“Is there another student who’s failing your class?” As soon as I ask the question, I realize how stupid it sounds. A bunch of students fail every single semester.
Yasmin isn’t going to be one of them.
“You’d be surprised.” She tips her chin to the chair. “Sit.”
“I’d rather stand, thank you.”
“Sit,” she says, this time more sternly.
Holding back my protest, I plant my ass in the chair she indicated. I don’t want to piss her off. Not when I need her to make this right. I have to make this right, somehow, some way. Yasmin won’t lose everything she’s fought so hard to achieve because she put others in front of herself. Because she put me first. I’m the last person who deserves it.
“First of all, I’m so sorry about your loss.”
“Thank you, now can we please…”
I don’t want to talk to strangers about my loss. For most of them it’s just empty words that don’t mean shit to me.
“Secondly, there is nothing I can do about Miss Hernandez. She didn’t deliver the final essay on time. She missed classes. I’m sorry, because I really believe she’s a clever young lady with a lot of potential, but I can’t go out of my way. If I do it for her, I’ll have to do it for other people too. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise.”
“What about me? You gave me an extension,” I point out.
“I gave you an extension because you came to me and explained your circumstances early on. You delivered your essay by that extension period. You’ll still lose the points for missing classes though.”
I did reach out to my professors asking them for discretion since I knew things were bound to get worse at some point, and my place on the team depended on keeping up my GPA and attending classes. Most of them were more than accommodating.
“Then give her my extension,” I say instantly.
Dr. Stevens looks at me for a moment and then she shakes her head. “I’m sorry, it doesn’t work that way.”
“Dammit,” I mutter, my fingers clenching into a first as the desperation sets in.
There has to be something I can do.
“You were saying?” she asks, the warning lift of her brows telling me that she heard me clear enough the first time and doesn’t care to have it repeated.
“Nothing, sorry.”
How can I make this right? There has to be a way, has to.
“If you don’t mind me saying, Miss Hernandez knew well enough about the requirements of the class. Whatever she was dealing with, she should have been more careful of her obligations. I’m positive that once she retakes the class next year, she’ll excel at it.”
That wasn’t even the question. Yasmin excels at everything, and this won’t be an exception. But it isn’t right. If anybody should have failed, it’s me, not her.
“I wish I could help you, I really do, but…”
I nod my head, getting to my feet.
“Thank you for your help.
“If there is anything else I can help you with?”
I stop, facing her. “There is.”
Her brows arch higher, waiting.
“You can fail me too.”
Chapter Forty-Three
YASMIN
“Do you really have to go?” I ask, my voice muffled in the crook of Mom’s shoulder.
She chuckles, patting me on the back. “You don’t really want me to stay.”
“I think I just said I did.”
“Well, you don’t mean it.”
I pull back, lifting my brows. “Now you can read my thoughts too?”
“No seas una sabelotodo, Yasmin.”
Smartass, my ass.
Okay, maybe she’s right. But in my defense, it was nice to have someone familiar with me, otherwise I’d have locked myself in my room and never come out, eaten my weight in sweets (okay, we did that one) and possibly drowned my sorrows in the bottle of tequila I still have stashed somewhere in my closet.
“What is taking Grace so long?”
I look around for a familiar black SUV—like J.D. would let Grace drive anything that’s not practically bulletproof—but come up empty. She said she’d go grab some coffee for the trip, but I knew she was just giving me and Mom some time to say goodbye in peace.
“The shop is probably busy.” Mom waves it off. “Are you finally planning to ask me?”
“Ask you what?”
“Don’t play dumb, Yasmin. We both know better.”
Sighing, I give in. After all, I’ve been wondering about it this whole weekend. “What happened with the coach?”
Mom’s face softens. “He’s your dad. It’s okay to call him that.”
“Dad is somebody who’s there when you need him. It's a title that’s earned, not given freely. In the best case scenario he can be my sperm donor, although personally I think even that’s too generous.”
“Yasmin…”
“What?” I ask defensively. “It’s true.”
Mom shakes her head. “You always had a hard time forgiving.”
“I think it’s in my blood.”
“Fair enough.” Mom grabs my hands and gives them a tight squeeze. “We talked.”
“About what?”
They talked for hours. Grace and I stopped by Cup It Up twice, but when we realized they were still at it, we let them be. Well, Grace forced me to let them be. If you believe her words, twenty years and a child make for some pretty lengthy discussion.
“Everything. It takes two to fall in love, two to make a child…”
“Mom…” I groan. I so don’t need to see that picture in my head.
She rolls her eyes. “But it also takes two for things to fall apart. Was it Jeremy’s fault for taking the easy way out? Sure, but it was also my fault.”
“It’s not…”
“It is,” she interrupts. “I should have been more insistent, I should have asked him to come around more, to do something. Maybe it would have been better if you’d had a part-time dad instead of no dad at all. But I was young and foolish, believing that I knew what was best. That best ended up hurting you more than I realized, and I’m sorry for that.”
“No, Mom.” I shake my head. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about. You did the best you could, gave me everything I could ask for and more.”
“I could have done more. I could have made sure you had your father. I could have made sure he knew he was welcome if he wanted to be a part of our world, your world. And I didn’t. But all that is in the past, we can’t go back, but we can make a change moving forward, so we’ve come to an agreement.”
I frown, unsure of where this is going. “What kind of an agreement?”
“You’ll keep going to Blairwood in the fall…”
“Mom, no, I—”
She presses a finger to my lips to stop me from talking. “Escúchame. You’ll keep going to Blairwood in the fall. No discussion. Jeremy insisted he’ll pay your tuition one way or the other, so you might as well go.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “He can’t correct twenty years of not being there by throwing money at me.”