Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (68 page)

PART
2

Chapter
One

  
A
few weeks after I had started dating Ty, as my classes headed into midterms, I
walked back to the dorms after getting my essay back from American History to
1893. I had somehow managed to make a fifteen-minute walk take a little more
than twenty minutes I realized when I scanned my card at the door.

  
Time flies when you’re having fun and it
drags like a bucket full of rocks when you’re miserable,
I thought
bitterly. In spite of the fact that I normally took the stairs and hated the
elevator, I pressed the button on the ground floor of the dorms to take the
rickety old death trap up to my floor.

  
Part
of me was hoping that it would do its thing of coming to a grinding stop
between floors and I’d be stuck in the little car for hours; at least then I
wouldn’t have to tell anyone about my essay.
Unless there are like, five other people in the elevator with you. And
then you’ll eventually have to tell them why you’re in such a shitty mood.

  
For
a change, though, there was no one at all in the elevator when the doors opened
up. I stepped in and tapped the button for my floor, wanting to look at my
paper the way I used to poke at my bruises when I was a little kid—wanting to
know if it still hurt, or if the pain had gone away. But I knew better. It
would be every bit as bad the third time I looked at the comments and the
grade.

  
My
bad luck continued; the elevator didn’t get stuck between the floors, but went
straight up to my level without even pausing. I got off and walked as slowly as
I possibly could to my dorm room, wishing that I could pull my essay out and
light it on fire, and somehow make the grade not count toward the class.

  
I
had known from the beginning that there would be no such thing as a “do over”
in college—I hadn’t even been allowed to do any papers over in high school—but
after weeks of bad news from almost all of my classes, I felt like I wanted to
do the whole semester over; at least if I could change everything other than dating
Ty and having Ashley as my roommate.

  
Ashley
was in the common area of our dorm when I finally walked in. I threw my
backpack across the room and threw myself onto the couch, groaning. “I take it
your American History essay wasn’t an A-plus,” Ashley said, looking up from her
textbook.

  
“D.
I got a fucking D.” I buried my face against the couch cushions. I wanted to
scream, but I knew that it would just hurt my throat. It wouldn’t make me
actually feel any better. “I don’t even know how that’s possible!” I felt my
eyes stinging with tears that I’d been too proud to shed while I was in class
or walking across campus. “I’m an idiot. That’s all there is to it.”

  
“You’re
not an idiot,” Ashley said. “Show me the paper.”

  
“No,”
I said, shaking my head. “I am going to wait until I can stand to see it again
and then I’m going to burn it and pray to the college gods that I can get a C.”

  
“I
have it on good authority that Jeff, the god of College is a much bigger fan of
Red Bull and Cuban sandwiches,” Ashley told me. In spite of how miserable I
felt, I laughed.

  
“It
still sucks,” I said, turning onto my back and staring up at the ceiling. “I
worked so hard on that damn paper and I didn’t even get a C on it.”

  
“If
you’d let me look at it, I can probably tell you how to improve it do you get
at least a solid B on the next one,” Ashley suggested.

  
“A
B would be nice,” I said. I tried to do the math in my head to figure out
whether that would be enough to get my grade in the class up to a C—but it was
too complicated. “I think I’m at least getting participation points in class.
And maybe if I become the luckiest girl in the whole universe, I can get an A
on the final.”

  
“The
paper can’t possibly be that bad,” Ashley said flatly. “You’re not stupid
enough or lazy enough for it to be as bad as you’re making out.”

  
“It’s
a D!” I stared at her. “A D is a D is a D. It’s that bad.” Ashley sighed,
nodding to acknowledge my point.

  
“But
maybe it’s a high D,” she pointed out. “I mean, if it’s only a few things that
you can change before the next paper, and that one comes out a B, and you get a
B on the final exam and a B on the final paper, you’re all set—right?” I
frowned, once more trying to count up my grade to that point in my head.
“What’s your grade in the class right now? Dr. Namath must have updated it.”

  
“I
haven’t looked,” I admitted. “I’m too ashamed of how terrible everything is
going.” Ashley groaned.

  
“You
need to stop feeling so sorry for yourself and start taking proactive
measures,” she told me firmly. “If you do really well in the second half of the
semester, you can definitely make it to a C average or better—and hell, it’s
not like anyone hiring you after college is going to care, as long as you
graduate.”

  
“That’s
if I graduate,” I said, sighing. “If it’s already this hard—and I’m not even
taking the hard classes—how am I ever going to get through the rest of
college?”

  
“You’re
going to get through it by getting the help you need until you’re in a major
where everything makes sense,” Ashley replied. “And I am going to help you with
that.” She paused. “You know—I’m going to make a deal with you.”

  
“Oh
god, what’s the deal?” I sat up, interested in spite of myself.

  
“I
want you to do my hair—you did such a good job on Jessica’s and I’m totally
jelly,” Ashley said, grinning. “And in exchange for you helping me dye my hair
pretty colors, I’ll help you on the next essay.” I stared at her for a moment
and then began to laugh. It was true that Jessica’s hair had turned out
gorgeous; I had always had a knack for hair.

  
In
fact, I had originally wanted to go to cosmetology school to do hair. When I
had been dating Dillon, my plan had been to graduate high school and go
directly into cosmetology. But he’d told me over and over again what a waste it
was, and how he couldn’t see himself ever being serious about a woman who
couldn’t even manage to pull off a degree. I’d believed him—and I had wanted to
stay with him for the rest of my life at that point.

  
So
I had applied to colleges instead, and by the time I’d managed to find the
courage to break up with him, I’d been accepted to West Central. Even though
I’d managed to reject most of what Dillon had drilled into my head while we’d
been dating, I’d never shaken the idea that a degree was better than a
certification. Especially since my parents were so happy to hear that I had
gotten into college, and that I wanted to get my degree.

  
“Okay,”
I said, smiling a little. “I will do your hair if you’ll help me write my next
essay.”

  
“I’m
going to need to look at the one you got the grade on to know where to begin,”
Ashley told me.

  
She
looked at me steadily until I got off of the couch and walked across the room
to where I’d thrown my backpack. I took a deep breath and unzipped the bag,
reaching in to grab my paper. It was right on top of the rest of my things, so
it only took me a moment to find it. I didn’t even look at it as I handed it to
Ashley.

  
“Whatever
you think about it, just…please don’t laugh too hard,” I told her. “I know I’m
an idiot already—I don’t need to know it any more.” Ashley smiled.

  
“I
swear I won’t laugh. Why don’t you go down to the Student Union? I think one of
the clubs is giving out snacks.”

  
“Maybe
I can find a worthy offering for the college gods there,” I said ruefully. If
nothing else, I thought, it would take my mind off of my terrible grades for a
little while. I grabbed my purse and made sure I had my keys and my ID and my
phone and went back down to the lobby; I took the stairs instead of the
elevator, and by the time I was out of the building, I was already starting to
feel a little bit better.

  
I
ran into Ty halfway across campus. “Hey, babe!” Ty gave me a quick kiss on the
forehead, shifting his backpack on his shoulders. “Where you headed to?”

  
“To
the Student Union to drown my sorrows in free snacks,” I told him. Ty put an
arm around my shoulders and fell into step with me, both of us walking toward
the Student Union building.

  
“Drown
your sorrows? What’s wrong?” I half-smiled.

  
“I
got a D on my history paper,” I told him. “Ashley is looking it over now so she
can help me do better on the next one, but I’m pretty sure at this point it’s
hopeless.”

  
“It’s
never hopeless until final grades are in,” Ty said, smiling and giving me
another quick kiss. “Did I ever tell you about my freshman Literature class?” I
shook my head.

  
“No,
you didn’t,” I replied.

  
“I’m
making okay grades now,” Ty explained, “but I swear I nearly failed
Introduction to Literature. My first three grades were a D, a C and another D.”
He shook his head. “Even if I had ever thought of studying something else than
Accounting, that first semester almost destroyed me.” I smiled a little bit.

  
“Yeah,
well, Literature is the only class I’m doing halfway decently in,” I told him.
“I’m barely keeping my head above water in any of my classes.”

  
“You’ll
get the hang of it,” Ty told me, giving my shoulder a squeeze as we approached
the Student Union. “It takes time to adjust. Besides, you haven’t chosen a
major yet—once you find that thing you’re awesome at, you’ll do great.”

  
I
nodded, thinking to myself that I’d already found the thing I was awesome at:
hair. I had never in my life stressed out as much about dyeing or cutting or
styling someone’s hair as I had in the past nine weeks over my classes.

  
We
went into the building together and I tried to forget all about my bad grade,
telling myself that Ashley and Ty had both told me that there was still time
for me to pull my GPA up. I gathered up as many free snacks as I could,
sampling a little bit of everything, and thought about what Ty had said about
finding my major. I knew for a fact that I was great at hair; but had I really
given anything at the college a chance? I’d been so busy wishing that I could
do something that I really, truly liked that I might have been sabotaging
myself just to be stubborn.

  
I should look over the course catalog,
I
thought to myself as Ty and I headed back to the dorms together. There had to
be something that the college had to offer that would get me just as excited as
cosmetology school had, didn’t there? I would find whatever it was, and go into
that major, and that would make all of it so much easier.

Chapter
Two

  
“The
test will now begin,” the proctor said at the front of the classroom. I bent my
head and looked down at the scantron in front of me, pencil in hand. “You may
open your test booklets.”

  
I
took a deep breath and opened the test booklet, breaking the seal with the end
of my pencil. I had been preparing for this moment for weeks; I hadn’t told
anyone—not even my father, not even Nicole—about the practice CPA exam, but I’d
been working toward taking it.

  
I
wanted to have some kind of solid, concrete evidence of how ready I was to take
the exam at the end of the year, when I graduated. I had told myself over and
over again since scheduling the practice exam that I was going to be fine; even
if I didn’t get a great score, I would just know where I needed to improve, and
that would be fine.

  
I
knew that Nicole was curious about what I was so busy with so often. I’d had to
cancel a few dates over the previous few weeks to take time to prepare for the
practice exam. The actual exam was a fourteen-hour marathon test—the practice
exam in front of me would only be three hours.

  
But
it was split into the same sections as the real test: Auditing and Attestation,
Financial Accounting and Reporting, Regulation, and Business Environment and
Concepts. The practice test was broken up into two portions: the scantron
multiple choice part was 108 minutes long, while the simulations part at the
end was 72 minutes long.

  
As
I went through the multiple choice questions one by one, I tried to focus on
the test itself. I’d always been a good test-taker; I had gotten a great score
on my SATs, only 200 points away from perfect, and did even better on my ACTs.
But just knowing how much rode on me passing the CPA exam made me more nervous
than any other test I had ever taken in my life.

  
I
could feel the sweat forming on my back, at my armpits, as I went over one
question after another, racking my brain to try and remember a particular
regulation, or to come up with a solution to an auditing problem, or balance a
financial sheet. I took a deep breath and checked the time every so often,
reminding myself that I had been studying the content of the test, that I had been
taking mini-tests for months.
This is all
information you know already, Ty,
I told myself as I started to feel a
little overwhelmed at the complexity of the questions.

  
When
I had finished the multiple-choice portion, the proctor gave us a
fifteen-minute break and I stepped outside to get some air. It was heading into
late fall, and starting to get chilly outside in the afternoons; it was a big
contrast to the stuffy air in the classroom where I was taking the test off
campus. I took my phone out of my pocket and turned it on, and immediately
missed text messages from Nicole flashed across my screen. I smiled to myself.
So I managed to do a little bit better on
the new History paper than I did on the last one! It’s a C+, but that’s better
than a D.
I texted back a huge smiley-face emoji and a heart and a kiss.

  
That’s great, Nicki-baby! I’m so proud of
you.
I checked the time; fifteen minutes was going fast and I still needed to go pee
before I had to sit through the section with the simulations. I sent Nicole a
text telling her I had to be off the phone for a while and then hurried to the
bathroom.

  
Then
I was back in the classroom, my phone turned off and on the desk—to prove it
was turned off—and the second part of the test in front of me. I took a deep breath;
at least the simulations wouldn’t be as long as the first section. Once I had
finished the test, I’d have to wait around for another thirty minutes while a
computer scored the exams. The Scantron sheets were already in the process of
being scored—there would just be the time it took for the simulations to go
into the computer and the computer system to score them.

  
And
then I would know—reasonably well—how prepared I was for the exam when I
graduated in another semester. If I did well enough on the practice test, I
could go into final exams for the semester without having to worry so much
about the CPA accreditation for a while. I could go home for winter break and
actually relax a bit.
That’s only if I
get a medium-high score or better. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Ty.

  
The
proctor explained the section according to the test booklet and passed out the
booklets and the answer sheets. I listened carefully, listening to the rules
for that section. As before, I had to do it on my own—no checking my phone, no
cheat sheet, nothing. The goal was to treat the practice test as much as
possible like the real exam. Finally I started on the second portion of the
test.

  
I
felt more confident of the simulations than I had during the multiple-choice
section, and I got through each question more quickly. By the time I got
through all of the questions, I had only three minutes left; I went through the
answer booklet and made sure that I had answered everything as correctly and as
thoroughly as possible.

  
Then
all that was left was to turn in my answer sheet, provide my practice test
booklet to be destroyed, and wait. Fortunately I was able to use my phone once
the test was over and I spent the waiting time texting Nicole and Alex and the
rest of my friends; I didn’t tell any of them what I was doing or where I was,
but it was a relief to have something to do to take my mind off of the test I
had just taken.
Whatever your score, it’s
okay. You’ll be that much more prepared for the exam after you graduate. It’s
just a practice test anyway; nobody is ever going to see it except for you and
the practice test company.

  
“Score
sheets are printed, folks,” the proctor said, and me and about a dozen other
people hurried back into the building and into the classroom to collect our
score summaries. The proctor called out our names one by one, and one by one we
went up and took our score sheets.

  
I
took mine and left the room right away, just like everyone else; I walked to my
car, resisting the urge to sneak a peak until I was alone, reminding myself over
and over again that whatever the score was, it wasn’t hugely important—I still
had plenty of time to get ready for the exam. I unlocked my car and climbed in.
I closed the door behind me, and then I finally, finally looked at my score
sheet.

  
My
stomach fell down to my knees as I stared at the results. I hadn’t exactly
failed, but the fact that I’d only gotten a low-medium score hit me harder than
I would have thought possible. After months of studying, I had barely done well
enough on the practice exam to certify as an accountant—if the test had been
the real one. Ironically, the simulations had come out on average more poorly
than the multiple-choice, in spite of the fact that I had felt more comfortable
with that section.

  
I
groaned, scrubbing at my face and reading the breakdown over and over again. I
had done all right in Regulations; at least there was that. I had done more
poorly in Business Environment and Concepts—especially in corporate governance
and IT.

  
“Fuck,”
I said, shaking my head as I read through the details one more time, convincing
myself that they were real. “Fucking hell. It would have been better if I’d
failed the damn thing.” I threw the score sheet into the passenger seat and
started the car. My phone lit up with a text message from Nicole.

  
Where are you, anyway? I was hoping to see
you to celebrate the fact that I am at least hopefully passing American
History.
I gritted my teeth; I wanted to spend time with Nicole, but I was
in such a miserable mood that I knew I’d just drag her down. She didn’t even
know that I was taking the practice exam, but she would notice I was in a bad
mood, and she’d pull the details out of me just by being her own sweet,
concerned self.

  
I
decided that I was going to stay away from campus for the rest of the day; I
didn’t want to talk to anyone at all about how the practice exam had gone. I
just wanted to get the whole thing out of my mind and start studying again the
next day. I took a deep breath and wrote a response to Nicole.

  
Sorry, babe. I’m running some errands for my
parents, I’m a good hour or two away from campus and I think it’s going to take
me the rest of the day.
I sent it, feeling like a traitor. I was only
twenty minutes away from campus; I could just as easily spend a couple of hours
with Nicole.

  
Instead
I went to a bar between campus and the practice test site and had a beer—just
one. I drank it as slowly as possible and tried to sort out how I felt about
how I’d done on the practice exam. It wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened
to me; but it was definitely a big blow to my ego.

  
After
all the time I’d spent studying and writing up practice tests from my
textbooks, I had barely managed to scrape up a qualifying score on a practice
exam.
How the hell am I going to get
through the fourteen-hour exam if I could just manage to pass the practice?
I finished off my beer and decided not to have another one. I had to stop
feeling sorry for myself. I had to brush off the low score and get back on top
of my exam preparation.

  
At least I know I’m doing fine in my classes,
I thought wryly as I went back out to my car and started it up to head back to
campus.
I could practically skip the
finals for three of them and still get a decent grade in the classes.
I
wouldn’t of course—that would be stupid—but it would free me up to get in more
study time for the CPA exam.

  
I
briefly considered texting Nicole and telling her that I would be on campus
after all, to suggest that we study together; but I knew that if I invited her
to my dorm I would just get distracted and we’d end up having sex. On the one
hand, that would definitely cheer me up. On the other hand, I wouldn’t get
anything done. I would have to keep to my cover story of being away from
campus.

  
I
sighed and started off toward campus, figuring out the best way to get back
into my dorm without anyone noticing me. Fortunately by the time I’d get there
most everyone would either be in night classes, the dining hall, or at an
event—the dorms would be almost completely abandoned, and it was likely no one
would see me. I felt terrible about lying to Nicole, but I couldn’t think of
any way to get myself out of it other than just sticking with the lie. I’d see
her again soon enough, maybe even the next day. I’d have to make it up to her
later.