The air quotes and sarcastic tone Jessica used let Melanie know that as long as the administration could continue to make a profit from hockey or any other sport, athletes would continue to get by only with their athleticism alone.
“I wish one of the coaches would ask me," Melanie said, thinking about how humorous it would be to her. "I would simply fail the student if they weren’t passing my course.”
Jessica’s eyes widened. “If they fail the course, they wouldn’t be able to play. It's the new policy they're actually implementing this time because of the protests.”
“I don’t care,” Melanie said. “They should think about that before they take my course.”
She didn't care if Weston had one of the best college hockey teams and that many people invested in this college because of that team alone. College wasn't for sports; it was for education. She couldn't let any of her students skate by because they wanted to slide a puck across the ice.
“Do you have any players?” Jessica asked curiously.
Now that Melanie thought about it, she had a few of them. In one of her classes alone, she had about six athletes from various sports. But for hockey players, there was Dale Miller, Josh Anderson, and Noah Walker. Once Josh realized his sob stories wouldn't work on her, he stopped coming to her with excuses and did the work. He was doing considerably well in her class, though Melanie suspected it had all to do with him sitting next to Julie, one of her top students. Dale was barely passing, but he was much better off than his friend, Noah, who was doing terribly. When Melanie had first met Noah, she had suspected as much. He was arrogant, cocky, and according to his own words, thought he would slide by in her course with smooth words and tales.
When they first met, he had mistaken her for a student, which was more strange than flattering. And what was even stranger was that he might have been flirting with her. But him mistaking her for a student wasn't what made her know that he wouldn't be able to pass her course. It was his dismissive tone. It was the way he clearly showed that he thought her course was a joke. It was the way he had missed two weeks of her class, not because of a legitimate reason like a family death, but because the previous professor before her had been lenient, and he had planned to take advantage of that by not attending the class at all.
Simply put, Noah was a slacker, and slackers rarely ever succeed because of their lack of ambition. In class, all he did was flirt with the other female students around him, and pretend he was paying attention. Whenever it was time for class participation, he never had anything to contribute. He would always pass on the questions and would never raise his hand. Right now, he had one of the lowest grades in her class and was at the bottom percent. With the way it was going, he would fail her course.
But Melanie did not care if Noah was a hockey player or not. She would fail him without hesitation if he didn't put the work and effort in to pass her course.
CHAPTER
3
NOAH
N
OAH WAS GOING TO FAIL THIS CLASS. He could feel it in his bones. No matter how hard he studied, he couldn't ace any of the work. And he had done more studying for this class than he had ever done in his first year of college, fall and spring semester combined, which had been a year filled with partying, hookups, and hockey. He had put more effort into this course than he had ever done in a class before, but there was nothing to show for it with his Canvas full of failing grades.
Professor Bryant's way of teaching was different from any professor Noah had before. They didn't have multiple-choice questions like normal exams did. They didn't simply have to connect a term to a definition. No. Professor Bryant wanted detailed examples because, in her own words, if they just simply memorized the definitions, then she wasn't doing her job as a teacher. She wanted to make sure they actually knew the material instead of memorizing. When they took an exam, the forty or so written questions made his brain want to explode.
Before an exam or quiz, he would read every word inside of the chapter instead of skimming through it. His textbook was filled with highlighted text from the many hours of cramming psychology in his head, and yet he was still unable to do the work that was given.
If he were all on his own with being unable to do the work, he would just simply write it off as the higher man up there forgetting to give him brains with his looks and athleticism. But that wasn't the case. More than half of the class struggled with the material too and complained about her.
Professor Bryant was a hard-ass who made everything more difficult than it had to be, and now, she stood in front of the class going over a lecture. She wore a baby blue blouse, complementing the dark complexion of her skin, and a long pants leg that draped over her heels. Her hair was pulled back into a slick ponytail, and her glasses hung low on the bridge of her nose. She went over each slide, nearly knocking the class to sleep with her dry monotone, calling out questions here and there, and those who were brave enough raised their hands to get the points they needed for participation.
Sometimes, in this class, Noah felt like an idiot. He wasn’t dumb. He wouldn’t call himself an A-plus student, but he had never been one to skate pass on D’s either; he had his fair share of high grades and even last year because of the great schedule he picked, he was able to maintain a 3.4-grade average even with the hard work he put on the ice.
Only if he had dropped this course while he had the chance, he wouldn't be in this situation. But it was too late now, and with Coach Benson riding him for his poor grade, he would have to find a way to pass this class. It's just that right now, he didn't know how to.
“With this, we learned that the stages of cognitive development are…”
“This class fucking sucks,” Noah muttered to himself as he scribbled down whatever was on the board.
Julie, who sat next to him, giggled softly. Her notebook was filled with notes, and though they had been sitting next to each other since his second day of class, he wasn’t able to pass the work like Julie did. It was clear she was able to get it because whenever their exams or quizzes were returned, she always had A’s. Then again, Julie had always seemed like a smart girl. It was what attracted him to her in the first place. She seemed innocent, and if he were honest, a part of him wanted to see how innocent she would be in his bedroom.
"Just say that you're not as smart as the rest of us, Walker."
Anderson, who sat on the other side of Julie, looked pleased with himself for his little taunt as he copied down the notes Julie wrote. Noah decided not to give into Anderson's goading. He wasn't in the mood, and he would much rather entertain the girl sitting next to him than a jealous idiot.
“It’s not that bad,” she whispered, her blue eyes sparkling as she looked at him. For a long time now, Noah had been able to tell that Julie was interested in him from just those looks alone. Those looks told him exactly what she wanted from him. And though he had told himself this year that he would only focus on hockey, he wouldn't mind making an exception for Julie.
“Says you, smart girl,” he said, tapping the quiz on her desk that had been passed back to them earlier, 98 percent written on top of it.
She blushed, her cheeks splotching with red as she glanced at her paper. Suddenly, she asked, “Are you going to the sorority party this weekend?”
Noah glanced at Professor Bryant to make sure she didn’t notice them talking, and luckily, her attention was focused on the board as she wrote down a slew of information about cognitive development.
