“It was actually July of 1961.”
Julian turned back in his seat to look at the owner of the voice that had corrected him. What he saw was resolute green eyes with sun freckles dotting a tan face. He noticed this face featured red lips, which looked far too delicate to be the source of such a quippy remark. He quickly saw how these alluring features were framed by blonde hair tightly pulled back into a high ponytail and an attitude that seemed to taunt and draw him in at the same time. He smiled at her, and she quickly averted her eyes to Mccarthy at the front of the classroom. He turned back around, but his smile remained as he vowed to himself that he would never get a factual date wrong again.
A couple of days later, they got their results back from the first exam of the quarter.
“What was your score?” Julian asked, following her out of the classroom. He had to make considerable strides to keep up with her apparent speed walking.
“What do you care?” Summer was perturbed that he would be so bold.
“You know exactly why I care.” He said, as if they had already talked about this.
“I did well enough.” She finally replied when she realized he was still walking with her as she started to ascend the stairs leading to the floor of her next class.
“You know I’m related to our professor, right? And it so happens my father is one of the largest contributors to the program, so people know me.”
She stopped in front of her classroom door and faced him for the first time. He involuntarily took a step back.
“So you’re telling me that you get high marks because of nepotism?” She didn’t wait for a reply.
“That’s cute.” She quipped, as she pulled open the heavy oak door and went inside.
The rest of the semester was no longer about good grades. Instead, it was about better grades. The week that midterms were posted, Summer found a list of all the grades in the class lying on her desk. Julian’s name appeared three slots above hers, and she could only guess how the list had managed to land on her desk. He acted very busy during each of their classes and quickly slipped out of the room before she could reach him. It was late in the afternoon when the last influx of students exited their classrooms and started to leave for the weekend. Summer was waiting outside of the room where she knew his Constitutional law class was held.
“I didn’t know your daddy’s money gave you access to confidential school records.” She shoved the folded piece of paper against his chest.
Julian’s eyes widened in surprise, but the smirk on his face seemed to say that he had known this was coming.
“Are you following me, Miss Coburn?” He taunted, looking around at the near empty halls.
“No!” Summer was struggling to keep her voice even. “Who do you think you are? You think you own this school and can just do whatever you want?”
“It seems like I’m at least somebody to you.” He leaned against the brick wall of the hallway. “Don’t you usually leave early on Fridays? I’m not sure about this, but if I were to guess I’d say you’ve been waiting around for me for at least four hours.”
She hated that he was relishing this.
“Look, frat boy.” She pointed her finger at him accusingly. “You may think that you’ve proven your point, but you’ve actually done the opposite. Yeah, you did better for midterms, but I’m telling you now that every night you go to some stupid party, I’m going to be staying up studying. Up to now, I’ve beaten your scores even in your uncle’s class and to be honest I think he probably likes me more than you.”
Jullian scoffed.
“Regardless,” She continued. “I guarantee you that when you break into the system for our final grades, you’re going to see my name at the top.”
“That’s a pretty fierce war cry. Are you sure you want to play this way?” Julian’s tone was obnoxiously amused.
“No.” Summer shouldered her backpack with exasperation. “This isn’t a competition.”
“It isn’t?”
“No, it’s not, but I’m going to win.”
This elicited a full laugh from Julian and Summer moved past him in agitation as she sped walk out of the building.
And thus began the endless nights filled with the luminescent light of the library. Summer would pack her dinner in a rolled up brown bag and lug her law books down to the basement where no one was likely to disturb her. Her days became consumed with furious scribbling of notes and vending machine lunches, while her nights were accompanied by flashcards and self cross-examinations. Her scholarships allowed her the luxury of not needing to hold a job during the school year, and while she slept at her dorm, it felt like that library basement had become her real home. With the weather turning from fall to winter, she would bring blankets from her home, since it seemed the university’s budget was going to other places besides the library’s heating system.
The semester was nearly over, and finals were sinisterly close. She found herself studying the precedent of the freedom of the press as outlined by Blackstone’s lectures on the subject, but was struggling to find the contrasting commentaries she was looking for. She frustratingly shut the massive volume that she had been scanning for over an hour and bit her pencil, which already showed marks from her previous academic wrestles. Looking up, she realized her far-sight vision was blurred from the continual examination of the book that had only been a foot away from her face this entire time. The clock on the wall was showing that the hour of ten was already far gone, and the library’s closing time was only two hours away. Summer stood up from the table that she had claimed as her personal study space and walked down the aisles of books that surrounded her.
Most of the other students had left for the night, but there were still a few stragglers who were keeping her company. Though they seemed to prefer the nooks and corners that the basement provided, instead of the table directly under the light which she had chosen. She wearily turned down a row that she had walked a hundred times before where she hoped she could find better commentaries. She reached for a book that was on the fourth shelf and strained to stretch out her arm for it. Getting a hold of the book, she started wiggling it out of its slot between the other books when she suddenly gasped and dropped to the ground.
In the next row over, there stood Julian browsing some set of law books she had already dismissed earlier in the week. He was wearing his typical business apparel with black suit pants and a banded collar dress shirt. His back was turned to her and Summer watched as he flipped through the pages of one the books before quickly putting it back on the shelf and picking up the next one. His athletic build was perfectly fitted for anything that she had seen him wear, and his thick wavy hair looked even better when he ran his hand through it in concentration. She internally shook herself out of the stupor she had momentarily fallen into and realized the risky situation she was in on the ground. She slowly stood back up, trying not to make any sound. Her eyes were glued on the back of Julian’s head, and as she started to walk in the opposite direction, she didn’t see the stool that had been placed in the aisle for assistance with the higher shelves. Tripping on the stool, she muffled her surprised scream and grabbed onto the shelf to save herself from a loud tumble. The shelves shook with the weight of her frantic grasp, and she saw the book that she had shimmied out of position earlier fall to the floor with no hope of her reaching it in time.
It landed with a thud and its pages wildly flipped open on impact. Summer turned back to pick it up and was met by Julian who appeared at the row’s end.
“Hey! Coburn, what are you doing here?”
Summer internally kicked herself for not leaving sooner.
“I’m not one of your old high school football buddies. I have a first name, you know.”
“I never played football in high school.” Julian smiled and took the book from her hands.
“Blackstone’s Commentaries on t
he Laws of England. Nice!”
“Thanks.” Summer took the book back and headed down the row. Julian followed her to her table. She picked up the blanket that she had left on the chair.
“Well, that looks comfy.”
Summer glared at him.
“I live here.” She finally responded. Julian laughed, and Summer gave a softened smile.
“I can see that.”
“The question: is what are you doing here? I’ve been here every night for the past month. Having troubles with Professor Oaks?” She asked, referring to his administrative law class.
“He’s rough, but I think I’ll manage.” Julian sat on the corner of the table when Summer took the chair seeming a little disappointed at his answer.
“What about you? All your classes going well?”
“They couldn’t be better.” Summer’s reply was almost too quick.
He nodded and picked up an empty Oreos wrapper that had been smashed by a pile of books. Summer had opened her book and was apparently engrossed in its contents. He stole a side glance of her studious face while crumpling the wrapper in his hand. The first thing he had noticed about her at the beginning of the semester was the vivid green eyes reflecting the hallway’s window light of that late summer day. Now her eyes were a velvety shade of grey that seemed to beg to be asked secrets that they would never tell. He silently stood up from the table and went back to look for research material.
One hour later, the librarian tapped him on his shoulder to let him know that the library was closing. He put down the book that he had been reading and stood to go. He had read the same paragraph in that book over a dozen times, and it was then that he realized he was still thinking about the girl with changing eye colors.
This was unbeknownst to Summer, but what she did know was that the next night when she languidly carried her books to her usual spot, she found a single pack of Oreos sitting on the table. She looked around the open floorplan of the basement, but the lines of bookshelves obscured her vision from seeing the person who she thought she might find. She suspiciously sat down and moved the roll of cookies away from her before pulling out her notebook. Yet, as the night wore on, the pack was eventually opened, and the cookies devoured.
Subconsciously, as the nights passed, she would find herself scanning the room when she first entered and then when she left in the late hours of the night. Finding the books she needed became a little more tedious as she also caught herself looking for a man in a banded collar dress shirt. Yet, he didn’t show up again, and they became more distant in class since he began sitting even farther to the left, and she moved seats to be in the first row.
Finals came and went, and with it, the exhaustion of never ending work. Summer felt like she had prepared as well as she could have and might have even excelled expectations in Mccarthy’s and her criminal justice class, yet she was waiting to somehow be notified of her peers’ results, one peer in particular. Of course, there wasn’t a legitimate way for her to discover that on her own, so she waited for his appearance.
However, as the days ticked by after the semester had ended, it seemed clear that this would not happen. She heard from someone that he had already left to spend Christmas break with his family in Cape Cod and so she began to think about other things.
After spending so much time in the library, Summer signed up for a temporary position there, since she wasn’t leaving for home until the day before Christmas Eve. This would help her buy a couple more presents for her mom and siblings, and it also gave her ample time to catch up on the leisure reading she had to neglect during school. One late afternoon, she had flippantly picked up a copy of The Prince. Machiavellian politics never resonated with her as proper, but she couldn’t help but be intrigued by the little flecks of gold she found along the way.
“Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.”
Summer reread it and stared at the page while she digested it. Machiavelli reminded her of Shakespeare at times with his little observances of human nature, and she made a mental note that she needed to reread Othello before school started again.
“Excuse me.”
Summer quickly looked up from her desk to see a shy looking boy with largely framed glasses that magnified his already large, brown eyes standing at the front desk. It appeared that he had been standing there patiently waiting for her to look up.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She closed her book and sat up from her slumped position. “How can I help you?”
“I was told to give you this.” The young man answered, sliding a folded piece of paper across the surface of the ledged counter.
He fidgeted uncomfortably and tugged at the end of his untucked shirt. Summer picked up the paper curiously.
“Who is this fro—” She started to ask, but when she had looked back up, he had already walked away.
Slowly, Summer opened the piece of paper and saw the list of names that she suspected she would find. It was the final grades for the semester. She first saw her name with the expected “A” next to it, and she found the same letter next to Julian’s name. Yet, there were two percentages handwritten next to the names. One was 96.5% while the other one was 97.2%, indicating what she assumed were the scores of their last exam. Below the percentages, she recognized the immaculate cursive, spelling out three simple words.
“You beat me.”
If the messenger with the circular framed glasses had returned, he would have found Summer beaming at his delivery as if it had been an early Christmas present. Luckily, he didn’t return, and Summer folded the paper into a small square and slipped it into her coat pocket.
Chapter 10
Christmas happened as it always did, and she enjoyed returning home to the familiar smells and well known places. She attended Tania’s Christmas pageant in which she was cast as the angel. She sat next to Meline, but it seemed that Michael enjoyed the show the most, at least from the snickering and hushed laughter she kept hearing from him and his group of friends. Oregon would always feel like home, but when she returned to California that same rush of excitement and newness was there to greet her.
The following semester moved forward faster than fall semester had and the dark days of winter were quickly turning into the longer spring days that hinted at warmth and sunshine. She and Julian didn’t share any more classes, but Summer saw him a couple of times in the library and once at a house party that she only stayed at briefly before she and her roommates left. Summer decided to keep her job at the library, since it was almost paying her to study as she sat at the front desk.
Summer vacation finally came, and she couldn’t wait to bask in the glory of the season that shared her name. Yet, her plans soon came crashing to the ground when after returning home for only a week, her mother told her that she had breast cancer.
The road trip to Colorado that she had organized with her roommates Jensen and Emily was suddenly replaced with trips to the doctor for her mother’s weekly chemotherapy and radiation treatments. The days of tanning by the pool were instead filled with holding Meline’s hair as she vomited into the toilet until, eventually, she didn’t have any more hair to hold back. Meline had a hard time sleeping at night, though she was always exhausted, and Summer would sometimes hold her in bed since she couldn’t sleep either.
When the lazy heat of August came around, Meline still had one month left of treatment, but she insisted that her daughter go back to school as originally planned. Summer protested, but it was hard to argue when her mom had so little energy as it was. She was torn as she felt the obligation of supporting her mom at the same time as the slowly growing need to return back to school. The thought of leaving brought with it a nagging impulse that made her sick with guilt if she allowed herself to think about it for too long. It didn’t bother her to manag
e the house, take Michael to soccer practice, or stay at the doctors for her mother’s visits. She had been helping her mom like this since their dad had left them and was used to being in charge. She knew how to push aside feelings in order to get things done, and she did so now whenever she started to think about that feeling that kept trying to resurface.
Summer was packing her bedroom up in boxes when Tania silently entered the room. Summer didn’t realize she was there until the lamp on her dresser turned on with a click, and she turned around to see Tania holding the end of the beaded lamp string.
“So you’re really leaving?” Tania’s voice was devoid of any emotion, making it impossible to tell the intent of her question.
Summer grabbed a folded sweater from her bed and put it in a box.
“Yep, school starts next week.” She replied matter of fact.
Tania nodded and plopped herself on the side of the bed while Summer continued to pack. Tania had just had her twelfth birthday and was wearing the mood ring that she had won from an arcade game that day.
“What does purple mean?” Summer asked, pointing to her finger.
Tania looked down at her hand.
“In love.” She mumbled.
Summer gave a short laugh, but Tania’s face remained downcast.
“You know you’re abandoning us, right?” The accusation was quiet but bitter.
Summer stopped what she was doing, and her hands remained frozen above the box still holding two pairs of jeans. She eventually sat on her feet and looked back at Tania, who refused to meet her eyes.
“No, I’m not. You can call me anytime, and Nicole from down the street is going to take mom to the doctors. Michael said—”
“That’s not what I’m talking about!” Tania suddenly lashed out, throwing her arm and knocking over the lamp.
“Tania!” Summer snapped.
“You don’t want to be here!” Tania yelled, rising from the bed. “You’re just going to leave us and let mom die!” Tears were running down Tania’s face, and she fled the room wiping at the water spilling from her eyes.
Sin: A Survival Romance Fiction (Her Story Trilogy Book 1) Page 7