Smoked Success

29.

It's Taylor Hutchinson, my university's best friend's sister. I haven't talked to him for so long, and I'm not planning to do so.

"I'm surprised you went to university." I reply, being as sassy as she is. "Please don't tell me your brother's here too."

"Oh honey, he is. He can't leave his sister in a foreign country alone." She states. Uh honey your brother's American and so are you I guess.

After introducing the rest of the students, I'm now assigning a helping student for each, it's Taylor's turn.

"Hutchinson's helper will be Haddad." I declare. Andrew seemed confused, but I swear that's all I could do, I couldn't find someone who'd hate her as much as I do. Taylor might be happy for now, but oh well. I can see Andrew sighing as he continues drawing on his notebook.

I head out of campus, my day's finally over. I put on my sunglasses, and start walking out, until a familiar voice that I hate stopped me.

"Jessica? What on Earth are you doing in here?" Josh, Taylor's brother says, smiling. What on Earth am I doing here? What on Earth is he doing here? This is where I teach, and I remember pretty well that Josh doesn't teach or go to UCLA.

"She's my teacher." Taylor pops next to him, and I can see that Andrew and her are getting along well. I have no idea how she's wearing this in front of her brother and he doesn't care.

"Wait wait, so you're a teacher now?" He narrows his eyes then laughs when he notices I'm serious. "You graduated from Harvard to do this?"

"Yes I did. I couldn't stand being a robot in their office just pressing buttons." I roll my eyes, getting out my pack that I haven't smoked for so long.

"You still smoke?" His smile fades. He was one of the only people in Harvard that knew about my best friend Marlboro. He did try to stop me from doing it, but he ultimately failed.

"Some things never change, right?" Just like his sister. I light it up. "Guess I'll go now. Seniors, I'll see you tomorrow. Josh, it was nice meeting you again after all these years." I lie, blowing out smoke. I walk, heading to my car. I'm glad Josh didn't insist on doing any activity that involves me.

I have been short on meetings lately. I do meet Katherine, but I haven't been to any for so long now. I do miss them, but my life isn't that fucked up, and not everyone needs to know about everything. Katherine knows I smoke, she's not keen on it, but she can't change my mind. I have no idea why I stopped smoking in the first place.

All I want to do now is to go home and spend some time with Angelina. Peter might not be the perfect person to talk to at most times, but he's my brother after all.

Speaking of which, Tyler still needs a transplant, but so far, I got no one in the United States. He's on the organ donation worldwide list, but of course, since he's young, it's not as urgent as it is for an old person. So far, he's good with the medicine he's taking, but it's not making the problem smaller, it's just stopping it for now. I should focus more on that research.

It's my birthday today, but it's not like Angelina or Peter know this by heart. Tyler went to university again, he's not excited to meet Taylor. She used to have a crush on him when they were in school, she's his age. The thing is, when you notice that even Tyler's worst enemy is already finishing university, while he's just a sophomore. She still does mathematics too.

I can bet Josh was the one to persuade her to do Business. I can also bet that he knew I am teaching Business Economics in UCLA because he's pretty good at stalking, he's been doing so since we left Harvard. But let's not jump to conclusions, maybe the girl did want to do Business Economics.