The Road to You

Harper Bliss

Contents

Special Offer from the Author

I. Prologue

1980

II. Part One: 1996

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

III. Part Two: 2002

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

IV. Part Three: 2008

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

V. Part Four: 2014

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

A Note from Harper

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Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Harper Bliss

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French Kissing: Seasons 1-3

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For my wife, always.

Prologue

1980

Children’s cries echo between the walls around the kindergarten playground. It’s a chaotic hive of activity. At the foot of the slide kids are being corralled into a somewhat orderly line by an attendant, so each gets his or her turn on the second-long ride down before crashing on the padded ground at the end. They scramble back up and join the back of the line for another go.

A few boys are kicking around a soccer ball, trying to keep it within their circle. But their five-year-old foot-to-eye coordination mostly fails them and one of them has to chase the ball down after every other kick.

In a corner of the playground, under an old oak tree, two girls sit next to each other. They are not interacting, just sitting side by side, each minding her own business.

One of them is looking up to the sky, singing a song of her own invention, as she twists one of her dark braids around her finger.

The other one, with short blonde hair, is collecting leaves and acorns, stacking them up neatly in equal piles. “Do you want to play?” she asks.

“What are you playing?” the braided girl counters.

“I’m the shop owner and you’re the customer. You want to buy some acorns and the leaves are money.”

“That’s boring.” She pauses and thinks. “I want to come into your shop and sing a song.”

“No,” the blonde girl replies. “This is not a song shop. You have to buy acorns and pay with money.”

The braided girl looks at her with tilted head, and gets up. “I don’t want to play then,” she says and runs off, singing at the top of her voice.

The blonde girl looks after her for a few seconds, before getting back to her counting of leaves and acorns.

Part One: 1996

Chapter One

KATHERINE

I look at Grace and I know it will end soon. She’s just not right for me. I can’t put it into words just yet. I’ll need to suffer in silence for a while first. But I will tell her soon. Although, sitting here with her now, in her off-campus apartment on East Fourth Street, and seeing how the late afternoon sun catches in her hair, I foresee a difficult break-up.

She looks up from her book. “Pussycat,” she says.

Reflexively, I roll my eyes at her. “What?” I hate it when she calls me that. It started with just Kat, though I told her from the very beginning that my name is Katherine, not Kat, and certainly not Pussycat.

“Got your claws out again?” She smiles a disarming smile.

“I told you before,” is all I say.

“But you do everything a cat does.” She doesn’t let it go. “You purr when I pet you. You ignore me when I want you to look at me the most. And you’ve got very sharp claws. You even growl when you’re unhappy.” She rakes her fingers through her hair the way she does. She had it cut short this summer, before we returned to university, despite me begging her numerous times over the phone not to. When I saw her again after those long weeks during which she visited her family in Florida, I had to admit she had done the right thing.

“What did you want to ask me?” I ignore her comment, though I know she’s right. My claws have become a little sharper every day for the past few weeks.

“I just wanted to say something.” Grace’s voice is always high, in a pleasant way. “I love you, Pussycat.” She reaches out her hand and her fingers find my back, caress my skin.

“I love you too,” I say automatically. It’s not a lie. I love Grace. I never thought I would, but she wormed her way into my heart. But ten months together, and me as good as living with her instead of in my dorm room, have muted the passion I used to feel for her. Even though ours was definitely not a love-at-first-sight, thunderbolt kind of attraction. At least not for me.

Grace never questions my love. She’s not a questioning kind of person. She just assumes things very easily. Like me not holding it against her when she arrived twenty minutes late for our first date—a date she instigated. I hid it well back then.

We’re too young to stay together, anyway. I’m only a junior at NYU, she a senior. When it comes to romance, we’re mere babies. Though I do consider her my first true love. The first one that matters.

“You’re driving me crazy, Kat,” Grace says. “You’re looking at me all funny and you’re making me wonder what you’re thinking.”

I quirk up my eyebrows. It’s not like Grace to say things like this. Then again, it’s not like me to have the thoughts I’ve been having. I try to remember when I started getting an inkling of our relationship nearing its end. Was it when she spilled coffee all over my French text book and I lost it? Or when I spotted her chatting animatedly to another girl in her Women’s Studies class—a girl whom I know for a fact has had a crush on her all year—and I didn’t experience any pangs of jealousy? Instead, I figured she’d find a rebound person easily when things between us didn’t work out.

“I’m just nervous about this assignment. You know how much I regret taking French as an extra credit, but now I’m stuck with it and I’ll be damned if I’ll let it ruin my GPA.”

“At least Seabolt’s a looker,” Grace says, again not questioning me further.

“You think?”

“Do you have eyes in your head?” Grace replies. “She’s by far the hottest professor on campus. She makes me wish I had taken French.”

“She has these thin lips and pinched-together mouth. And her eyes have this eery light color. I just find her frightening, that’s all.” I’m also not in the habit of thinking of my professors as hot.

“There’s a rumor going around that she’s one of us. Marcy claims she’s seen her being very friendly with a certain female student.” Grace sits up a bit. Topics like these always get her extremely excited.

“Marcy would say that.”

“Why would you say that?” Her tone is snappy now. “I don’t get why you don’t like Marcy.”

“She’s just… too much for me. Too in-your-face. Too radical and militant.”

“Do you know where we would be without other people being militant for us?”

Here we go again. Grace spends way too much time with her fellow students. This kind of stuff is all they talk about for hours on end. Then she gets upset because I don’t like hanging out with her friends. Wanting to end this conversation as soon as possible, I hold up my hands in supplication. “Yes, Grace. I do know. I know all about it.” Damn it, that sounded way more condescending than I had anticipated.

“Whatever,” Grace says, and looks away.

I have to suppress the urge to up and leave. It’s Saturday and my roommate will be out. I could have a perfectly relaxed evening on my own—minus the laboring over the presentation I have to give in my French class on Monday. Choosing French was a frivolous choice for me, but I honestly believed it would round out my education well. I also didn’t want to be an American who only ever wants to speak their mother tongue.

I love watching French movies, especially older ones with Catherine Deneuve, and my first girlfriend introduced me to the music of Jacques Brel. I just wanted to understand, without the help of a dictionary, what he was singing about. I’m not one to make a decision without thinking it through and examining the results from every angle. I found zero downsides to taking French. What I hadn’t expected was that learning a new language seems to be a million times more difficult for me than for everyone else in my class. I stumble over every word. I can learn the vocabulary all I want, and revise the grammar all night long, but I’ll never be a fluent French speaker. I’ve racked my brain trying to figure out why—as I tend to do—and the best explanation I can come up with is that I simply don’t have a knack for languages. Which is why my major is Economics.

“What do you want to do tonight?” I ask, because I need to stop thinking about my French class, this assignment, and the prospect of Professor Seabolt’s disappointed glare.

“TV and takeout?” Grace offers.

I nod my assent, though I can easily think of a dozen more exciting things to do with my Saturday night, but this is what we do now. We stay in and watch a TV movie. Eat too much and drift off into sleep without even considering the prospect of touching each other.

The thing about Grace is that I don’t want to lose her. We know plenty of people who’ve remained friends after breaking up. With this as my objective, I’d better end it with her before she starts hating me.

ALI

“Ali, Ali, Ali.” Anna shakes her head at me. “Will you never learn?”

“I’m in college so I learn plenty every day.” I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.

“You don’t seem to pick up on what matters, though.” Anna scrunches her lips together. “How old is she, anyway? How long have we known each other? You usually don’t have affairs with women above twenty-five.” She shakes her head again.

I probably shouldn’t have told her. I wouldn’t have—as I said to Julianne earlier, I can keep a secret—but Anna mentioned the rumor that’s going around campus and then I guess she could just read it on my face. “I’ve decided to broaden my scope,” I declare jokingly. “She’s only forty-one.”

“Jesus, Ali.” Anna twirls a strand of ginger hair around her finger as she looks at me. Her coffee must have gone cold by now. “How did it even happen?”

I bite my lip and lock my gaze on her. “I’ve been told I have a certain… inviting kind of look in my eyes. She must have noticed.”

“Nu-uh. I’m not falling for that. There’s too much on the line for a professor who sleeps with a student for her to have just fallen for your pretty face like that. You must have pursued her. I know you well, remember?”

“Let’s just say I needed some extra guidance on the subject of the French Revolution. For instance, did you know that Thomas Jefferson was the U.S. Minister to France during the revolution?” I know I’m driving Anna crazy with this. She’s too strait-laced to get it. Most people are.

“Do you have an end game in mind?” Anna ignores my knowledge about this particular topic. “And what if the rumor spreads?”

I play with the gold bangle on my wrist. “My conscience is clear.” I lean back in my chair and rest my ankle on my knee. I get a flashback from last night, when I sneaked into Julianne’s house long after dark. I should be tired today, but I’m not.

“Do you have feelings for her?” Anna grimaces after taking a sip from her coffee.

Finally an interesting question. “I’m not indifferent to her, or what she thinks of me.” A slow smile creeps along my lips. “It’s just such a thrill, you know, to sit in class and watch her explain something while remembering the delicious noises she produced the night before. While nobody has a clue. And when her eyes land on me, which they always do at some point, to have this secret between us. It’s intoxicating.”

“For now,” Anna says. “But you can’t be so naive to think there won’t be consequences. You could get expelled for this.”

“No way.” Though my tone of voice sounds certain, a flicker of doubt runs through me. “Both my parents are alumni. And we all know how generous the Wests can be.”

“Your father would have a heart attack if he found out.” Genuine worry crosses Anna’s face. I do wish she would lighten up. It’s just an affair.

“Then he would have my mother at hand to make him better.” I drop my foot to the floor and plant my elbows on the table between us, staring deep into Anna’s eyes—knowing it will unsettle her.

“Are you rebelling against the establishment because of your perfect upbringing?” Anna looks away. She’s not really one for prolonged eye contact.

“Perfect?” I huff out an offended breath. “I dare you to try and be a West for a month. You’ll soon notice exactly how perfect things are in my family.”

“It must have been hard growing up in that huge house on the Upper East Side, having to walk all of two blocks to get to Central Park.”

“Dear Anna.” I grab her by the wrist. “You’re my best friend in this whole wide wretched world, and I love you dearly, but why are you on my case so much today?”

“Because,” Anna says, “I think you like her more than you let on and you might get hurt.”

I sigh deeply. “When was the last time you saw me get hurt by a chick?”

“That’s just the thing, though. She’s not”—she curls her fingers into air quotes—“a ‘chick’. She’s your professor. She’s in a position of power.”

“As you said earlier,” I retort, though I still fail to see why I’m getting the third degree about this, “she’s the one who could lose her job over this. She’s the one taking the risk. While I truly appreciate your concern, there’s no need to worry about the future state of my heart. We’re both consenting adults.”

“I’m just worried, Ali. I can’t see this ending well.”

“We both know you worry too much.” Anna spends most of her day worrying. About the cowlicks in her hair. About the A minus she got for an English Lit assignment. About what my parents thought of her when she came to dinner. About how her mother is coping upstate, even though Anna has been in college for almost two full years. “Are you coming to my gig tonight?”

“I don’t know. I want to, you know that. But I have to write an essay by Tuesday and I only have fifteen hundred words so far.”

“Fifteen hundred words? I’ve never written anything longer than a thousand words at the most. You try too hard, Anna.” I tap my fingers against her arm. “Come to the gig tonight and I’ll hook you up with Jennifer. She’s been asking for you.”

Anna turns up her nose at this. “If you want me to come out, you’re gonna have to do better than try to tempt me with Jennifer.”

“What’s wrong with Jennifer?” I let go of her arm and lean back again.

“Apart from the fact that she’s probably hit on half, if not more, of the female population at NYU, I know for a fact that the only reason she’s even remotely interested in me is because I won’t give her the time of the day. She’s immature and crass.”

“Why don’t you tell me what you really think?” I give a chuckle. Jennifer accompanies me on acoustic guitar when I have a gig, and she’s even more of a player than I am. I shrug. “It was worth the try. For what it’s worth, she’s a great friend.”

“Please don’t tell me she plays the guitar for you for altruistic reasons. Being on stage with you just gets her more pussy.” Anna states this so matter-of-factly, I burst out laughing.

“Come for me then?” I bat my lashes at her. “We’ll make a night of it. It’s Saturday. You shouldn’t be working on an essay.”

“Are you playing anything new? Because I’ve heard all your songs a million times.” Despite her petulance, I know Anna will be there tonight.

“We’ve been practicing a new cover. One of your favorite songs. But you have to come see which one it is for yourself.” Anna never fell for my advances either. However, after she told me off in no uncertain terms, she did take a different shine to me. We’ve been friends ever since.

“Who am I to resist the pleading Alison West look? Those hooded eyes, that crooked smile, who can possibly be impervious to that?” Anna jokes. “Of course, I’ll be there.”

I shoot her one of my crooked smiles, secretly glad that we never ended up in bed together. Because if we had, I might not have Anna Davis as my best buddy. Tonight, I’ll dedicate my cover of “Anna Begins” to her.

Chapter Two

KATHERINE

I hate myself for still sitting here across from Grace. I keep telling myself—fooling myself—that a perfect opportunity will present itself for me to say that I’ve fallen out of love with her, but I now realize that there will never be a good time for me to look my girlfriend in the eyes and give her that information. Especially because she keeps going on about doing something special for our one-year anniversary less than a month from now. She wants to go to some cabin in the woods upstate for a weekend and the mere thought of it horrifies me so much, I almost told her tonight. Almost.

Even the lentil soup she’s spooning into her mouth somehow manages to offend me. What is going on with me? Every single morning when I wake up, with her next to me or not, I decide that this can’t go on. But as the day progresses my resolve crumbles, and I get reeled in by one of Grace’s many good qualities again, just long enough to reevaluate my decision. The way we are together now is more like friends, anyway. And I want—so desperately—to remain friends with her. Because she knows me best. Because of how she listens to me with her head slanted and that small smile on her face, her glance all serious. And, mostly, because of how she can so easily put things in perspective for me due to her easy-going nature.

“When are you going to tell me what’s going on with you, Katie?” she asks, after having put her spoon to the side. She certainly hasn’t grown less fond of bastardizing my given name, no matter what I tell her. Some people simply appear to have an inability to address their loved ones by their real name. A very normal sort of behavior according to Grace. She claims it increases intimacy between partners. Personally, I have no issues with simply calling her Grace.

Then her question sinks in. Is this my chance? Or will I chicken out again? Surely I can’t tell her in a restaurant? That would be inhumane—much more so than actually breaking up with her.

I give her one of my trusted, sultry smiles. “I don’t know,” I lie. Because I have also considered that this might just be a bad patch between us—one of those things that every couple goes through—and that I would be giving up the love of my life. As soon as I start thinking in love-of-my-life terms though, I remember all the reasons why she isn’t the one for me. “I just haven’t been feeling myself lately.” Later, when we get back to her apartment, I tell myself. “I don’t really feel comfortable talking about it here.” I glance around furtively to make my point. “Let’s talk when we get home.” Though, home is her place. Her tiny studio where we have to sleep half on top of each other because her bed is less than queen-sized—though still bigger than any bed in a dorm room.

“Okay.” She gives me a nod with a grave expression on her face. “Because we need to talk.”

It would be pretty naive of me to think that Grace hasn’t caught on to my diminished amorous feelings for her. She’s a smart girl, which is one of the reasons I fell for her in the first place. But, on the other hand, it’s just so much easier to just continue with her. After almost a year together we have found our own rhythm, have made up a dialect of our own. It’s the constant struggle between these two urges inside of me that is driving me mad.

“We do.” I agree, because I’m starting to get sick of my own voice when more lies come out of my mouth.

“Are you done?” She eyes my plate, which has remained largely untouched. My stomach is being occupied by a large ball of fear and nerves, leaving no room for food.

“Yeah. I’m not very hungry.”

“I can see that.” She sighs, and I take it as a sign of things to come. Maybe Grace will be the one stepping up in this situation. Maybe she will put me out of my misery. She starts looking around for a waiter, asks for the check.

When we get it, she pulls the piece of paper toward her, puts one hand on it, while she finds her wallet with her other.

This is one of the things about her that drive me insane. I don’t want to be indebted to her. In the beginning, because I was falling in love, I let her pay for a meal a few times—always making certain I returned the favor promptly—but the economist in me only ever feels comfortable with going Dutch. She knows this. We have talked about this at length, which is why her doing this enrages me so much. Tonight, it feels like she’s doing it on purpose.

“I’ll pay for my share.” I put a hand on hers, wanting to take the check from her.

“It’s my treat tonight,” she exclaims, deliberately antagonizing me—at least that’s how it comes across to me.

“Why?”

“Do I need a reason to treat my girlfriend when she’s feeling low?” Her voice sounds sweet enough, but there’s something in her glance, something menacing—something that tells me she’s more than up for a fight.

Without looking at the check, I dig a ten-dollar bill from my purse and put it on the table. Usually, I would pick the check apart and calculate exactly how much each of us owes. I slam the bill on the table. “I don’t need to be treated. I can pay my own way.”

“It’s not about that.” Grace is not backing down. “It’s about you being able to accept me doing this for you. Why is it so hard?”

“Anything else you want to do for me, I will accept, just not this,” I reply, trying to steal some deep breaths in between speaking, to calm myself down.

“That’s a lie and you know it.” Grace picks up my ten-dollar bill and waves it in my face. “Everything always needs to be exactly divided with you. The time we spend doing dishes and laundry. Hell, even the time we go down on each other.” She narrows her eyes. “I’m sick of that, Katie.”

“It’s how I was brought up,” I say, thrown by the rude comment she made and I can’t help but examine my memory for instances of me timing cunnilingus. She is surely making that up to spite me. “The way I was raised, there was no other way.”

“Maybe it’s time you tried to change for the better then.” The waiter has returned and she hands him her money, leaving mine on the table.

This is the time I shut down. I could, again, try to explain to her how disrespected her actions—and her words—make me feel, but when I reach a certain point of anger, no more words come out. The silent treatment it will be tonight. I wish her good luck with trying to have an adult conversation with me later.

Silently, each wrapped in our own displeasure, we leave the restaurant.

“I take it you don’t want to go to Marcy’s party anymore?” She’s the first one to break the silence.

Marcy’s party? Earlier, when Grace said we needed to talk tonight, I had interpreted that as neither one of us going to Marcy’s party anymore.

“You go,” I say. “I’m going home.”

“Your home or my home?” She’s starting to soften. So am I. When she looks at me like that, her eyes kind and her smile warm, I feel as though I’ll never be able to break up with her.

“Yours,” I acquiesce.

She steps closer to me. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

I nod, but I make my nod seem reluctant. “I need some alone time.” A phrase no considerate girlfriend can ever argue with.

“I love you,” Grace says, and plants a soft kiss on my nose.

“Love you too.” I smile, after which we both go our separate ways.

ALI

Anna was right. I do have feelings for Professor Julianne Seabolt. I probably shouldn’t stay the night, though. It wouldn’t be good for either of us.

“Will you give me an A plus?” I joke, while I run a finger over her belly. She’s so pale. The dark color of my skin contrasts so deliciously with her light one.

“Talk to me in French and we’ll see.” Her face breaks out into a smile and it’s as though I can feel it radiate through me.

“S’il-vous-plaît,” I say in my heavily-accented French, still managing to sound like a native New Yorker. I wish I could speak it better, that Julianne’s knowledge of the language would be transferred to me every time we had sex. I’d be fluent by now. We’ve gone from that smiley first kiss in her office to long sessions in her bed in a matter of weeks. I haven’t slept with anyone else since. “Je suis devenue monogame pour toi.” And I have become monogamous for her.

She chuckles. “I’m honored, but I can’t give you an A plus for that.”

“Not even for extra effort?” My finger halts just below her breast.

“Is it that much effort?” She lifts up her head a little to better look me in the eyes.

“Not really.” It has been surprisingly easy, but she doesn’t have to know that. We’re not in the habit of explaining our personalities to each other.

“Is that what you want this to be? Monogamous?”

This makes my ears perk up. Does she mean she has been sleeping with other students? I push myself up and look her straight in the face. “This conversation is taking a turn for the absurd.”

“Just for the record, I’m not sleeping with anyone else. I would consider that very… unsavory,” she says.

“Unsavory, huh?” I glance down at her body and remember how she was spread open for me earlier, how she surrendered to my touch, and how much I enjoyed that. Because I am who I am, I wonder if this is my cue to walk away. But finals are still a few months away and I would have to sit through all those lectures with her, wondering if she had her sights set on anyone else in class, or if she missed me at all. Anna’s words about her being in a position of power run through my head. I don’t give that girl enough credit sometimes.

“Do we need to talk about this?” She runs a finger over my back and my skin breaks out in goosebumps. “We’ve been doing this for a while now. I understand if you have questions. I certainly have a few.”

“Shoot.” I go soft underneath her touch again, and I don’t feel much like talking—I never do.

“What we’re doing is against college rules, we both know that. Have you told anyone?” Her finger has stopped its caress.

“Only my best friend.”

She drops her hand altogether and sits up with her back against the headboard. “You’ve actually told someone?”

“Anna is totally trustworthy. She won’t tell anyone.” Perhaps I shouldn’t have told her.

“Anna Davis who takes French with you in my class?” Her tone increases in pitch.

“Well, yeah… She came to me with a rumor and her being my best friend, I didn’t deny it.”

“Oh shit. This is bad, Alison. When did this happen?” Panic chokes her voice.

“A few weeks ago, but it’s fine. Rumors like that are always going around. Trust me, nobody knows.”

“What did Anna tell you exactly?” Julianne purses her thin lips together.

I exhale a deep breath. She’s sucking all the fun right out of our affair. Though I do understand the position it puts her in. “Just that she’d heard you were involved with one of your students.”

“And you didn’t think to deny it? Did she mention you by name?”

“No, no, no. My name never came up. But I wouldn’t worry about this too much. It sounds much worse than it actually is. You having an affair with a student was one of the first things I heard when I just started at NYU. It’s just one of those persistent college myths, that’s all.”

“Is that why you came on to me?” Her demeanor seems to loosen up a bit. Surely she can’t sit here and pretend to be innocent in all of this.

“Excuse me? I came on to you?” I’m both being coy and remembering how all I had to do was shoot her a suggestive smile to get an instant vibe of reciprocation back.

“Of course you did. You walked into my office all sultry and seductive. Mind you, nothing I haven’t seen before from my students, but there was something different about you. Something I liked.”

“Was it the fact that my grandfather funded most of the new library? That building must host a slew of French Lit books.”

She cocks her head and gives me a confused look. “What are you insinuating?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” We’re naked in bed. This is not a conversation I want to be having.

“Please don’t feel as though you can’t be honest with me, Alison.” She speaks to me the way she would to any student in class.

“You may not know me very well, but if you did, you’d soon learn that I’m a very uncomplicated person. I have a few needs that I like to be met, that’s all. I enjoy… this.” I open my palms and let my hands drift through the air over the bed. “This is casual for me. I won’t be asking you for any favors, nor will I blackmail you. That’s not me. Moreover, your—our—secret is more than safe with me. And yes, I’m not going to lie, you have a bit of a reputation on campus, but please don’t tell me you don’t know about that, because that would make you look pretty stupid, which is something you’re decidedly not. Let’s just have a good time. I know I’m not the first student you’ve had in your bed, and I doubt I’ll be the last.”

A grin crosses her face. She stares at me intently for a few seconds, then says, “So this is just fun for you?”

“Of course it is. What else would it be?”

She shrugs, looks at me some more.

“Were you planning on asking for my hand in marriage?” I can’t help but chuckle.

“What a wonderful hand that would be.” She picks up my right hand and brings it to her mouth. She plants a kiss on it, then cuts her eyes back at me. “Fun it is, then.”

When her lips find my mouth, I conclude that in all the time we’ve been doing this, this is the most profound conversation we’ve had. I’m not hoping for a repeat.

Chapter Three

KATHERINE

If I don’t do something, I won’t get more than a C in French. I need to speak to Professor Seabolt and make her understand that my poor results are not because of lack of effort. All the time I fruitlessly put into mastering the French language is taking away from my focus on other courses. I’m not one to ask for special treatment of any kind, but I just want to make her understand that I made a mistake at the beginning of the year by enrolling in this course.

I sit on a bench outside the building that houses her office. Office hours are almost over. I clasp the last paper she graded between my hands, and my eyes lock on the comment she left in bright red marker in the top right corner: sub par. No teacher has ever described any of my work as sub par. Katherine Shepherd doesn’t do sub par. Not even when I was dragged from country to country because of my father’s military career, and I had to work much harder than any of my classmates to get the same grades, did I perform sub par.

The words are like a slap in my face. I need to talk to her. Something’s stopping me, though. What will I say? Even worse, what if she makes me say it in French? I already feel so ill at ease with her, especially since at the last presentation I failed miserably at making myself sound even remotely French. Maybe it’s because French is the language of love and I suck at love.

“Let it go,” Grace said when I complained about the ‘sub par’ comment. “It’s one course. Four credits. It will have zero effect on the rest of your life. Let it go now and become a happy person again.”

I wish I could. I also wish I could have responded more kindly to her. Neither seem to be within the reach of my personality. My damned, wretched personality. Perfection was expected from me as soon as I was able to comprehend the term. I didn’t have any brothers and sisters to share the burden of expectation with, either. Only hours of loneliness in yet another country, of which I could never sufficiently grasp the language either. If only my dad had been stationed in France, perhaps I would be better at it now. But the United States doesn’t have a military base in France, and instead we got carted off to Germany, and the Philippines, and Japan.