“True psychopathy is rare,” he says. “But it can be a tempting diagnosis when someone behaves in a repeatedly hurtful manner. You need to integrate a finer understandingof this matter. I wanted an academic paper, not a character assassination of an ex. I gave you a C because at least you did not fall back on the overused diagnosis of narcissism.”
“Yes, Doctor Rollins. But, you see, I really need to maintain my GPA, and a C isn’t going to allow that. I have a scholarship and…”
“Look at me,” he says, his voice strangely soft.
I look up and meet his eyes. I can only do it for a split second. There’s a feeling that rushes through me, an intense charge that I don’t know what to do with. Maybe it’s the way his eyes rake over me and then seem to go straight through me, cataloging all my weaknesses one after the other. I feel safer looking at my toes.
“If you would like to resubmit this paper, I will allow it,” he says. “But it will involve you developing a true understanding of ASPD. I can offer some assistance during office hours. Does that sound fair?”
“Yes, sir,” I say quickly, lifting my head just a little. “Thank you so much. I won’t let you down. I promise!”
His lips twist in something like a smile. I can only see his mouth. I don’t know if it reaches his eyes. I am sure he thinks this is silly. To him, I am just one of hundreds, if not thousands of students he has had to talk to. I am panicking about my grade as if it is the end of the world, but it’s nothing to him. I feel very silly and quite small.
“I’m sure you won’t,” he says. There’s something in that little phrase. Said by someone else, it might be comforting. But I sense a darker undertone there. Like I wouldn’t dare to disappoint him now that he has given me a second chance.
I get out of the room as quickly as possible before he can change his mind.
I leave for my shift at the restaurant with a tingle low in my belly, and those deep words somehow ringing in my ears. I am going to have to work extra hard to impress him. I really need an A in his class to keep my overall GPA up. I’m smart, but not super academic. I can get high grades, but it’s never come easily to me. I don’t come from money. I’ve had to work for everything I ever had. Getting into community college was a big deal for me. Being taught by Dr. Rollins is the most exciting opportunity of my relatively short life. I’m twenty years old, eighteen years younger than the man I’m relentlessly crushing on.
Maybe work will take my mind off it.
I work at Winslow’s, a little family-run bistro in one of the suburbs around the community college. Everything here is a little run down. There are lots of tags everywhere, some cool street art mixed in, and the city doesn’t attend to stuff like litter and potholes very often so the street is kind of a patchwork of all kinds of temporary repairs left to be permanent.
The uniform is a green skirt that comes just above the knee, a little black apron that ties around my waist, sneakers and bare legs—though tights are allowed if you don’t shave your legs (Mrs. Winslow is particular about that)—and a white t-shirt. My hair always goes into a high ponytail ever since I worked out that gets me the most tips.
It’s a busy night at Winslow’s. They have their chicken parm on special. You get the chicken and a beer for ten bucks. I don’tknow how they do it, but it sells the place out every Tuesday night, so I spend the rest of the evening taking orders for parm, and then delivering it to hungry customers.
My phone rings on break. I get one for fifteen minutes at 6.30 p.m., right before the rush gets super crazy. I don’t want to answer the call, but my gut twists with guilt when I think about letting it go to voicemail. A psychopath wouldn’t care. I kind of wish I was one, sometimes.
“Yes?” I answer.
“Come and get me.”
I roll my eyes as I recognize the voice. The fucking nerve of him to call me after we broke up. He almost fucked my life up completely by distracting me so badly from school and work that my performance in both tanked. For the last few months, I’ve been trying my best to focus on the things that really matter.
“No, Dave. I’m not going to come and get you. I don’t even have a car. And I’m at work.”
???
She has no idea how beautiful she is right now, with her hair slightly mussed about her face, silken blonde strands having come loose even before the dinner rush. She brushes them away from her glasses, one of the strands getting stuck in the hinge where the arm meets the body. I notice every detail about this young woman. I drink her in as if she were a fine wine.
I can hear every word she says clear as a bell, though I am several feet away. I am unseen, a complete shadow in her world that is limited to the ring of light cast by the spider web-ridden bulb above the rear door of the restaurant.
Laura.The name is a reference to the laurel bush, a plant from which Roman emperors used to have wreaths fashioned. Her role in this world was cast from the moment that moniker was bestowed on her. The one who claims her will be the victor.
The weather is starting to cool, and it’s getting dark now. The shadows clothe me as I listen to her call on my laptop.
“Come and get me.”
I grit my jaw as I listen to the way the young man speaks to her. His voice is deep, but the words coming out of his mouth belong to the lips of a whiny man-child.
“No, Dave. I’m not going to come and get you. I don’t even have a car,” she says. Her voice sounds tense. I don’t like that. She shouldn’t be irritated by a man like this. She deserves better in so many ways.
I’ve been watching Laura for quite some time. She’s a very pretty young lady with a bright mind and a delicate demeanor that I find incredibly appealing. It’s not a physical quality. She is quite a generously proportioned young lady, but there is something about her that puts me in mind of a doe quivering in the sights of a hunter’s scope.
She is not the most situationally aware young woman, a fact that works to my advantage. I have been in the restaurant with her from time to time. Never in her section. I want to maintain some distance until the time is right.
I will never forget how she looked while working, how she put on a smile when she was taking orders, and how it faded slightly when she stepped away to put the orders in. It still lingered about her lips, a shade of an expression that does not reflect how she really feels.
