Jaywalking by Rachel Ember

Author:Rachel Ember [Ember, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chestnut Press, LLC

Eleven

Jay

October

“Hey, Miller!”

Jay was running along the boundary line in the practice field, completing the set of sprints that were part of the familiar drill, and he was more or less on autopilot. The sound of his teammate shouting his last name barely cut through the fog of distraction that had gotten denser and denser in the two days since he’d seen Emile.

Every time Jay pressed the tiny cut on his fingertip against his palm until it throbbed dully, he felt the humiliation of being dismissed from Emile’s office all over again. The man who had come in and interrupted them must have been another professor at Walland. He’d been good-looking, and sharply dressed. Almost like an older, much-less-hot version of Emile, and there’d also been something about the energy in the air between them that had made Jay wonder…

“Miller!”

Jay finally turned his head, just in time to avoid tripping over the ball that one of the midfielders—Dale—had just kicked into his path. After a clumsy half-step, he managed to punt it back to Dale, who stopped the ball with his left foot and then put a his hand on his hip, glaring at Jay. “What the fuck, dude?”

“Language, Benton!” growled the coach. But he gave Jay a reproving look, as well. “Get your head in the game, Miller, or you’re going to get yourself hurt.”

Jay nodded, his cheeks hot, and pushed himself through the drill, driving his body so hard that his head lacked the spare room for the memory of Emile’s face, pale and ill with shock, as it had looked when Jay had told him that he hadn’t managed to drop Lit 100, after all.

He could still hardly believe how things had turned out. It all rushed back to him now as practice ended and he jogged slowly toward the locker room along with his teammates. After spending the night at Emile’s, he’d gone back to his dorm with the feeling that he was walking on clouds, unfazed even when he’d found Eric hastily shoving what looked like a katana into a box under his bed.

Then, he’d logged onto his laptop to check the status of an assignment he’d turned in electronically, seen the email from his advisor, and felt his entire mood reverse from high to low within the first few lines of her message. Jay had gone straight to his advisor’s office. He’d been raised by two staunch atheists and never developed anything that could be called faith of his own, but found himself praying that the email was just some kind of misunderstanding.

Apparently, whatever god he’d hitherto ignored in his life hadn’t been impressed by his pleas, though. His advisor had seemed a little puzzled by how upset he was, and then told him in no uncertain terms that he’d missed the deadline to drop a class for a student athlete, and he would either have to finish Lit 100, or fail it. Ceasing his attendance and taking the fail obviously wasn’t a solution, though Jay had entertained it for a wild moment.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.