Daydream (Maple Hills, #3)(6)
“Also true.”
“So, you mean to tell me,” he says, then pauses to take a long sip from his coffee mug just to make me extra miserable. “That despite ample opportunity to rectify the situation yourself, you didn’t, and now you’re here, disturbing the few sweet hours in a day where I don’t have to look at your face, expecting me to help you?”
I want to point out that he invited me in here and I went to the adviser who is specifically employed to support student athletes for help, but I suspect he’d take that as well as he’s taking me failing one assignment. “I guess.”
“What’s your grievance with Thornton?”
I think back to what Anastasia and I workshopped ahead of my visiting Ms. Guzman. I repeat her words like a parrot. “His teaching style and my learning style are incompatible.”
“You’re going to have to give me more than that, Turner.” Faulkner sighs, leaning back in his chair. He clicks his mouse and stares at his computer. “You’re excelling in everything else, and I know you’re a hard worker. So what is it with this class that makes you think you need to quit?”
I’m trying to remember how I explained it to Anastasia and Aurora the day I came home from my first session with Thornton. I ranted for five minutes and then had to lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling for an hour. “I need to take a writing intensive class to meet the requirements of my major. Professor Thornton’s syllabus is known for being a lot of reading and researching—it’s why nobody wants to do it. He essentially teaches world history; it’s barely even about the art. I struggle to focus on the material because there’s so much that’s irrelevant to what he wants… I think.
“And I don’t love reading things I’m not interested in. I struggle to stay focused. I also don’t understand what he wants most of the time. I’ve found myself in information black holes to only end up in the wrong place anyway, and then of course, failing.”
Faulkner sighs again. I wonder if he does it at home or if it’s something he reserves for this office. I wonder if it gives his family the same sinking feeling it gives me. “It says here you have a similar kind of class with Professor Jolly and you’re not trying to drop that.”
Jolly is a borderline hippie and believes the history of art should be something you learn about and feel in your soul. She hates the idea of grading people on how they interpret and enjoy learning about art, so her class is final exam only, and that’s just because the department makes her. It’s impossible to fail as long as you show up, and she doesn’t have a class cap, meaning I could get in even though I signed up for classes later than everyone.
I love Professor Jolly’s class not only because it’s actually interesting, but because I understand what she wants from me. What I learn helps me with my practical work, and I don’t leave her class feeling unprepared and lacking direction like I do with Thornton. It would have been the perfect solution, but it doesn’t meet the requirement. “I work better under the pressure of an exam.”
Faulkner starts tapping his pen again. “Have you talked to Professor Thornton?”
Professor Thornton is even less interested than you are, I want to say. “He was unwilling to hear me out.”
“It’s out of my hands,” he says, giving me an uninterested shrug. “Should have come to me sooner so I could have helped you.”
Be more organized. Come to me sooner. I don’t know how to explain to someone who doesn’t live inside my head that they could have physically carried me to the office or glued a laptop down in front of me and I’d have still found a way to avoid the task. “What happens when I fail the class?”
I’m not even worried about my GPA because I dominate at things I enjoy, and I love everything else on my schedule for the rest of the year—assuming I register for the rest of my classes in time. It’s just this class and Faulkner’s obsession with team captain academic perfectionism.
After his professional career was cut short by an accident that left him unable to play, he’s obsessed with us having a backup plan. Yes, as student athletes we’re tied to achieving a certain grade point average to be able to keep that title, but what Faulkner wants is next level. I know there’s no point in fighting it, because no person who ever fought it before me won.
“We’re not talking about that. You’re the leader of this team, Turner. You don’t get to fail your classes and keep your title. Partner with a classmate, join a study group, use your academic adviser for something other than quitting… I don’t fucking care. You do whatever it takes to make it work. I don’t expect to hear about any more bad grades.”
Nate made it all look so easy, and I’m kind of mad at him for downplaying how much of a hard-ass Faulkner is in private. I’ve been told so many times that being captain is an honor, but as I drag my feet out of Faulkner’s office, it feels more like a weight around my neck. Leadership doesn’t come naturally to me; I’ve always been happier in solitude, but I’m trying as hard as I can. I don’t want to let my teammates down, or Nate and Robbie, who convinced Coach I deserved it.
Being captain is a lot like Thornton’s class. I’m expected to know so much that nobody has ever explained to me, and yet I’m supposed to just smile through it. It’s why I said no when I was originally offered the position. I expected it to be given to someone else and I could carry on living my life. But that didn’t happen, Nate and Robbie continued to reason with me.