Trish tapped her pencil against the dining room table as she tried to concentrate on her homework. In high school, before she'd gotten pregnant, she'd been a star pupil. She'd gotten straight A's, she'd been part of the debate team, a member of the pep squad, and student council treasurer. Things had been going her way and then Sofia had come along. She'd had to put the rest of her life in the backseat and she was just now getting back on track. For so long it had been her and Jay against the world and now it was just her and it was strange.

She was scared though, scared of what Jay could become, who he could become. She was scared that he would run off and she'd never see him again. She was scared for his success and scared for his failures. She was absolutely worried about Sofia's future and what part Jay would play in all of it. If he was wrestling, traveling around the world, where did that leave her and Sofia. She didn't necessarily want to curb his dreams, but she didn't see her place in them.

Maybe this was all a defense mechanism set to stave off her fear. If she left him then she wasn't culpable for what could happen to their relationship. She was plagued with being an over-thinker and one of her biggest problems was figuring out every possible solution to a situation. The situation of Jay wrestling just came up with too many cons and so she didn't like it, she didn't want it in her life and so she'd banished him completely from hers.

"Studying hard?"

Trish looked up and saw her mother standing in the doorway. There was a look of pride in her eyes that Trish hadn't seen in over two years. After she'd finally confessed about Sofia (four months into her pregnancy) her mother and father had only looked at her with disappointment. She'd gotten so used to that look that seeing this look was still strange and almost fascinating. She wasn't sure if the pride was over her leaving Jay or over her going back to school.

Her parents had once loved Jay. They thought he was the perfect boyfriend, a gentleman even. Then she'd gotten pregnant and their feelings had turned on a dime. She couldn't really blame them but Jay had proven that he was a wonderful father and she wished they'd get those looks out of their eyes for him, but that wasn't happening any time soon.

"Yeah, trying," Trish said, giving as fake a smile as she could muster.

"What are you studying?" her mother asked, coming and sitting next to her, looking over the books in front of her.

"Just a core English class," Trish explained. "We're reading Shakespeare, kind of boring, but I have to get through all of this so I can get to my core classes."

"Good, I'm glad to see that you're plowing through," Alice said. "Must be nice to get back to school. I wish I could go back to college."

"Yeah, it's a whole lot of fun," Trish said sarcastically then shook her head, "it's just I've got a lot of homework and I know I don't have to catch up necessarily, but I have a big load this semester."

"I understand, but I'm glad that you're challenging yourself though," Alice told her.

"Yeah, definitely a challenge," Trish said, wishing her mother would just leave her alone. It was still awkward being here and she wished this feeling would dissipate already.

"So, I know that you haven't been really interested in anyone I've set you up with, but my friend, Joan, her son is just back in town. He goes to school in the States, University of Wisconsin and he's pre-med like you want to be-"

"Wanted to be," Trish said, "I'm not sure that's what I want to do anymore. I'm exploring my options and I've got time, Mom."

"Yes, but I'm sure your love of medicine will come back," her mother assured her and it was like her mother never heard her. "Anyways, I thought the two of you would hit it off and if you want, I can set you two up."

"Mom, this is like the fourth guy that you've wanted me to meet up with and every time it's a disaster, when are you going to give up? I'm not even divorced yet, Jay and I are just separated and you're like shoving dates down my throat."

"I just want you to be happy," Alice said and her voice screamed of patronization.

"And setting me up with all your friends' sons is the way to do that?"

"I'm simply trying to get your mind off of Jay," she explained, "and with this wrestling thing he wants to do, how often is he going to be around anyways? Plus, I'm sorry to say, sweetheart, but with professions like that, like athletes who travel, they all cheat, you know. I read this article about this man on a basketball team who had something like seven children in all these different states."

"You don't know that he would do that," Trish scoffed. "You're just projecting."

"I'm just stating what I've heard," Alice told her. "I don't want that for you. Plus, this all seems like such a pipe dream."

Trish had the same fear, but when her mother said it, it sounded so much worse and she wondered if this was how she sounded to Jay. She started to feel bad for it and wondered if maybe she should talk to him about it, tell him that she had been there to see him wrestle and that while she didn't know a damn thing about the entire thing, he had looked pretty good from what she'd seen.

"And what if he succeeds? What if he's not bad?"

"Well then good for him." Alice stood up and patted Trish on the shoulder. "I'm going to set you up with Joan's son. It'll get you out of the house and give you a little break from all this studying, I think you've earned the break."

Trish tapped her pencil a little harder against the table.

Chris was going to kill her. Stephanie knew that Chris was going to be so mad if she saw him here. She knew his schedule and he had a couple classes right now and so he was on campus somewhere. She just had to make sure she didn't run into him. She pushed her sunglasses up and looked at the two schedules in her hand again. Chris was in FitzGerald Hall and Trish was in the Health Sciences Building. She looked at the map in front of her again then back down at her schedules.

"Hey, having trouble?"

Stephanie looked over her shoulder at a black-haired girl and she laughed, "Yeah, actually, I'm thinking about coming here and I had called to see if I could audit a few courses and I can't find my way around."

"You had that lost look," the girl said, "I'm Shelly."

"Stephanie," Stephanie said, shaking her hand.

"Do you live around Toronto?"

"No, I don't, I have a boyfriend that goes here and well, I wanted to see if I could come too," Stephanie said and it wasn't necessarily a lie. "He has his class in FitzGerald Hall, but I was looking for the Health Sciences Building."

"That's where I'm headed, come on, what class are you auditing?"

"A statistics course."

"Oh, okay, I know which one you're thinking of, I'm a grad student and I'm actually TA'ing one of the seminars, so I definitely know about the class. It's not a tough one if you're familiar with statistics."

"I am," Stephanie said, though it had actually been a while since she'd taken a math class. "I actually kind of know a friend of a friend in one of the classes, her name is Trish Reso, have you heard of her?"

"Oh yeah, I know Trish," Shelly said. "She's part of the study group that I run. She took a couple years off after high school and she wanted the extra help to make sure she kept up, she's a really cool girl, you know her then?"

"I know of her, I'm friends with someone she's friends with, I heard from them that she actually goes here. I was hoping to talk to her."

"Oh yeah, she's in the class we're going to right now I think," Shelly said. "You should ask her to show you around, she's a first year so she knows what you're going through, looking for what you want to do and everything. It's really good to get that kind of perspective. Or you could get your boyfriend to do that, you said he comes here too?"

"Yeah, but he's a little older so I like the idea of talking to a freshman." They walked into a building and Stephanie followed Shelly to one of the doors.

"Then yeah, I'd talk to her if you could. Tell her that Shelly sent you," she laughed, "okay, here we go, this is the lecture hall, the class is huge so you probably don't even need to tell the professor you're there, he probably won't even notice."

"Thanks again, Shelly."

"No problem, I hope you choose to come here, if you do, look me up," Shelly waved and then walked away down the hallway. Stephanie looked to her right and then entered the classroom, a sunken room with tiered desk seating. Stephanie took a seat near the back and sat down, looking around. There had to be at least a hundred students in here. She wondered if the professor would take attendance. She didn't think he would, not with this many people. She would just have to wait and see.

She wished Jay had given her a picture of Trish so she might know what she looked like. There were just too many people there. She waited for the class to start and when the professor didn't take attendance, she slipped out quietly and left the building. She was just turning the corner when she saw Chris walking quickly towards another building. She would know him anywhere, his long, blond hair flying behind him. She ducked out of the way and took a deep breath. Luckily Chris looked like he was late for class. She looked down at the paper in front of her. Trish had two more classes today.

She had two more chances.

The second course was much like the first, too many people, but the third one looked promising. It was an anthropology course, and there appeared to be only twenty or so people in the class. She walked up to the professor sitting at the desk and explained that she was taking a tour of the campus and had hoped to audit the course for the afternoon. The professor was kind and told her to take a seat anywhere and she smiled and took a seat in the back where she could observe. The class started and the professor took attendance.

When Trish Reso came up, Stephanie watched as a petite blonde in the middle of the classroom raised her hand briefly and said she was here. Stephanie watched her and she could see where Christian would want to be with her. She was pretty and the eyes were always the first critic. Stephanie spent the rest of the class watching the girl, like she would see some reason why she'd leave her husband, but she just sat there taking notes. After the class was over, Stephanie watched as Trish gathered her things and then she was leaving. Stephanie raced to catch up with her and tapped her on the shoulder, causing the smaller woman to turn around. She looked questioningly at Stephanie.

"Hi, do I know you?"

"Hi, you don't know me, but I'm Stephanie McMahon, do you think we can talk?"