then we can swap a few pictures.”
I opened my mouth in disbelief.
“I meant for the presentation,” he laughed, “Don’t worry.”
***
Eurgh. I couldn’t believe I had to work with him. If that was his attempt at flirting, it was poor. He was nineteen; that meant his parents probably sent him on a gap year across Europe; the ultimate way for middle-class white boys to spend a bunch of their parents’ money on booze, and claim they went on some spiritual journey across the world. The rest of the day went by relatively smoothly. I just couldn’t wait to get back to my tiny little dorm room and make up with Tim. I avoided the usual small talk with my hall friends, and went straight to my dorm room, only to find Tim was not there. I sat on the edge of the bed, pulling my phone out of the pocket and calling his number.
“Hey, Cara,” he answered after a couple of rings.
“Hey,” I said, “What are you up to?”
“I’m just at the library,” he stated. “I’ve got an essay due on Thursday, my friend Rachel is helping me with it.”
“Oh,” I gasped in slight shock, “I thought you’d be here by now.”
“I will be there, just give me a few hours.”
“Oh, okay,” I said disappointedly. “Speak to you soon.”
“Yeah sweet,” Tim replied, clicking the phone shut.
I didn’t want to shout over the phone. So I drew up a text message.
“Tim, who is this ‘Rachel’? And since when do you spend late evenings at the library? I really wanted a cuddle tonight and you’re not even here.”
A moment passed before Tim’s reply came:
“I can’t win with you, can I? If I miss a seminar, I’m not trying hard enough. If
I’m studying, you want me to come home. And Rachel is just a friend from a seminar; you’re acting like a jealous child.”
I threw myself down on the bed and seethed. College is shit. My assignment partner is a lazy middle-class creep, and my boyfriend - who I followed to the college to do a course I didn’t even want to do - is too busy with his new best friend to even hang out with me.
Something had to be done, but I’d been saying that for years. I should have followed my first choice - but I didn’t - and now I was paying the price. Maybe this was going to be the final straw for Tim and I. Maybe I was going to waste three years of my life for a man who was barely motivated enough to go to the seminars he paid for.
Chapter 3
“So,” Mr. Osidipe spoke, “how are your presentations getting on?”
A few people nodded listlessly. The truth was, Nathan and I had still not even decided whether or not to do a PowerPoint presentation.
“This was the response I expected. I told you last week that you had three weeks,” he grinned. “I bet when you heard me say that, you thought ‘hey, three weeks, I’ve got plenty of time!’, am I right?”
Suddenly, the class all turned their attention to Mr. Osidipe.
“Well, when it comes to your dissertations, you will think exactly the same thing,” he continued. “But when it comes to the last week, you’ll be fighting for space at the library, pulling all-nighters, and consuming borderline lethal doses of caffeine.”
Mr. Osidipe grinned broadly at the class enjoying the confused looks of all students.
“This is why I lied. You actually have just one week to finish your presentations,” he finally revealed. “Now I know some of you will hate me for saying this; but this is a lesson within a lesson: Don’t leave things to the last minute!”
Panic suddenly emerged through my body. One week?! How was I supposed to get that done in time? Shit, maybe I should just do a PowerPoint presentation. Nathan was right, they are easier.
No. That’s what Mr. Osidipe would expect, and on the day we’d just be watching a lazy slideshow after another lazy slideshow. In hurry, I wrote an email to Nathan who was, in fact, sitting right at the other side of the class:
“Okay Nathan, so one week really isn’t a lot of time. We need to meet at the library tomorrow, straight after lectures. Be there, and be on time. And we’re not doing a PowerPoint presentation.”
“Alright Cara,” Nathan responded in a matter of few seconds, “Let’s kick the shit out of this presentation.”
“Delicately put,” I replied, anxious of whether I could trust this guy.
***
“Okay, so what were you thinking?” Nathan asked right after his arrival, locking eyes with me confidently.
He looked good, I had to admit but there was no time to admire his well-toned muscles. Besides, I was in a relationship. I took a breath. “Well, I know Mr. Osidipe is one of those think-outside-the-box types, so I think we should play to that.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. We could draw examples from other experiments… Maybe the Milgram Experiment--”
“--Milgram experiment? What’s that?” I asked curiously.
“It was an experiment in which subjects were asked to deliver potentially lethal doses of electricity to others, to see how compliant the average person was.”
That statement - pardon the pun - shocked me a little. I suppose I’d become so accustomed to Tim’s laissez-faire attitude to research that I didn’t expected Nathan to had actually done any.
The hours winded on, and I realized that perhaps I had misjudged Nathan and his abilities. It was very easy to forget about the time when I was in the company of this gorgeous boy. And not only was he very attractive but smart and well-read too. I found myself exchanging with him flirtatious comments here and there. To my surprise, I din’t mind it at all. In fact, I started liking Nathan more and more.
We were making a good progress on the project but there still seemed to be a ton of work to be done. As night began to fall, Nathan suggested to take a short break. I eagerly agreed, happy to stretch my slender limbs. I stood up, walked across the library and got us two cups of coffee from the vending machine.
“I know this stuff tastes like rancid frog vomit, but it might keep us awake long enough to get this done,” I said, handing him the plastic cup.
“No thanks,” he shook his head, “My car’s outside, let me take you for a proper one down the road, alright?”
I checked my phone. In entire day Tim didn’t bother to send me one single message. “Sure.” I smiled at Nathan, throwing the phone into my bag.
***
I looked at his car. Leather seats, flashy GPS, and enough mod-cons to make James Bond jealous.
“So, Nathan,” I glanced across at him, my curiosity taking the best of me. “You’re nineteen. How did you afford this?”
“My parents paid for it.”
“And what about your gap year in Australia?” I asked mockingly. “Did they pay for that too?”
“It was New Zealand actually,” he sniggered.
“And where do you live? In a tiny little student room?”
“I’ve got my own rented condo actually.”
“And I suppose your parents pay the rent on that too, do they?”
“Yep,” he says, as the smug smile fell from his face. “It has four bedrooms.”
“Sounds awful,” I replied sarcastically.
“No, it’s great,” he sighed rolling his eyes, “Look, you don’t need to make fun of me. Yes, I get to live in a four bedroom apartment - with nobody in it. My dad doesn’t want me living in student halls. Says that I won’t get anything done. Says that halls are for failing students who don’t focus on their education. If I don’t focus on my education, I won’t be rich like my father, or his father before him. But I fucked up; I didn’t focus on anything, which is why I didn’t get into an Ivy League university.”
He looked down, sadness appearing on his face. Enough of my sarcasm. I could only imagine what it had to feel like to have demanding parents with high expectations. The pressure to be as good as his father, possibly even better. No, I wouldn’t trade that for a four-bedroom condo.
“Well neither did I! Fuck the Ivy League,” I announced with the intention to cheer him up.
“Guess that’s just it, isn’t it?” Nathan sighed, a weak grin appearing on his face. “My family has money, and when you have money, people do things for you. And when people do things for you, you start to think that you’re more important than others, and that’s when you lose touch with humanity.”
My eyes widened in shock, I had no idea Nathan felt like this.
“See, I don’t want to be rich like my father. I don’t want this car or my big empty apartment. I just want something different. I don’t want to accumulate money - I want to grow, adapt, evolve. I want to love infinitely.”
Without warning, I leaned over and kissed Nathan hard on the lips. The car skidded to a halt in the lay by as we began to kiss passionately and deeply. His hands ran through my hair, gripping it tightly and pulling me in closer. I put my hands gently on his neck, feeling his soft stubble against my fingers. I didn’t know what got into me but the kiss tasted so divine.
Then, different emotions began to run through my body. I wanted this moment to last forever but at the same time, I felt so guilty. Suddenly I pulled back.
“We can’t do this,” I stated. “I’m sorry. I have a boyfriend.”
Nathan only silently nodded. At once he turned his attention back to the wheel and stepped on the accelerator.
“Let’s just get that coffee.”
***
The next evening at the library, we sat with the rancid vending machine coffee in our hands. The taste was bitter, a perfect complement to the bitterness I could see in Nathan’s eyes.
“You know sometimes,” he said, placing his hand on mine, “I feel like I’m uninteresting because I’ve never had to struggle in life.
”
I looked across at him, “Uninteresting?” I asked in disbelief. “I’ve spent the last three years following my boyfriend. I even followed him here, did the same course. And why? Because I didn’t want to lose him. I don’t want to lose him because I love him, but right now, I begin to question my feelings. Sometimes I feel like we are together just because we are so used to it. And for some reason, I’m still hanging on to him. When I get in from the library, he’s usually either playing a fucking computer game or smoking a joint out of his window. He doesn’t even kiss me when I get in.”
Nathan took a sip of his black coffee. “God, this stuff really is awful shit,” he pulled a funny face that made be to smile. But in a split of a second, he looked serious again. “Listen, Cara. I’m really sorry about last night. I didn’t realize you had a boyfriend. You are a beautiful and intelligent girl; whatever turn your relationship with your boyfriend will take, whatever decision you will make... it must come from within your heart. I don’t want to be the one who stands between you two,” he explained taking another sip. “Let’s just finish this shitty coffee, and finish this shitty assignment. I won’t be in your path then.”
How could I possibly tell him that my heart beated for him and Tim equally?
Taming The Billionaire Page 40