The days seem to go by without warning, and before she knows it, it's only two weeks before winter break, and she's sitting in World Civ in her usual spot behind Doc—the only seat that had been available on the first day, which has become hers out of habit. They've talked a few times, mostly just one off conversations, but the other is witty and when she smiles— god. Wynonna's decided college is both a curse and a blessing.
It's Wednesday, and most of the class is already in their seats, but the professor, Dr. Whessle, is nowhere to be found, so most of them are on their phones or their laptops. Wynonna's trying to look over Doc's shoulder at the book she's reading without seeming like she's spying, because she's not spying, she's just...trying to figure out what her very handsome classmate has deemed an acceptable book to pass the time.
The door opens below, and Wynonna quickly leans back in her seat, grabbing her pencil up from where she set it down on top of the textbook she's using as a makeshift desk on her lap, and tries to pay attention to what Whessle is saying.
"...noticed in your syllabus that an end of semester project would account for 30% of your grade," she's saying. "This is a partnered project, but you will be allowed to choose who you work with. You can pick up the rubric and instruction packet at the end of class," she adds. "Now, expanding upon the previous lecture..."
Once Wessle finishes her lecture, Wynonna puts her stuff back in her bag, and makes to stand up before she notices that Doc has turned around in her seat. She's sporting an easygoing smile, the hints of dimples at the corners of her mouth. "I was wondering if you wanted to work together," she says.
"Oh, um." Wynonna blinks, and then blurts out, "Why me? For all you know, I could be failing the class."
"I doubt that, based on the pages of notes you take each lecture," Doc points out. "And I also might have peaked at your last quiz when you were distracted by the kid in the back whose earbuds had just disconnected and his phone was playing Norwegian death metal on full blast. You're more clever than dear Sean, I must say."
"That's—!" Wynonna sputters for a moment, feeling indignant—the compliment feels a bit backhanded, since Sean is hardly a high bar, and she looked at Wynonna's stuff without permission—, and then remembers that Doc is asking to partner with her. She might actually be able to turn this into a friendship. "Alright, you're right," she says. "I'm doing...okay, surprisingly. So yeah, I guess we can be partners."
"Excellent," Doc says. "Can we exchange numbers?" She's already pulling out her phone—a sleek, if scuffed black smartphone, and Wynonna feels suddenly embarrassed.
"I left mine at home," she mutters. "I'll just write it down for you."
Doc nods. "Sure," she says, and Wynonna tears a piece of paper out of her notebook and they exchange numbers. "I'll see you soon, then," Doc says, her smile broader than it was, and she once again tips her hat to Wynonna before making her way down the stairs.
Wynonna stands there for a moment, trying to remember how to breathe, before she stuffs the piece of paper in her pocket and shoulders her bag, making her way to the floor and grabbing a packet from Wessle's desk.
When she gets back to the house, only Cathy's car is in the driveway, and she breathes a sigh of relief, making her way inside, dropping her bag in her bedroom with a mumbled "Hi" to Waverly before she makes her way back downstairs to start on dinner.
It's only spaghetti, which isn't too hard, and she gets the water up to a boil and adds the noodles, remembering to stir them at the last moment so they don't stick, before she starts on the sauce, cooking the onions and garlic before pouring the tomato sauce base over them and adding the carrots, mushrooms, and broccoli. Soon, the scent of the food is wafting around the kitchen, and she relaxes into it.
Once it's finished, she peeks into the office, finding Cathy at her computer with a glass of wine. "Hey," she says, "dinner's done, if you want to come and eat."
"Dinner?" Cathy turns to her, expression slack. "As long as it's not Sam's precious fucking McDonald's, I don't care."
"I'll serve you a plate, then," Wynonna says, forcing a thread of false cheer into her voice, and heads back into the kitchen.
Waverly's waiting for her, peering into the pots. "This looks delicious, " she says. "You're getting really good, Wynonna."
"Thanks," she says, preening under the praise for a moment, and then adds, "can you set the table while I serve us?"
Waverly gets the table set in short order, and Wynonna brings the plates out, before making her way to the office again. Cathy's glass is empty, which is either a good sign, or a very bad sign, but she shoulders on. "I've served you a plate," she says.
Cathy hums. When she looks at Wynonna, it's in the eye. Her gaze is watery and distant; discombobulating. Wynonna clears her throat; stares at the floor, hard. "We'll be in the kitchen," she says, and hurries away.
Waverly's sat down, but she hasn't started yet, and when Wynonna slumps in her seat, she says, wincingly, "That bad, huh?"
"I'm surprised this house has any alcohol left in it," Wynonna mutters, and digs in. Waverly seems to get the hint, because she changes the subject.
"Nicole invited me over for Monday," she says. "I was wondering if I could go—she only lives a little bit from Rays. And it's only for an hour—just until four-thirty."
Wynonna hums an acknowledgment, and then, once she swallows, says, "Nicole—is that the new girl? The one Champ doesn't want you talking to?"
"I told him he doesn't get to tell me who I can be friends with," Waverly says firmly, and then brightens. "And yeah, she's the new girl—she's great, honestly, her dad's ex-military so she moved around a lot as a kid, and she's really funny and smart and she knows the best games..."
Wynonna hides a smirk behind another bite of food. "She's pretty cool, huh?"
"Yeah," Waverly sighs, missing the teasing tone entirely. "I wish I was as cool and pretty as her."
"Uh huh,"' Wynonna says, trying not to devolve into full-on laughter. "Well, okay, you can go. But you gotta text me when you get there and when you leave, okay?"
Waverly nods emphatically. "I promise," she says.
After they finish eating and Waverly goes back up to their bedroom, Wynonna pulls the piece of paper with Doc's number on it and goes to add it to her phone. As it turns out, Doc's already texted her, asking if she's free to meet up at the library around one the next day, so Wynonna replies an affirmative and adds the number as a new contact, and then stares at the scrap of paper for a moment.
She should probably throw it away. That would be the normal thing to do. But...there's just something about holding something Doc gave her, even if it's just a ripped off piece of notebook paper, with something of hers on it, even if it's just a phone number lots of other people have, that makes Wynonna feel a little warm.
Folding it carefully into a little square, she tucks it back into her pocket.
"—send one person from your group up to get a recipe sheet," Ms. Cochran says, tapping the top of the pile of laminated papers. In the holiday spirit, she's started having them working on Christmas-y foods—today they're starting on pumpkin pies, and on Monday they'll bake them. Wynonna's never actually made any sort of pie before, unless you count poking the crust on the apple pies her mother used to make.
Across from her, Mattie grumbles "I can't believe my mom's making me take this stupid class. I already know how to make a fucking pie."
"I know , right?" Lily commiserates. "What sort of idiot doesn't know how to make a pie? That's, like, such a basic recipe."
Wynonna hunches her shoulders, embarrassment heating her cheeks and face, and hurries off to grab the recipe sheets. When she gets back, they've moved on to talking about which one of the boys sitting at the table at the front is the hottest, thank god —Wynonna can deal with that.
She sets the recipe down on the table, and clears her throat. "Okay, who wants to work on the filling, and who wants to work on the crust?"
"Crust," the other two say in unison, and then begin to squabble about who's cutting up the butter and who's actually going to stick their hands in the bowl to mix it together. Wynonna rolls her eyes and goes to grab the pumpkin they're going to be using.
They manage to get everything done in the allotted amount of time, though not without Mattie complaining loudly about how the butter is probably going to ruin her manicure. Wynonna ignores her, grabbing the pan and putting it in the fridge with the other groups' pies.
The bell finally rings, and she hurries out of the room and towards the bus stop. It pulls in a few minutes later, and Wynonna takes her usual spot, halfway to the back on the right, next to the window; watches the buildings pass by. The bus, unlike the Culinary Arts room, isn't heated, and Wynonna shivers, pulling her jacket closer to herself, wishing, not for the first time, that it were actual leather. She should have worn a scarf like Waverly did.
Finally, the bus comes to a stop, the electronic board announcing that they've arrived at Purgatory Community College, and Wynonna disembarks, stretching her legs, and checks her watch. She's still got about twenty minutes.
She walks briskly to the library, the motion generating some warmth, and then relaxes as soon as she enters the well-heated building. Heading to one of the computers, she pulls up the library catalogue and starts her search for books with information on the Middle East during the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries.
Thankfully, she finds multiple still available, and it doesn't take her long to pull them off the shelves and grab one of the tables.
She's paging through one of the books when someone sets their bag over the back of the chair opposite her. She looks up to find Doc peeling herself out of a thick coat and a fluffy olive green scarf, her cheeks and nose flushed with the cold, cowboy hat perched atop her head. "My apologies for my tardiness," she says, "my girlfriend needed help scraping the frost off the car windshield. But," she adds, pulling out her laptop and powering it on, "I did manage to find some relevant essays last night."
"Ice is the worst," Wynonna commiserates, as if she has a car of her own to worry about the problem with, and ignores the way her chest feels heavy at Doc's mention of her girlfriend. "I've found some relevant information," she adds, changing the subject, and turns the book around so Doc can see it.
Soon they're planning out the general structure of the essay—or, rather, Wynonna is offering her disorganised, vague ideas for paragraph topics, and Doc is adding on to them and changing them into something that's actually passable for an essay worth a third of their grade. In between serious conversation, though, they find themselves cracking jokes and telling funny anecdotes.
"...and that's how I accidentally got the Sisters drunk on spiked eggnog," Doc finishes, not looking at the screen as she types up the last bit of the outline.
"That's almost as bad as the time I snuck a guy into my room when my sister and I were staying with a Mormon family," Wynonna says, grinning, fingers playing over the page of the book she's got open before her.
Doc lets out a sharp bark of laughter, cheeks dimpling. "The next week I snuck a girl in," Wynonna adds. "Pretty sure that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Well, that, or drinking coffee in the house."
"Perish the thought—though I find myself not terribly surprised by your exploits," Doc says, still chuckling, and then adds, "we've been here a while—how do you feel about grabbing a coffee and something to eat? I, for one, think I'm at the end of my ability to work on this for the day."
"Me too," Wynonna agrees, and then adds, "if it's some hipster café that charges seven bucks for an espresso, though..."
"Is that what you think of me?" Doc says, with mock affront. Wynonna finds herself giggling, and Doc levels her with a playfully sullen look. "I shall have to prove you wrong, then," she declares, rising from her seat and putting her laptop away, pulling her coat and scarf on and slinging her bag over her shoulder, making her way towards the door.
Wynonna shoves the books in her bag and follows after, smiling widely.
They end up in a cosy little place named the Vanilla Bean, which Doc assures her is the best place within walking distance of campus. Wynonna's got some extra money—she's been working overtime at the YMCA—, so she's got enough to actually buy herself a drink and a cinnamon roll. They take seats at the bar counter, and Wynonna spins slightly from side to side the entire time.
They part cheerfully, Wynonna's spirits high all the way back to the house. " Someone had a good time," teases Waverly when she sees her, but not even Wynonna's regret at telling her where she was going dampens her good mood.
"Shut up, squirt," she says, ruffling Waverly's hair, and goes downstairs to get the stuff for tacos together.