❝ I know two things: you're no prince charming and I'm not in distress. ❞
When Harriet Wright-Cooper follows in her mother's footsteps by pledging Kappa Kappa Theta at Harvard University, she finds that things are much darker than she perceived them...
Ops! Esta imagem não segue as nossas directrizes de conteúdo. Para continuares a publicar, por favor, remova-a ou carrega uma imagem diferente.
Winter in Cambridge, Massachusetts was a cruel masochist that got off knowing its residents were in agony. As the cold seeped through the fabric of my sweats, worn down sneakers smacking against snow slicked concrete, my muscles and lungs ached for me to stop. The morning sun, though weak, was high in the sky compared to when I had first set out; still, my mind held me religiously to the course I traced sophomore year.
The usual reason for my runs came in the form of stress relief: an upcoming exam or overloaded study session. Last semester, right before finals, I ran six hours straight around campus. Though today, it was English Literature which had become the bane of my existence.
"I'm sorry Miss Cooper, but the English course you took at your prior institution didn't meet the requirements for Harvard," Dean Berkshire repeated to me for the third time—the first two had been through strongly-worded emails we engaged in over Christmas break—I cringed slightly at the sound of my name being spoken but refrained from superficial correction. It's just Wright, I thought. Not Cooper and definitely not Wright-Cooper.
"Isn't there anything else I could take to fulfill the requirement?" I asked. "Preferably something within my major."
The Dean of Students glared at me from the edges of his spectacles and huffed through his thinning lips. I could see in his eyes that my persistence had exasperated him, but I was relentless in my mission to avoid stomaching another English class by any means necessary. However, instead of dismissing me as his secretary had tried to do, he grumbled something under his breath before beginning to type away on his keyboard.
"This really is something you should be discussing with your advisor," he said as I secretly rolled my eyes and craned my head around the monitor to confirm he was checking the school registrar.
My advisor, Robert Matthews was a man of great annoyance. He was an adjunct professor who taught an Introduction Political Thought course and on our first meeting insisted I call him Robbie. He chatted with me about his wife and showed me pictures of his children for forty-five minutes before actually getting to my schedule and future plans. It was in that first meeting I knew our partnership wasn't going to work and immediately sought out another advisor but had been declined then and every semester I put the request in. As far as I knew, this wasn't a job "Robbie" could handle and would have to be dealt with by far more capable hands.
I watched diligently from the reflection of his glasses as Dean Berkshire clicked around on his computer and typed a couple more words in. The screen scrolled up and down before he stepped and exhaled. "I'm sorry Miss Cooper, as I said before there is nothing else," he confirmed in voice heavy with apologies, and once again, I felt my heart plummeting into my stomach. "You still have the option of delaying the requirement to your senior year. Though, since that's when most students are wrapped up in internships and colloquiums, I doubt you'd want to hassle yourself with the folly of an additional course. There is also the option of taking it during the summer though as I said, the choice is yours."
