This is Part III of Until You’ve Bled. Part I is here.
ophomore year. Dad lived long enough for her to declare her major. Biology. Something she excels at. Something Jess leads her entire class at.
Yet, she finds solace in sitting at the coffee shop drawing random people. Or things.
Her friends experiment with pot, politics, and pretty much everything else you’re supposed to experiment with in college. Sex, binge drinking, tattoos.
Jess? Not so much.
Not that she’s square. More like she’s an empty shell.
Of course boys like her. She’s not that pretty. But she’s far from ugly. A good height, a good weight, decent curves, definitely good enough to get asked out often.
But it’s not that she’s not that kind of girl. Rather, she buries herself in schoolwork. Deep down inside, Dad and Mom both smiled when she brought home those good grades.
No, not that type of smile where they smile for a few seconds before going back to what they were doing before. A deep, genuine smile where they’re genuinely proud of their little girl.
Did I mention they’re both dead now? Of course I did. You already knew that. But I’m just reminding you that she doesn’t go a day without thinking about both of them.
So the way to cope? Study hard. When things get bad? Study harder.
Her friends talk about their families. Nobody has yet to ask about hers though. Jess never says anything. And to be honest, despite being liked, despite having plenty of friends, none of them are really friends. More like acquaintances. More like people she occasionally talks to.
Not intimately though. She’s friendly to most, but kind of indifferent. Almost as if her smiles are forced.
But she’s good at it. They don’t notice.
Nobody notices. Most people are self-absorbed.
No, I’m not picking on college kids. I’m saying most people are self-absorbed. Period.
So she spends her extra time in coffee shops. Drawing random people. And sometimes things.
She’s getting mostly A’s in her GED. And of the beginning Biology classes, she’s totally killing it. Biology though? Why?
There’s a man who also thinks the same way.
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