Chapter Twelve: Letting it Go:
Gretchen woke up with a splitting headache: the kind that literally pounded like a sledge hammer, thwacking away unwaveringly against her optic nerves. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, wishing desperately that she could skip Modernist Poetry. But skipping today would mean missing out on two things: first, the review for the final (which apparently involved matching obscure quotes with the poets responsible for them – this, of course, was in addition to writing/performing their own work) and second, seeing Mike again for the first time since the International Potluck.
With just the thought of Mike, her pulse quickened and nausea climbed up her throat. She shuddered, suddenly feeling as if her core body temperature had dropped several degrees. Hopefully, it was just a normal migraine. Gretchen was well aware that her typical migraines lasted for at least an entire day – if not multiple days - but a migraine was probably preferable to coming down with whatever Regina had over the break. Regina had been strangely vague about it, but she definitely looked pale and drained of energy upon returning to Oberlin and also had a fairly high fever. In fact, she was lying down when Gretchen returned to the dorm, which was why Gretchen felt so unbelievably shitty about the extremely loud fight she and her mother had gotten into on Regina's behalf.
The whole thing was made all the more bizarre by the fact that Lisa had said exactly three sentences to Gretchen during their drive back to Oberlin. These included a curt "no" when Gretchen asked to turn the radio on, a brisk admonishing about the volume of Gretchen's iPod ("you're going to have hearing loss by the time you're in your thirties!") and a rather unnecessary "do you know how many calories are in that?" at McDonalds (which, yes, Gretchen definitely did – and she had specifically chosen one of the most fattening items on the menu as a way to coat her insides with sickly, sugary goodness as a cushion from the pain). Yet, Lisa instantly transformed from Ice Queen to Ultra-Concerned, Overprotective Mother Bear the second she noticed Regina.
"Did you go to the hospital? Do you want me to pick you up any medicine? When was the last time you've eaten?" she asked in rapid-fire succession, apparently completely forgetting that Regina was not, in fact, her daughter. Gretchen realized with a sinking heart that Lisa was becoming practically an expert at pretending to be someone else's mother. First Logan and now Regina. Gretchen couldn't be sure whether her mother did this purposefully to make her jealous or if Lisa was simply oblivious to the hypocrisy of fawning over her non-daughters. And even more than that, Gretchen couldn't be sure which of the two scenarios was worse.
To Regina's credit, she answered each of Lisa's ridiculous questions calmly, which Gretchen thought was quite impressive given the fact that Regina had probably been fast asleep when they barged in.
"Mom, STOP it!" Gretchen had whined, her teeth clenched.
"I'm just showing some concern," snapped Lisa. "Aren't you at all worried about your friend? I think you're being really mean right now."
How had her mother twisted the scenario around so badly? Even though she knew Regina was sick, Gretchen couldn't help raising her voice. "I'M being mean? How am I being mean? If anyone's being mean here, it's you! Why don't you just leave her alone? She was obviously trying to REST! Can't you just mind your own business?"
"Gretchen, you're really embarrassing me right now," said Lisa coldly, grabbing her by the elbow and leading her out the door. Regina, meanwhile, watched quietly with an expression that somehow combined annoyance, amusement and terror.
"I'M embarrassing YOU?" Gretchen practically screamed.
"I don't think you should be talking to me that way after the stunt you pulled over Thanksgiving." Lisa said coldly.
Stunt? Gretchen thought. Her grades were disappointing, sure, but she failed to see how telling her parents the truth constituted a "stunt." It wasn't like she threw a tantrum at dinner like Logan. Was Lisa referring to the brown rice? Or how she had cried in front of Steiner? Regardless of Lisa's meaning, Gretchen could feel her anger wavering, only to be replaced with a sense of shame, embarrassment, and regret. "I'm sorry," she mumbled.
After her mother had left, still in a state of fury, Gretchen replayed the fight over and over again. When was she ever going to realize that no matter what she did, she would never have a positive relationship with her mother? That fake cheeriness and small talk was the most she could ever hope for? She felt like she had swallowed a poisonous black cloud that choked her soul – a feeling that probably would have made for a nice line in her final Modernist Poetry project. Regina never mentioned the argument, but Gretchen wasn't sure if that was because she was trying to be nice or because she had been too sleepy and delirious to actually remember it.
Before trudging to Modernist Poetry, Gretchen took a few Aspirins, which did nothing to ease her headache. She also stopped at the book store and bought a Monster Energy Drink and a box of Krispy Kreme minis because ever since the incident in Rainforest Bio, she had been very diligent about keeping her blood sugar in check. Almost as soon as she let the glaze melt on her tongue, her migraine started to dissipate and she felt better. Then again, she reasoned, a sugar high could only last so long and she probably only had a few hours before the inevitable crash. Still, it was enough time to engage fully in class, talk to Mike, and hopefully address her growing pile of homework not for Modernist Poetry.
Unfortunately, Mike wasn't there. Then again, he was almost always several minutes late. However, fifteen minutes into class, Gretchen finally had to accept that it was probably a Mike-free day. On the other hand, when the class exchanged drafts of their poems, the girl next to her seemed impressed. "This is really, really good," she scribbled in the margins. "So dark and desperate. I really feel the emotions. Maybe work with the rhyme scheme in the last few stanzas, but other than that: solid! Reminds me a little of Ann Sexton." Although Gretchen wasn't sure that "so dark and desperate" was the direction she wanted to go, especially after Professor Maxwell had questioned her penchant for choosing to write about suicidal poets, she still felt a warm sense of hope swell in her chest.
Suddenly, while the entire class was quietly engaged in each other's work, someone knocked at the door. Professor Maxwell rolled his eyes and answered it. "Professor Maxwell?" Mike said in his sexy, Southern accent. "Um…I'm sorry I'm late."
Gretchen tried to covertly look at them through the corner of her eye. Mike looked frazzled, tense, but, being Mike, still remarkably hot.
Gretchen fully expected Maxwell to just nod and let Mike come in, as he usually did, but her asshole professor was apparently full of surprises today, the biggest of which that he somehow managed to out asshole himself. "Mr. Winchell," he said tightly and nearly every single member of the class spun around to look. "This is the twentieth time you've been late to class." This wasn't an exaggeration either, Gretchen noted. Since she was a Mike-fan, she definitely paid attention to when he came in. "And right now, you're really disturbing your classmates."
"I-I'm sorry," Mike stammered. "I had some family stuff."
"Well, if you're going to be twenty-minutes late, then why even bother coming to class at all?"
Because Mike doesn't like to miss class, snuh! Gretchen thought.
"I just thought-" Mike said.
And then, Professor Snape – a.k.a. Professor Maxwell - did the meanest thing in the history of mean things professors do to their students. "We're already finishing critiquing each other's work. If you had been here on time for once, you could have paired up with someone. Since you weren't here, though, why don't we all go ahead and critique yours together."
Students looked at each other and whispered behind their hands. "Come up to the front of the classroom and read it, Mr. Winchell," said Professor Snape/Maxwell.
Mike's face showed complete horror. "I-I don't think it's ready to read yet."
Professor Douchebag motioned for Mike to come to the front of the room. "You know, participation is a huge part of the grade in this class," he said wryly. "And we've heard from you a grand total of zero times all semester."
"Leave him alone," Gretchen said quietly. Everyone turned and stared at her. People hardly ever stood up to Professor Maxwell, especially not brown-nosers like Gretchen. Professor Maxwell glared at her and she felt her migraine start to return with a vengeance. Her heart pounded so hard and so fast, she thought she might faint. And fainting in class twice was definitely two times too many.
"Ms. Wieners, this isn't really your business," said Professor Maxwell, because, much like Cao Boi and Natalie, he had not "necessarily" been talking to her.
"Well," Gretchen said, her voice much stronger than she would have suspected given the terror pulsing through her bloodstream. "He just said he had family stuff. What kind of a teacher doesn't get that? And he has SO participated in class! Twice!"
Professor Maxwell rolled his eyes dramatically. "Oh, well excuse me, then," he said snottily. "I guess I was wrong. My mistake. Mr. Winchell has participated a grand total of TWO times over the course of the semester, which, as he and I have discussed in private on multiple occasions, is still far too little for a class where participation is 25% of the grade."
Gretchen was well aware that now was the time for her to step down and meekly offer an apology. It was true. She didn't know the entire story. But she also knew that Mike's two contributions had been far and away more valuable than any of her three-per-class bullshit comments. Didn't quality count for anything? "Asshole," she mumbled under her breath. The class snickered nervously.
"What did you just say?" asked Professor Maxwell.
Nothing…awesome…I'm sorry…These were just a few examples of answers Gretchen should have given had she been thinking about her own grades at all, but instead, she said so calmly she may as well have been channeling Regina: "I think you heard me."
"I…uh…" Mike stammered. "I think she just called you an asshole."
The class broke into shocked laughter.
"Well," said Professor Maxwell in a tone of voice Gretchen couldn't read at all, but was somewhere between fake shock and anger. "If you think I'm such an asshole, why don't you just leave?"
"Good idea," Gretchen said, pushing the desk away from her and standing quickly. She hurried out of the room and slammed the door.
Once she was in the hall, Gretchen didn't feel terrified or regretful like she had after her argument with Regina earlier in the semester, but instead completely drained of energy, like her legs could barely support her. Yet, she also felt calm, collected and surprisingly strong, despite her throbbing head and weak knees. It was so weird to feel two opposite things at once, but she was beginning to realize how weird and complicated emotions could be – perhaps she was getting something out of Modernist Poetry after all. She wondered if maybe it just hadn't sunk in yet; if maybe she would feel horrible about talking back to the professor later. And somehow, she felt certain that no, she wouldn't.
But now, she had to lie down – even if she had her Buffy paper to work on and Japanese to study.
"Gretchen!" Mike hurried toward her, his eyes flashing angrily.
She turned around in surprise.
"Why'd you DO that?" Mike snapped.
"Um, what do you mean?" Gretchen asked her confidence suddenly shattering like icicles. "He had no right to talk to you that way! He was being an ASSHOLE!"
"Well, you had no right to talk to HIM that way!" Mike shot back.
"I-I'm sorry," Gretchen said, suddenly sure she was going to throw up all over Mike's shoes. "I just thought-"
"Obviously you didn't THINK at all!" Mike snapped. "But thanks for calling attention to me like that. Now he's probably going to fail both of us! I didn't have any problem reading my poem to the class. Why didn't you just let me? Why couldn't you mind your own damn business? It had nothing to do with you. You don't even know me."
Gretchen suddenly couldn't breathe. Mike may as well have reached into her chest and ripped her lungs out. "Fine," she said after she-didn't-know-how-long. "I guess I don't know you. I thought I wanted to, but I guess I was wrong!" She turned away sharply and didn't start crying until Mike was well out of sight.
When she got back to the dorm, Regina was waiting for her. "Gretchen!" Regina shouted immediately.
Gretchen wiped her eyes. "Not now, Regina, okay?" she snapped. "I'm having a really shitty day. Could you please just leave me alone?"
Regina bit her lip. "It's Karen," she said. "She's in the hospital."