Eyes that looked identical to Professor Carrington’s.
Even though we didn’t have class on Thursday, she still held office hours in the afternoon. I made up an excuse to visit them, and although she seemed surprised, she smiled warmly as I took my seat.
And when my pretense of a question had been answered, she made no move to stand up and usher me out of her office.
“So you’ll be working tomorrow night?” she asked.
“Until closing time.”
“Good. No offense to Kayla, but I trust you to make my drink more than any other bartender.”
“Because I’m great at mixing drinks?”
“Because,” she replied, raising one eyebrow, “I’ll fail you if you don’t make it perfectly.”
I chuckled, and she leaned back in her chair. Even though she was only a year or two older than me, the high-backed chair lent an air of authority to the youthful woman.
“I have a question, and you don’t need to answer if you don’t want to,” she said carefully.
“Um. Okay.”
“Your academic transcripts say that you’re a Freshman. But you’re twenty-six.”
“You peeked at my transcripts?”
“I liked the question you asked yesterday. I wanted to see if you had chosen a focus for your major. So, why the late start?”
I hesitated. I was never sure how much of this story to tell.
“There’s nothing wrong with a late start,” she spoke into the silence. “If you’re not comfortable—”
“It’s fine,” I interrupted. “I guess my transcripts don’t show that I was a student here eight years ago.”
“Actually, they do. But they don’t explain why you dropped out before finishing your first semester. Besides, I wanted to hear about it from you directly.”
“I had a scholarship to play basketball,” I explained. “Not quite a full ride, but close enough. Being a college athlete is tough. The schedule is grueling. I was handling it just fine at first, but then…”
I trailed off. Here was where I could decide to open up and tell her about my mom, or whether to avoid the subject.
“…but then I crumbled under the pressure,” I finished. “Couldn’t cut it. So I dropped out.”
Iwantedto tell her the whole story, but I couldn’t. I was too used to holding back. Besides, when I did tell people about my mom, it changed the way they looked at me. I didn’t want that to happen with Professor Carrington.
“I won’t pretend to know how hard that was,” she said with a sympathetic smile. “Glad you’re giving it a second chance. From what I’ve seen, you have a good mind for Criminology. You’re very analytical.”
The compliment settled down into my soul and made me smile. “Thank you.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Have you thought about what you want to do with your degree?”
“Not much,” I admitted. “Maybe a detective. But that means going through the police academy at age thirty, and I’m already anxious to get my degree and jump right into a career.”
“Fair enough.” She nodded along appraisingly. “Honestly, you don’t need to choose right away. Your opinion will probably change a dozen times between now and when you graduate. My own career has taken a few sudden U-turns.”
I leaned forward. “How so?”
“My dream was to join the FBI as an analyst.” A fond smile touched her full lips. “Growing up, I wanted to be Clarice from Silence of the Lambs. A badass woman with a badge and a gun. I busted my ass through college and eventually landed a coveted internship at Quantico. It felt like my entire life was on track.”
“What went wrong?” I asked.
