"You just gotta trust me baby."
***
Lourdes Brown has been hurt, badly. Instead of fully healing from her trauma, she turns to drowning her sorrows in work and school. She refuses to let herself get hurt again and has made a vow to not entertain th...
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Lourdes was running late.
It was Monday and her Women's Studies class started at 9:30, it was 10:05 and she was just entering one of the many lecture halls on the UMD campus. Aaliyah and Nala decided to stay the night at Gianna's the night before so no one was at the apartment to wake her up when her alarm was blaring for 10 minutes straight. When Lourdes did wake up she was shocked and panicked when the time on her phone read 9:43. She had rushed to throw on an outfit that consisted of matching cream-colored sweat pants/pullover and brown men's Uggs. She didn't even have time to shower and quickly ran out the door, speeding down the road in her Honda Civic.
She was dreading entering the class and facing her Professor since she knew she was going to be embarrassed, but pushed the heavy door open, nonetheless.
She entered the hall to find Professor Magaline, pointing at the projector at the front of the class. All conversation halted when she closed the door, due to the door letting out a loud squeak gathering the attention of the entire class.
"Ms. Brown! How nice of you to join us, I don't suppose you have an explanation as to why you're over 30 minutes to my class?" Her Professor raised her eyebrows at Lourdes while looking at her with her arms crossed. Professor Magaline was a middle-aged, tiny Phillipina woman that had been teaching at the university for 10 years and was known to be a hard ass on campus. When Lourdes first signed up for Women's Studies she was annoyed when she found out she had to deal with her.
"No, I don't." Lourdes gave her a tight-lipped smile and adjusted her furry bag on her shoulder.
"You can have a seat then," Professor Magaline quipped and went back to telling the class about Women's Rights during the Civil Rights era. Lourdes quickly found a seat in the back of the class and pulled her laptop out of her bag, prepared to take notes. She glanced to her right and noticed one of the notorious UMD Terrapins, Mateo Chávez was leaning back in his seat and texting someone. He probably thought this was an easy A class too, Lourdes thought to herself while rolling her eyes. She zoned back into the lecture and continued to take notes until class came to an end.
"Now everyone, I'm going to assign you this now so you have the rest of the quarter to work on it. For this class, 60% of your grade is going to be based on a final presentation you have to give at the end of the semester to the entire class. Starting from 1920, I want you all to talk about the rights of women and how they have changed throughout each decade. I want you to talk about the different races of women and how they have been affected by gender inequality. This will be due at the end of the summer and I have already picked your partners, so come on up and look at this chart I've made for you all." Professor Magaline beckoned for them to come to the front of the room.
Lourdes sighed and made her way to look at the list, she wasn't friends with anyone in the class so she wasn't excited to be spending months working on a project with a stranger. As she scanned the list looking for the B's, her eyes landed on her name and almost did a double-take when she saw her name paired with Mateo Chávez. Groaning she turned around to look for him and saw he was still sitting in his seat. She took a deep breath and marched up the stairs, dreading having to converse with him but reminded herself this was for 60% of her grade.
