Letters of Love (Lessons in Love) (11 page)

For a moment Miss Dunne was silent, as if lost to contemplation. In the void left by the lack of conversation
, Alex tried to focus her thoughts, not to lose herself to panic over the possibility that she was about to be expelled from the college she’d initially fought so hard to attend.

“I think we both know why you’ve been absent so frequently,” Miss Dunne said quietly. “I told you to avoid him.”

Alex straightened in shock at Miss Dunne mentioning Oscar; then she turned crimson with embarrassment. It felt surreal to have an authority figure discussing her romantic life.

“Mr. Deloitte is a troubled yet brilliant young man
, and sadly anyone he associates himself with ends up being collateral damage in his continual attempt to self-sabotage. You are a bright young woman, Miss Heron, I urge you to disengage yourself from him and discover your true potential here at Princeton.”

“You’re not expelling me?” Alex blurted suddenly, shocked.

“No, at least not yet,” Miss Dunne answered cautiously. “I met with the school board, and we reviewed your case and decided to offer up a compromise.”

“Okay…”

“If you attend our summer school, improving both your grades and your attendance, you will be allowed to continue your studies here in the fall.”

“Really?” Alex felt overjoyed by the compromise
, but her glee was short lived as she remembered how she’d promised her mother that she’d go back to Woodsdale over the summer break. It had been so long since she’d been back there.

“I know how important the summer break is to students
, but you need to look at the bigger picture, Miss Heron. Your future here will be determined by what you do over the next few months.”

Alex didn’t need to think about what to do. She knew what needed to be done, what she needed to sacrifice
. She just dreaded the phone call to her mother and explaining why she wouldn’t be coming home that summer.

“I’m so grateful to be given another chance to prove myself. Summer school sounds great
.” Alex smiled.

“I’m glad you think so.” Miss Dunne nodded but didn’t return the smile. “Just remember how close you’ve come to expulsion not once but twice now, Miss Heron. No one gets a third chance, not in life and certainly not here.”

Alex nodded as she gathered up her things, including the literature about the summer school program that Miss Dunne had discreetly slid across the desk as they spoke.

****

Alex felt deflated as she sat cross-legged in the grass, having just gotten off the phone to her mother, who cried upon hearing that she wouldn’t get to see her daughter for yet another summer.

“Hey
.” Oscar’s familiar voice carried on the breeze, soon accompanied by his cedarwood scent as he sat down next to Alex.

“You okay?” he asked with concern, noticing how Alex’s face was pained.

“I’ve been better.” Alex sighed.

“Bad day?”

“The worst.”

“What happened?”

“Basically I got called to Miss Dunne’s office, again, because of my poor attendance, and either I stay here and go to summer school or I get kicked out. I feel like such a failure.” Alex held her head in her hands.

“You can’t let them get to you like this,” Oscar implored her. “You’re better than this, Alex. It’s all bullshit. All the hoops they make you jump through like some circus animal. And for what, the privilege of being here? It’s a joke.”

Oscar reached into his pocket for a cigarette, but Alex stayed his hand.

“Please don’t,” she begged
. “I’m already in enough trouble as it is.”

“Don’t be their puppet
.” Oscar shrugged her off and proceeded to light his cigarette.

“I’m not anyone’s puppet!” Alex yelled at him, her emotions from the morning suddenly erupting.

“This is a big deal, Oscar. Failing college is a big fucking deal! I want to make it here. I want to graduate and get a good job and build a decent life for myself!”

“You sound like yet another sheep,” Oscar scoffed.

“So what are you going to do when you eventually leave here? Live on the streets, forever chasing an unobtainable dream?” Alex demanded.

“Are you listening to yourself? Who cares if you drop out of college
? It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.”

“Of course it matters!” Alex was almost screaming at him, garnering cautious glances from other students scattered around them.

“You’re being ridiculous!” Oscar stood up, preparing to leave.

“I wanted you to support me, to reassure me that it’d be okay
, and all you ever do is berate me,” Alex said tearfully, her anger giving way to sorrow.

“I’m not going to hold your hand while you dance for them,” Oscar said bitterly.

“Aren’t you ashamed to waste this opportunity, this chance to learn?” Alex asked him sincerely, looking up at him with tearstained cheeks.

“The only thing I’m ashamed of right now is being here with you,” Oscar told her sharply before turning and striding away from her.

Alex watched his back as he left, desperately trying to suppress the sobs that were welling up inside her.

****

“Summer school is a good thing.” Ashley sat on Alex’s bed, rubbing her best friend’s back as she cried.

“It’s only a few months
. It’ll be over before you know it, and you can start out third year with a clean slate.”

“But Oscar hates me
.” Alex sniffed woefully.

“I can’t believe he talked to you like that, right when you needed him most
.” Ashley shook her head in disapproval.

“He’s just so antiestablishment
.” Alex tried in vain to defend the man she thought she loved.

“Then he shouldn’t be in an establishment!” Ashley declared. “Miss Dunne was right
. He’s just bringing you down, and if he really loved you, then he wouldn’t let that happen.”

Alex suppressed yet another sob at the thought that perhaps Oscar didn’t really love her, that she was just another pawn in his game of self-destruction.

“Maybe staying here over the summer will be a good thing,” Ashley said gently. “Give you a chance to just focus on school and get your head straight.”

“Yeah.” Alex felt sick at the thought of not seeing Oscar all summer and wondered if and when their paths would ever cross again. Since their argument, he’d ignored all her texts and calls, sending her a pretty clear message about where they stood.

“Forget about him and just focus on you,” Ashley advised.

“You’re right.”

“Take the summer to find the real Alexandra Heron, and then come third year, we’ll be fresh and on top of our game.”

The real Alexandra Heron seemed long gone. Alex struggled to identify with the girl she had become. Skipping classes to be with a boy wasn’t her style. She’d always been so studious and driven, at least until her father died. She hated to think that perhaps the cheerleader from Woodsdale hadn’t been such an act, that a part of her had been that vacuous and self-serving.

“I’ll fix this,” Alex promised her best friend, determined not to let her infatuation with Oscar ruin her future.

“I know you will
.” Ashley smiled.

Alex watched her sorority sisters depart for their summer adventures, envious of them getting away, but also resolved to turn things around, to finally be the Alex Heron she wanted to be.

The hot summer months seemed to drag on endlessly as Alex navigated her way around an almost deserted campus.

Being in the sorority house was the worst part. It was so eerily quiet it unnerved her to come back after classes to a house so big and so empty. At night she would awaken at the sound of a creaking floorboard or an expanding pipe, convinced that someone had broken in.

Occasionally some of her sisters drifted back for a few days, usually with someone from home who they wanted to show the house to. Alex was always grateful for their company, and they would be kind enough to let her tag along with them for meals and even cinema outings. Alex began to realize how much she’d cut herself off from the rest of the sorority when she’d been preoccupied with Oscar. The desolation of summer school was unnerving, but she was enjoying the opportunity to get better acquainted with a few of her sorority sisters.

Classes weren’t that bad. The number of students attending was about a third of that during normal term time. Alex didn’t really get a chance to speak with people in her classes, none of whom she recognized. They all appeared to be fiercely driven and focused solely on their studies; she wondered if perhaps they had been given the same ultimatum that she had.

“So it’s not so bad, being there alone?” Jackie Heron asked anxiously.

“Not really
.” Alex was sitting in the lounge area of the sorority house, lying on the sofa, the television nearby playing some reality series she wasn’t even paying attention to. Her textbooks and study aids were littered all over the floor. Since there was no one around to berate her, Alex could be as messy as she liked, and the lounge area was big enough to let Alex spread her paperwork around. Having the television droning on in the background also helped create the illusion that she wasn’t actually alone.

“I mean, I can come up and visit if you like?” Jackie offered kindly, desperate to see her daughter.

“No, it’s fine.” Alex quickly shut down the idea, aware that her mother wouldn’t be able to afford the train fare to come and see her and couldn’t bear to think of her going into debt just to keep her company.

“I’m really busy with schoolwork
, and I’m also thinking about getting a job.” Both parts were true. For a long time Alex had considered getting work in a department store or waitressing somewhere. She planned on sending money back home, but previously she’d felt like she had no time to spare, mostly in part thanks to Oscar, but since she’d not heard from him since their argument, she concluded that he was gone from her life, freeing up a lot of her time.

Each time she thought of Oscar it felt like she was getting thumped in the stomach. Alex missed him terribly and tried to keep herself busy so that she couldn’t think about him. A job would be another tool to stop her thoughts w
andering back to him as they so liked to do.

“A job? Don’t go overdoing it, Alex
. You need to focus on your studies,” Jackie warned, already panicked by the fact that Alex had been held back in summer school due to her previously poor performance.

“It’ll be fine,” Alex reassured her mother.

“Are you sure you’re not too lonely up there?”

“No, it’s okay. Besides, Ashley is coming back early to be with me
, so she’ll be here in a few weeks.”

“That’s nice
.” Jackie sounded relieved. “But don’t let her distract you from working. No more parties!”

“Yes, Mom.” It seemed strange to be dictated to by her mother
; her words no longer held any weight with Alex. Jackie Heron was oblivious to what her daughter was actually doing, a fact that made Alex feel both liberated and fearful. She knew that in being at college she was taking an inevitable step towards adulthood, forging her own way in life and growing further apart from her mother.

What worried Alex was
that when her brother also flew the nest, her mother would be completely alone at a time when she should have been enjoying her newfound couple time with her late husband.

“How’s Andy?” Alex asked as she cast her eyes over a set of notes she’d written during class the previous week.

“He’s doing really well. He goes every day to this football camp his school has set up.”

“That sounds good.”

Alex missed her younger brother. Their differences in both age and gender meant that it was difficult for them to forge a bond during these teenage years. Andy was embarrassed to spend time with his sister; he found her presence overbearing. Alex had concluded that it was best to leave him to it. She was there if he needed her, and when he was older, she hoped they’d find their way back into one another’s lives.

“We both miss you
,” Jackie admitted sadly.

“I miss you guys too.” Alex suddenly felt heavy with sadness. So much space in her heart was taken up with longing for someone. She missed her father. She missed her mother and brother, and also Oscar. And Mark. Just when Alex thought she’d forgotten about him
, he’d crop up in her mind, a reminder that her feelings for him still remained.

“Hopefully you can come home soon.” Jackie sounded tearful
, so Alex knew it was time to end the conversation before her mother got too distressed.

“Look, Mom, I’ve got
a lot of work to do, so I’d better go.” Alex sounded firm, denying her mother the opportunity to try to prolong the call. It only hurt them both when they entered into the kind of territory when they reflected on how far they were apart and how long it had been since they saw one another.