Lucky 33 (Love in the District #2)

28. Philly Girl

CHAPTER 28

PHILLY GIRL

A my woke up determined to get her apology note to Drew that day. In the excitement of getting her apology written well, she had forgotten that she needed a disguise to get in and out of Drew’s department offices without him catching sight of her. While Amy looked for his office location online, she had thought to look in the AU course catalog for the classes Drew was teaching that semester. She was pleased he taught classes back-to-back on Mondays and Wednesdays so she would have a decent buffer for getting in and out of the office. Unfortunately, the classes were held in the same building as his office. She made a note of the room numbers so she could stay away from them. The last thing she wanted was to walk by his class and have him catch a glimpse of her.

I’m being paranoid. The chances of that are so low.

She looked through her closet for the most un-Amy outfit she owned. Drew had seen her in all her summer clothes by the time they had broken up. So, her only option was to dig into the fall stuff and find something she wouldn’t normally wear out.

Ah ha. A long-sleeve t-shirt she had gotten from a fun run years ago. Amy liked to be active, but running wasn’t her jam. If he saw her, he wouldn’t think she’d be the type to have a Broccoli Fest 5k shirt on. He’d be right . She paired the shirt with running shorts that were non-descript enough that they could belong to anyone. Amy finished her disguise with a Phillies cap that someone had gotten her as a joke and sneakers she had meant to throw away last year.

Perfect. I don’t look like myself at all if I keep my head down.

Amy was feeling pretty sneaky as she rode the 33 bus to AU. She spent the ten-minute ride amusing herself by creating a backstory for her character. I’m a fit woman on the go. Care about my appearance? That’s for people who don’t spend their weekends doing charity runs and working at the animal shelter. I’m a Philadelphia transplant who’s loyal to her city. DC is just a stop on my lifelong adventure. I’m a little rough and tumble since I spent my first few years out of college teaching in South Philly. By the time the bus stopped in front of the university, Amy had convinced herself that her tough-but-charitable Philly girl persona was real.

Amy felt like walking a little tougher as she made her way to Kerwin Hall. She found the department offices easily and was glad that a cheerful young woman was seated at the front desk.

“Hi, I have something for Dr. Porter. Can I leave it with you?”

“Sure,” the department secretary responded. “Do you want to wait for him?”

Definitely not. Amy shook her head. “No, I don’t need to. But please make sure he gets this. It’s important.”

“Absolutely. He’s so sweet. He’s always coming up here to chat. Not many faculty members talk to me unless they need something. He’s one in a million.” She’s got that right.

Amy had an entire class period of buffer time before Drew was finished, so she leaned on the desk and relaxed a little. “It must get annoying to be treated that way by the faculty. Have you said anything?”

“No way. I want to keep my job.” She lowered her voice to a whisper, “The department head is one of those old crotchety types. He never remembers by name, and it’s almost better that way. I don’t want to call attention to myself.”

“Maybe he’ll retire soon,” Amy said with a wink. The young woman laughed.

“Amy?” Uh oh. “What are you wearing?” Drew asked.

“It’s laundry day?”

“Okay. What are you doing here?”

The young woman stared at them before handing the envelope over to Drew.

“Dr. Porter, this is for you.”

It was an awkward situation that Amy hadn't prepared herself for. Oh, excellent timing. I’m going to tell the department head you were talking about him.

Drew flipped the envelope over and saw his name on it. “Is this from you?”

Darn my recognizable handwriting. “Yes.”

“Should I read it now?”

Only if the floor will open up and swallow me first.

“I guess. Can you do it in private?”

If Drew went to his office to read it, she could have a chance to get away.

“Sure, come on,” he said, leading Amy to his office.

This is so embarrassing. It was one thing to write an apology that he could read on his own, but it was another far more mortifying thing to have to be there while he read it.

She sat awkwardly on the cheap university chair as he read the note. His face was expressionless. He sighed, looked out the window, and then reread it. This must be what it feels like to be in trouble with him and have to go to office hours. Not as sexy as I had imagined.

He finally spoke, “Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“Okay, I’ve read it and understand where you were coming from. ”

“And?”

“And I’m still hurt, but I accept your apology.” Well, that’s something.

“I really am sorry for everything. I know that was wrong of me --”

Drew held up his hand to stop her. That’s probably good since I was on the verge of verbal diarrhea.

“I’m willing to tell you what happened. If you’re so interested in this, you should have all the facts.”

“I’d like that.”

Drew sighed and looked resigned. “This is an embarrassing and upsetting story for me. As I mentioned, this resulted in the worst few months of my life. I want to preface this story by telling you that I graduated from Duke with my bachelor’s degree a year early. This was for a few reasons: one, I was an excellent student; two, my family didn’t have a lot of money, so saving on a year of room and board was significant for us. I was able to get a full scholarship to go to UVA for my doctorate program, which was good because I didn’t have any extra money for out-of-state tuition, and I hadn’t thought that grad school would be possible for me, period.”

Amy began to speak, but Drew held up a hand to stop her. Her leg shook nervously, and her chair squeaked in rhythm with it. Drew raised an eyebrow at the noise, stopping her.

“By taking a full course load, both semesters and summer classes, I was able to finish my coursework for the program ahead of schedule. It was exhausting, but I thought it would be worth it because I could take my comprehensive exams early and get started on my dissertation. I had four years of funding and wanted to leave as much of it as possible for my dissertation research.”

Drew stretched his neck and cracked his knuckles before continuing. “So, as I said, I was exhausted. I was barely functioning, but I had my goals locked in. At that point, my grandfather died suddenly. ”

Amy gasped. Drew nodded in agreement, the pain of his loss showing on his face.

“Yeah. I know. He was in his eighties, but he was healthy and active. He worked every day and was still wooing the ladies at his local senior center dances.” Drew smiled at the memory and Amy couldn’t help but smile too. She pictured an eighty-something version of Drew.

“His death wrecked me. We'd been close since I was little. We were a lot alike. Losing him was incredibly painful, and I didn’t handle it well. Back at school after his funeral, I only had two weeks before my exam, and I couldn’t focus. I had a lot of trouble sleeping, which made things even worse. Right before my exam, I needed a few nights of solid sleep because I couldn’t retain any information.

“One of my friends took pity on me and gave me some pills to help me sleep. There were five of them, so he just gave me his old prescription bottle. I was so grateful that I took one immediately and went to pick up some dinner on the Corner. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand how strong they were. It was my first experience with a prescription sleeping pill. I fell asleep on a bench in public and the police came to tell me to move along.”

Amy pictured an exhausted Drew asleep in front of the bars they had drunkenly danced at during Brit’s bachelorette party.

“When they couldn’t wake me, the cops searched for a medical ID bracelet or medication in my bag. They found the pills and brought me to the station for questioning. As you probably remember, there wasn’t much going on in Charlottesville, so the police had time for that. I tried to explain myself, but I was still in possession of a Schedule IV drug that was someone else’s prescription.

“I had to reschedule my exam, which irritated my advisor and committee. They nearly booted me from the program since it’s an honor to be in there, to begin with.”

Amy’s mouth dropped open in shock. How could his department be so unsympathetic toward a student who suffered a loss and still tried his best to perform well?

“I stood before the judge the next week. Unfortunately, I was assigned to one who was notorious for teaching privileged UVA students a lesson. Even if I wasn’t one. I spent one night in jail and had to pay a fine. I didn’t have the money to pay for it, and I didn’t want to tell my family because they were still grieving my grandfather. So, I went into debt to cover the fine. It took me months to get back on my feet with school and my finances.”

Amy didn’t know what to say. Everything he told her aligned with the good, hardworking guy he presented himself as.

“There you go. That’s the full story,” he concluded, looking exhausted.

Amy was overwhelmed with empathy for his younger self. No one should deal with that, especially not all at once. Tasting salty tears, Amy noticed she had been crying during his story. She couldn’t stand the thought of him in pain and being afraid for his future.

“I can’t believe that happened to you,” she said, attempting to express her thoughts correctly. “I understand now how that was a topic you didn’t want to revisit. You’re right that it had no bearing on us. I also had no right to assume I deserved to know all your secrets. Some things deserve to stay in the past.”

“Thank you. I never meant to keep things from you, and I hope you understand that this wasn’t a lie or something I willingly kept from you. I’ve done a lot of work over the years to put that time behind me and focus on the positive. And there’ve been a lot of positives, including you.”

“Drew, despite everything I did, please know that I love you.”

“I understand. I’ve never stopped loving you. But that doesn’t mean we should be together.”

That’s not great, but it was unlikely that we’d have a happily-ever-after today in this office.

“That’s fair. I hope you’ll reconsider that someday in the future. I’m open to doing anything that will regain your trust,” Amy said, feeling a lump in her throat .

“I’ll take that into consideration,” he said, his expression unreadable.

“Okay, I’m going to head out. You know how to find me. I love you,” Amy said, saying a silent prayer that everything would be okay.

“I know.”