Page 2 of Blind Bite
Struggling to stay engaged in the lecture, I started to doodle in my notebook. It's not anything against the professor. She's very enthusiastic when it came to writing, but I still found my mind lost in daydreams. Was it childish to think this one date could be it?
Growing up, my parents were disgustingly in love. They met in college where my dad kept sitting next to my mom and asking to borrow a pencil. Before a month passed, it turned out he wasn't even taking the class. He saw her in the cafeteria one day and it was love at first sight. That's how he always told it. My mother always giggled when listening to him get to that part of the story. He told it often enough that she'd say she couldn't exactly say no when he asked her out. After all, she had to recover all those pencils he borrowed from her somehow.
On their date, he charmed her with his wit and smile, and she knew right then that she would marry him. They got married two years later, after they graduated. I suspected they got engaged that very night.
It was a lovely story, one for the ages, but it explained a lot about the way they parented. My parents were very loving, almost too much so. Anything I showed interest in, they would dive right in and go overboard. The spotlight attention was suffocating enough to kill my interest in anything I tried.
By the time I became a senior in high school, I knew I needed my own space to breathe and figure out who I was. Thankfully, Amelie and I were both accepted to Witherford University, nestled in a little town in Pennsylvania, far from our Texas roots.
The weather was a bit of an adjustment, and I did miss home at times, but I've found my place here. Life was a constant juggle now. Classes throughout the day, my tattoo apprenticeship in the afternoons, and my nights spent cramming for a test or out with friends. Between the chaos, life was good despite the occasional term paper panic.
My first two semesters out here were rough. Amelie grabbed a job in a kitchen and I tittered around coffee shops, making overpriced, overly complicated drinks for upperclassmen I'd see around campus. I hated it. Every day I had someone yelling at me over their milk being wrong or their drink having too many caramel crunchies. It was clear that being a barista was not my calling. There weren't many options for an artist—my digital work never got much traction on social media, and I had an original web comic that maybe one person read every week. I had been seeing a bartender who took me with him to one of his tattoo appointments, and that night changed my life. I met Krista, a badass tattoo artist, with the shop of my dreams. As shitty as the boyfriend was, I wouldn't have ever crossed paths with her, which means I wouldn't have ended up as her apprentice months later after my relationship had met its end.
I tuned into the professor's lecture about the different structures used to develop deep relationships and their impact on both character and plot development in romance novels.
“In the case of Hometown Hottie, why would Damien abruptly abandoned his lifelong dream of being a fire ranger? A job he had just been offered after months of training. Only to choose his family's store in his hometown instead.”
Her eyes scanned the room as she waited for a raised hand. An awkward silence settled over the room until it was almost unbearable. Slowly, I raised mine.
“Ah, yes Miss Bensen?”
“Because it would take him away from Virginia. He was in love.”
She took careful steps from her podium, her hand brought up to her chin in thought.
“Explain.”
“Why else would someone give up their dream? He wanted to become a fire ranger ever since he was a child when a ranger saved him in a forest fire while camping. His whole life, he planned to move away to pursue this dream. We know love tends to be used as a powerful force. I feel like it would have to be something as strong as love to deter him from his dream.”
“That may be, but I don't recall Virginia ever asking him to give it up for her. His decision was also made after he was reprimanded during his training. We must take all outside factors into consideration and think about what a character may not be telling us about their fears and failures through the lens of romance. The underlying motivations may be more complex or darker. Even in romance, love isn't always the end all answer.”
She led us down a rabbit hole of how the narrator can be unreliable. Really, it was fascinating how a story could be written in a way where you read the “thing” but don't see it because it was woven in so delicately until it resurfaced as a revelation.
Chapter Three
The Romance Lit class dragged on another fifteen minutes before we were finally dismissed. I stuffed my notebook into my bag and hustled across campus to Professor Holloway's History of Lore and Mythology class. It was my second favorite course this semester, right after my art elective.
I slid into my usual seat next to Lacey, who was already doodling Celtic knots in her notebook margins. Her copper hair was twisted into a messy bun today, held together with what looked like two colored pencils.
“Cutting it close,” she whispered while I unpacked my things.
“Professor Chen went into overtime again,” I pulled out my well-worn textbook. “Something about unreliable narrators and the subtext of rejection.”
Professor Holloway swept in, his tweed jacket complete with elbow patches looking every bit the classic professor.
Without even a greeting, he dove into his lecture on Mesopotamian deities.
Ten minutes in, while he was describing Inanna's descent to the underworld, Lacey shifted closer.
“So, are you excited about tonight?” her whispered words brushed my ear.
I tried to focus on my notes. “What's tonight?”
“Stop pretending,” she jabbed my ribs with her elbow.
“Your date with Beckett?”
So that was mystery boy’s name. I stifled a groan. “I'm not sure I—” Too focused on my whispering with my friend, I accidentally knocked over my bag, its contents spilled across the steps beside my seat.
