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3
Raleigh
My knee bounces as I wait for my communications class to end. I’ve been a wreck ever since I emailed my professor after my last exam, requesting a chance for some extra credit or a re-do of the exam to try and claw my way out of the hole I seem to be digging. He emailed me back saying he’d like a chance to review my work over the past year to see if my failing results are a lack of understanding or a lack of asserting myself.
He said he’d have an answer for me in a week’s time, and over the past week, all I’ve been able to focus on is the fact he suggested I’m just not trying hard enough. Because let’s be honest, it’s not that I don’t understand the coursework. I know what I’m doing, and I understand the work. Hell, I’m spending every waking hour studying as well, yet when it comes time to sit down for these exams, I just . . . can’t.
I bomb every time. It’s like there’s some kind of mental wall that slams down and prevents me from going any further along this journey. It’s as though I’m doomed to remain as this nothingness I’ve become, no matter how hard I work to claw my way out.
This is my only hope to save myself. I have no choice but to pass this class. Giving up and returning home isn’t an option. I’m in this for the long haul.
The class ends, and I watch as the students around me begin packing up. There are a million of them, and it seems to take forever before they’ve cleared out enough to offer me some sort of privacy to talk with the professor.
Getting up from my small space in the amphitheater, I make my way down to the professor, my whole body shaking with nerves. I clutch my bag tightly, each step bringing me closer and closer to doom.
By the time I reach the bottom step, the room is completely cleared out, and as I somehow manage to hold my composure, I approach his desk. “Excuse me, Professor,” I say, inching toward him. “My name is Raleigh Stone. I emailed you last week in regard to the recent exam. I was wondering if you—”
“Had the chance to review your work?” he finishes for me, not looking very pleased to see me standing here as he pushes his glasses up his nose. “Yes, Miss Stone, I have, and let me tell you, I am not impressed.”
I swallow hard. “I’m sorry?” I mutter, not having expected him to be quite so bold.
“I have been considering your request all week, and I am honestly dumbfounded,” he says. “Where on this green Earth do you get off thinking it’s acceptable to request a re-do of an exam? You are one of three hundred students, and I don’t know if it’s because you believe you are superior to the other students taking my course who are actually putting in the work, but in no way, shape, or form, would it be fair for me to allow you to re-take this exam. It was designed to test your current knowledge and understanding of the course work, and a re-do would be nothing but a slap in the face to those who are actually putting in the effort to pass this course.”
“I . . . that’s not at all what—”
“Being the sister of a rockstar does not give you advantages. This isn’t high school. This is the real world, Miss Stone, and unfortunately, it’s time for you to adjust your expectations. You won’t sail through riding on the coattails of your brother’s success. If you wish to succeed, put the effort in just like everyone else.”
“With all due respect, Sir. You are making an unfair assumption about me,” I tell him. “It was not my intention to suggest I get advantages over the other students. I’ve worked hard to ensure that doesn’t happen, and I see now how foolish it was to ask for a re-do of an exam. I didn’t look at it in that light. However, I don’t believe it’s an unfair request for extra credit. I’m sure if you look back, you will see that I am a good student. I work hard, and I believe I have a fair understanding of your course. I really want to pass this class, Sir. I need to pass.”
The professor sits back in his seat, his gaze locked on me as the silence in the room becomes unbearable. “Okay, Miss Stone,” he finally says. “I will allow you one final chance to prove that you belong here. Let me down, and you’ll leave me with no choice but to fail you. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Sir,” I say with a heavy sigh of relief. “I won’t let you down.”
“See that you don’t.”
I scram, all but racing out of there before he gets a chance to change his mind. It wasn’t exactly how I imagined that conversation to go, and I’m not going to lie, the assumption that I would try to use my brother’s fame as a free ride through college is offensive. But what matters is that he’s willing to give me a chance.
All hope has not been lost.
Assuming the professor will email my extra credit work, I make my way back home after quickly stopping for a late lunch.
It’s been a day, and after being blindsided by the pictures splashed all over social media of Demon’s Curse partying it up in Sydney after wrapping the Australian leg of the tour, I’m so ready to call it a day. It’s bad enough seeing pictures of your brother snorting coke off a hooker’s tits, but to see just how fucked up Devil Spawn was . . . Well, those are the pictures that always kill me.
Ezra is far from being the incredible man I fell in love with. The man who would sit at the end of my bed and scrawl lyrics while I talked shit. The man who held me after my mother died. I don’t think the real Ezra Knight even exists anymore, and nothing is more gut-wrenching than that.
Getting home, I make my way into my bedroom and drop my bag onto my bed before pulling out all of my books. If I’m going to pass this damn class, then I’m going to have to get my shit together and learn how to block out the world around me. I can’t allow myself to fall to pieces every time someone captures Ezra in a compromising position, otherwise, I’ll never live a normal life.
Hell, it’s been six years. Why can’t I seem to move past this already? He’s nothing but a figment of my imagination.
I start cramming as though I were preparing for a test and going over everything I’ve ever learned in my comms class, even the stuff I feel I already know better than my own black heart. I won’t fail this class. Like I said, it’s not an option. Not just because I owe it to Axel after he so generously paid my tuition fees, but because going back to that house in Michigan is something I will never do.
It’s just after five when I hear Madds come in, and as I track her footsteps through our small apartment, I lift my gaze, sensing her right outside my door. She kicks it open a moment later with a huge candle in her hand and her nose shoved into it. She inhales deeply. “Holy shit, girl. You have to smell this. It’s Fireball.”
I arch a brow and stare at her as she hurries around my bed and shoves her brand-new candle in my face. I take a whiff, and a stupid smirk stretches across my face. “Those of us who aren’t alcoholics refer to that as cinnamon.”
She rolls her eyes. “Those of us who make a point to enjoy the smaller things in life would disagree,” she tells me.
My jaw drops. “I do enjoy the smaller things in life.”
