Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 107949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Will was inhaling his food at a speed that seemed potentially hazardous for a wild dog, much less an average-sized human, when my phone dinged with an incoming e-mail. I grabbed for it, and when I saw it was from Clark, I almost dropped the phone in my Tom Kha.
“Omigod, he actually answered all the things!” Relief washed through me as I stared at my phone, and the weight that had been hanging around my neck like that damn albatross we read about in Great Books disappeared. I tossed the phone on the couch, and Will put his plate down just before I threw myself into his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck, and hugged him tight.
“Thanks,” I said in his ear.
His arms came around me and squeezed me tight, one hand moving up to stroke my hair.
“Sure, babe,” he said, and my heart practically stopped from joy.
LATER, I was taking a break, running through some easy yoga sequences. As often happened, after a few minutes of me doing something else, Will started to talk to me.
Initially, I’d thought this tendency was just Will being perverse. Like he was only interested in me when I wasn’t interested in him. After it happened a few times, though, I realized it wasn’t true. It was that Will felt most comfortable talking about some things when all my attention wasn’t on him. So, though my instinct was to pay attention when someone was talking to me, I’d learned it was best to just keep doing whatever I was doing and listen.
So I kept moving, keeping my breaths deep, in through the nose, out through the nose. Move and breathe. He watched me, perching on the arm of the couch so he could look out the window behind me at the same time. Will looked out the window a lot. The view was the main reason he’d taken this apartment, he’d told me once.
“You can’t get caught up in that kind of shit like what happened with Clark again,” Will was saying, staring past me into the dark city outside. “You’re too smart. You shouldn’t let people have that kind of power over you.”
This was pretty laughable coming from the guy who had such incredible power over me. But I didn’t say that. It was best to just let Will say his piece before responding.
“I know he’s your TA, so he does technically have actual power over you. But you have to remember: NYU is providing a service, and you’re the customer. They’re there to educate you. To make sure you learn the material. Not to make you feel like shit, or like you’re not good enough. Not to try and control what you do with your life.”
That gave me pause since Clark had never tried to control anything about my life.
“Did that happen to you?” I asked carefully, pitching my voice softly so it sounded offhand. I moved into downward-facing dog like I was barely listening to the answer.
Will said nothing.
I pressed my thumbs firmly into the carpet, turned my elbows out to protect my shoulder joints, and moved my shoulder blades together on my back, bending into my knees and then pressing my thighs up to straighten my legs. I could practically hear Tonya’s voice in my head whispering adjustments.
“What happened?” I asked, and then I just breathed—in through my nose, out through my nose—and waited, not sure if Will would answer or not.
“There was this TA for my Intro to Graphic Design class, second semester freshman year.” Will ran a hand through his hair, still looking out the window. “Or, I guess he wasn’t technically a TA, since he wasn’t a grad student; he was a senior graphic design major, but whatever. He was really talented and really harsh. You could tell he kind of hated doing teaching stuff and thought he was too good for it. But he liked me. Said I had potential. He helped me out a lot—helped me with my designs and with adjusting to school. To the city.”
It was strange to be reminded that once Will was just a kid from small-town Michigan who’d never been to the city either. That however far away from me he sometimes seemed now, we’d come from the same place.
“But he was manipulative as hell too. Talked me out of using this one idea I had for a design and then used it himself. And when I called him on it, he told me that I hadn’t known what to do with it so it couldn’t’ve worked; that knowing how to use a design is just as important as the design itself.”
My arms started to shake, and I moved through a few vinyasas, my attention always on Will.
“Hell, he even manipulated me into thinking that I seduced him.”
I dropped to my hands and knees, breathing deliberately, like his words hadn’t knocked the wind out of me. As I moved into plank pose, out of the corner of my eye I saw him twisting the hem of his shirt between his fingers.