“Okay.”
The textbook I’ve rarely paid attention to until last week ends up on the table between us. I hadn’t gotten anywhere past page ten prior to a few days ago, but since reading through it, neon flags and sticky notes scatter the pages. “I did some reading-”
She laughs, small and quiet, but I catch it immediately. “You can read?”
It’s sudden. I’m not sure if she realizes the lighthearted nature of it, but I chuckle. This, and the impromptu vocabulary lesson from our library meeting, are the closest it’s felt to how weused to be. Poking fun at one another because we’re comfortable, and we can.
“Yes, I can read. And what I read was pretty interesting stuff. Kinda happy I had an excuse to open the book.”
“Your assigned reading wasn’t enough of an excuse?”
“Not really. I kind of just get a vibe of what goes together after a while.” I shrug. “Trying to shove it into my brain doesn’t work for me.”
She snickers, lowering her voice to barely audible mumble. “Must be nice.”’
My lips tug into a frown. The shock from her revelation on Friday still hasn’t fully worn off. I’ve met a lot of people throughout college. Pretentious art students who care more about analyzing the pain of a dead artist are some of the most unbearable. They have one personality trait, and that’s proving themselves right at every turn.
Liliana is beyond them and everyone else I’ve met. No one comes close to matching her wit or ability to problem-solve. She was the smartest student in class and is probably the most intelligent person I’ve ever met.
More importantly, despite being on a different level than everyone else, she never seemed to center her attention on making others feel small. She uplifted herself and her skills without belittling others. Watching her shine never knocked me down a peg. It only made me admire her more.
To find out she’s failing a class—a writing class, at that—was almost too shocking to believe.
“That’s what we’re here to work on, isn’t it?” I spin the book to face her. “There’s a lot of stuff in here I think you could use. Depending on what you need to work on.”
She pauses, then sighs. “Everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“Everything.” She focuses on the chapter I opened to, one about finding inspiration in nature. Her voice is flat and defeated. “I have to figure out everything.”
It’s another shock through my system. The Liliana I knew had every detail of our work planned out in advance, with colored stickers and gel pen marks organizing every thought. Planning a story and wringing out the details sound like the part she would be best at, and yet, she claims to have nothing.
“You don’t have a rough idea? Details, at least?”
Papers are pulled out of her bag, lining up next to her agenda and pencil pouch.
“We started off by creating an outline. This is mine, but I need to start over.”
I can’t read the words from this angle, but I see the maroon ink in the margins that must be peer comments. Liliana would never use a color that dark.
“Alright, so you have something.”
“Not really. I wrote an outline… Or a few. And I didn’t get great feedback.” The nail polish on her fingers start to get chipped at. “Everything came back negative.”
“So, you did start.”
I go to reach for the paper, but her hand quickly slams onto the pages. “Well, yeah. But it’s not good.”
“Says who?”
I wait for her to pull her hand off. She doesn’t move.
“Other students in my cohort.”
“Fuck them.”
Her shoulders loosen for a second while she laughs, and the moment becomes my favorite part of today. “My classmates know what they’re talking about, Grant. And my work is bad.”
