First Semester by Jace Mitchell & Michael Anderle

Author:Jace Mitchell & Michael Anderle [Mitchell, Jace & Anderle, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642025378
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2019-10-24T22:00:00+00:00

Claire wandered quietly into the lobby. The room was dark and empty. Her feet padded softly on the hardwood floors. She wasn’t completely sure where she was going, only that she couldn’t sleep.

She passed by shadow-draped couches, heading to the door on the other side of the room. There was a nice garden outside, and she thought she might go sit in it for a while until she got tired.

“Running away?”

Claire whipped around to the sound of the voice.

“Jack! You almost gave me a heart attack!” she whispered harshly. She could see Jack now, and had only missed him because she’d been so sure this place was empty. He was lying on one of the couches, staring up at the ceiling.

Claire’s heart rate started to fall, and she felt herself calming some. “What are you doing down here?”

“Can’t sleep,” Jack answered without turning over to look at her. “This is some pretty heavy stuff. Heavier than I thought when I signed up.”

Claire looked at the door she’d been headed to, then decided against it. She walked over to a leather chair across from Jack’s couch and curled up on it instead. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I don’t think I actually considered what I was getting myself into before I came. I just wanted to get away from home. I wanted to try something new, I guess. To try for a future.”

Jack blinked in the darkness, quiet for a few seconds. “Maybe that’s true of all of us here. We’re gifted, that’s obvious, but there are other people with gifts too. Yet, they’re at Harvard, ya know?”

Claire didn’t hear his usual bravado in his voice. Is he actually showing vulnerability?

“What are you trying to start new with? What kind of future are you looking for?” she asked, unsure exactly where this conversation would go. Most likely nowhere, because he’d shut it down with some kind of joke.

She saw him shrug in the darkness. “I don’t know.”

Claire was quiet for a few seconds, thinking that maybe it’d be best if she just went out to the garden. He seemed happy enough here by himself anyway. She decided to say one more thing first.

“I was proud of how you handled yourself at the club. You did a really good job.”

“I wanted to get away from my father,” Jack whispered as if Claire hadn’t said anything. “My father and my mother, I suppose, but mainly my father.”

“You don’t like him?” Claire whispered, not wanting to pry, but not wanting him to think she didn’t care either.

Jack shook his head. “It’s not that I don’t like him. He’s my dad. I love him, and I guess I do like him, too. In a way. I don’t like the life he had planned out for me, though.”

Claire’s eyes narrowed. “What life was that?”

“He’s a neurosurgeon. He’s smart as hell. Smarter than I’ll ever be. My whole life, people have compared me to him and....” His voice trailed off, and he shoved his hands in his pockets.

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