The Ten-Year Game Plan

Chapter 7-Josie

The next few weeks of summer passed far too quickly for my liking.

My friends and I had taken up yoga at a studio near our apartment and swore we would do it all year long. We'd done the same thing with kickboxing and rock climbing in years past but we swore up and down that yoga would be different.

Hayden and I continued seeing each other on "dates" which oddly meant that we'd stopped hooking up with each other altogether. At least, for now. Our relationship hung in some weird limbo land.

The peer tutoring program I worked for started their training sessions for the upcoming semester and I dreaded them. I registered for the LSAT so I would take it over winter break and I dreaded that too.

We drank, tanned, and gossiped a little too much, but it was exactly what I needed from my last few weeks before I dove headfirst into schoolwork. With a double major in Legal Studies and Environmental Heath Engineering with a minor in English Lit, there wasn't a lot of crossover in my course load, so I normally overloaded my schedule and took classes in the summer. Fortunately, those had all wrapped up in time for me to enjoy my last few weeks of summer.

Because I'd been drowning in school the past three years to fit my nuanced majors in, this year I was only missing a few credits. One was my stupid performative humanities requirement: theatre 200 at 8 am on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Fortunately, Gisele was in the class with me.

Unfortunately, Gisele was never ready on time. Even on the first day I left without her, knowing that she'd roll in twenty minutes late with a Starbucks cup in her hand.

The class was held in our theater auditorium. I was a little ashamed to admit that I'd never been in it before, but it was big and the professor directed us to sit in one of the audience chairs according to the seating chart he'd made up. I sat in the front and Gisele sat in the row behind me. It was unlikely that I'd know anyone else in this class, as it was usually taken by underclassmen trying to get their prerequisite courses out of the way early.

"Alright! Let's get started," the professor began.

He was one of those younger, eccentric looking professors that you knew smoked a lot of weed in college because it was 'artistic.' That was the assumption, at least, after looking at the corduroy pants and tie dye shirt. Probably a good one, at that.

Gisele was still nowhere to be seen.

He started describing his classroom policy and I knew I was spot on as he described himself as 'a chill professor.' At least I knew the class would be easy enough.

"We'll have one big performance at the end of the semester that you'll be graded on. You'll do this performance in partners," he explained and I tapped my foot anxiously. If he told us to pick partners and she wasn't here, I would kill her. "Since most of you probably don't know each other, I'll go through and pick them based on last names."

I took a deep breath, relaxing a little. I hadn't looked at the roster, but Gisele and I's last names were close alphabetically. The professor continued explaining the assignment but I zoned out to check my phone.

Gisele: not coming today. Didn't feel like it. Take notes for me!

With a laughing face emoji. I groaned inwardly.

The professor started calling out names to assign us to our partners and I was barely paying attention. I hated group work and the only thing worse than group work was group work with strangers. Especially on something as stupid as—

"Donovan Starr with Kendall Sampson."

I choked on my own spit. It was very ladylike.

My neck snapped to where the professor was looking and, of course, there was his dark hair and those stupid blue eyes. He was raising his hand. There is no way the universe hated me this much. At this point, it was just peeing on me because it felt like it.