Page 4 of Life, Love, and Other Messes

The professor’s jaw twitched. “More than that?”

I smiled weakly.

She paused to look at me for a long time again, but there was still no mention of expulsion. “How do you do it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your own work is consistent. You’ve been on the dean’s list every semester. Most people have a hard enough time getting their own assignments done.”

It seemed like I should possibly thank Dr. Howard for that, but I remained silent and continued to avoid her eyes.

“How long did this take you?” She slid Daniel’s paper closer to me.

“I don’t know. An hour or two.”

Another silence. I wondered if I’d given the wrong answer. I wondered if this one was going to get me thrown out. I began to feel sick to my stomach.

“And how many papers did you write this weekend?”

“Including my own?”

Dr. Howard shrugged, as if that was a dumb question.

“Four or five, I think.” I’d written twelve since Thursday.

“Five papers at two hours apiece is ten hours.”

I nodded.

Now, Dr. Howard leaned toward me and stared at me over her glasses. “Sam, ten hours in one weekend? You’re carrying a full load of credits.”

“It’s just one night,” I said. “Really, it’s easy.”

“Coming up with five original essays in one night. Have you always written this way? Pages and pages? All night long?”

“Pretty much. As long as I can remember.” The conversation had turned in such a strange direction that I finally couldn’t help myself. “Dr. Howard. Am I going to be in trouble?”

She laughed a little. “No. You need to stop before you get into trouble, though. All these people…” She shuffled Daniel’s paper again. “Need to rewrite their assignments themselves, without your input.”

I nodded. Fortunately or unfortunately, I hadn’t cashed that weekend’s checks yet. “Of course.”

Dr. Howard considered me again for another agonizingly long time. It was the kind of prying, knowing look that made me tremble, the kind I never dared to give others lest they think that I was into them. I was quite sure that wasn’t the case at hand. “Sam,” she said. “Have you heard of hypergraphia?”

I shook my head.

“It’s the ability… No, rather an almost uncontrollable urge to write. Dostoyevsky, Lewis Carroll, and Van Gogh were thought to be hypergraphic. The idea’s fascinating. Have you been diagnosed as bipolar or manic?”

Oh God. It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but the idea that someone else could know scared the crap out of me. I shook my head again.

“Forgive me. I just asked because there’s a correlation. There isn’t much to read on the subject, really, at least not much that’s easily digestible.”

I nodded. I wondered if she was going to tell me to get a shrink.

“I assume it isn’t just school assignments?”

I smiled for the first time in the conversation. I was still shaking, but it was in a different way, the way I did when I came out to people or had an intense conversation, more like I felt naked than in trouble. “No, ma’am. I’ve always written.”

“Novels? Have you finished any of them?”