Chapter Seven – You've Got Mail

When Jude got back to the dorm, Patsy was sitting on her bed reading through one of her textbooks. Jude quietly put her things away and logged onto her computer. She had a couple e-mails from her family just checking up on her and all that jazz. The last e-mail she checked surprised her. It was from Tom and the subject was the name of the class, Essentials of Songwriting. Intrigued, Jude opened the e-mail not knowing why he would be messaging her.

Dear Jude,
I hope that it's okay that I'm mailing you. I just wanted to let you in on something new that I'm doing in this class. I'm going to be taking on one student to coach them through the songwriting process. The reason I'm telling you this is because I would like you to be that student. I saw something in you today Jude. I believe you have what it takes to be someone great. Let me know either before or after class on Wednesday whether you are interested or not. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
Tom Quincy

Jude smiled in excitement. She didn't have to think about it, she knew she wanted to work one-on-one with Tom. She wanted to explore the connection that she felt with him and hopefully find out what caused her to feel that way.
"Hey Patsy. Do you want to go ahead and take a look at my notes before class on Wednesday?"

Patsy looked up from her reading and pulled out her ear buds.

"I guess so. It really doesn't matter to me." she replied, stretching out her arms and legs. Jude headed over to her bed where she dropped her knapsack earlier. She dug through its contents until she finally found the notebook she was looking for. She handed it over to Patsy.

"Here yaw go. I apologize ahead of time for my handwriting. Tom was talking fast and I didn't want to miss anything." Jude explained.

"Who's Tom?" Patsy asked as she flipped through the pages.

"Oh yeah, he's the professor. He doesn't want us calling him Mr. Quincy so we call him Tom."

"Well that's a little unorthodox of him. Considering there is supposed to be a fine line between teacher and student." Patsy replied, sitting down on her bed. Jude looked at Patsy for a moment before turning back to her own computer. She shouldn't be feeling guilty because there was nothing to feel guilty about. Jude turned around and looked at Patsy.

"Just because he wants us to call him Tom doesn't mean anything. Don't talk about things you don't know about." Jude snapped before walking into the bathroom to get ready for bed. Patsy stayed seated on her bed, oblivious to the actions that just took place. She had put her ear buds back in and was jamming out when Jude had her outburst.

The next morning Jude had gotten up early to avoid talking to Patsy. She had to get breakfast down and everything before her first class of the day. She only had two classes and they were back to back. She wanted her Tuesdays and Thursdays to be free after lunch so she could work on her homework and hang out with friends.

Jude had so far accomplished her goal of not talking to Patsy. She didn't know why she reacted so forcefully towards what she had said. She didn't think Tom was crossing any line by wanting all of his students to call him by his first name. It wasn't as if he had asked only her to call him that. Jude was completely lost in thoughts while playing with her eggs when Shay sat down in front of her. She didn't even notice him which caused him to suppress a chuckle.

"Hey Jude." He said loudly. Jude snapped out of her thoughts and dropped her fork onto her plate. Her eyes had widened significantly and her expression reminded Shay of a fish. He just couldn't hold it in anymore, he just had to laugh at how cute she looked.

"Shay, you scared the crap out of me. What are you doing?" Jude asked as she tried to recover from her almost heart attack. Shay leaned forward and shot her a superstar smile.

"I noticed that. I'm here to eat breakfast and when I saw you staring off into space I figured I'd come and eat breakfast with you instead of by myself." Shay explained, pointing to his plate filled with pancakes, eggs, bacon and sausage.

"Did you save any for the rest of us?" Jude asked, staring at his massive amounts of food. Shay smiled and nodded his head.

"I sure did. This is only my first plate. You can never have too much breakfast. It is the most important meal of the day."

Jude's eyes widened and just had to laugh at that. Shay was a growing boy after all. She just didn't know where he put it all. He was in very good shape, not that she was checking him out, all the time anyway.

"Jude, where'd you go off to again?' Shay asked, pointing his fork at her with a grin plastered on his face.

"I'm sorry Shay. I seem to be completely out of it this morning. I'm not making for very good company."

"It's cool. So about lunch, I'm free around noon ish. How about you?" Shay asked. Jude thought about her classes and calculated how much free time she would have.

"That sounds good to me. I've gotta get going. I have class in 20 minutes. I'll meet you here around noon?"

"Sounds good to me. See you then." Shay said, standing up to give Jude a hug. Jude smiled and walked to throw her trash away. Good day so far, what could go wrong?