Author's Note: As a little note, for anyone who's read Begin Again/Everything Has Changed, I thought of Spencer while writing about the professor in this one-shot (so just picture Spencer talking to a mini version of herself).
For everyone else, you can carry on with your daily lives...
Day Forty: So Small by Carrie Underwood
Spencer stared at the blank white document sitting on her computer. She hadn't written a damn thing for her paper.
How could it possibly be that she was given the assignment to write about absolutely anything and she couldn't come up with one damn thing?
She looked outside the window of her apartment. The weather certainly wasn't helping in lift her mood; it was a dingy grey outside and there was rain pattering on the window. She didn't want to deal with anyone at the moment; she certainly didn't want to deal with a stupid paper.
Suddenly, she came up with an idea. She remembered Mr. Fitz's words, which at the time, sounded extremely creepy and morbid, but now resonated in her memory often. All good things in literature stemmed from two things: love and death.
What was so interesting about love? She sometimes wondered what made it so interesting that all good things in literature stemmed from it. Death was given; there were so many interesting, morbid, eerie, ominous ways to die. People know things about death. People don't know so much about love. It was indescribable, right?
Well, she was in love. But she couldn't describe it. And the way she thought of love was so much different from how Hanna saw love, or how Aria saw it, or even how Melissa saw it.
Eventually, as she came up with a thesis, the rest of the paper basically wrote itself. She had several missed calls from the person—ironically—that she loved. She had stayed inside all day to finish this paper, proofreading and rereading and editing it to her standards, which were inexplicably high.
She was understandably nervous. The professor had told her that this paper would be worth a quarter of their grade for the semester. If she didn't get an A on this paper, she would likely get a B for the semester, an A- for the year, and Spencer Hastings didn't settle for an A-.
The phone rang again and all her frustration got the best of her.
"What?" she answered, the annoyance clear as day in her voice.
"…Spencer?" the voice on the other end asked cautiously.
"Toby, what do you want?" she asked, her patience clearly not getting any thicker.
"I just wanted to know if you were coming over later—"
"I can't. I'm writing this massive paper and I should actually probably get back to that. Maybe next week?"
Before he could even answer, she had just hung up the phone. Somewhere in the back of her brain, she wondered why she had to be that inexplicably rude, but she was too worried about the outcome of the paper to really dwell on it. She had an uphill battle here. She really needed to get this paper done and she needed it to be immaculate.
She handed the paper to her professor, who was a young twenty-something year-old woman. She was a tough professor, but she was really smart and even though her coursework was grueling, Spencer thought it was a great course.
"You chose to write a ten page paper on love?" her teacher inquired curiously as she skimmed over the paper. Spencer had noticed the huge engagement ring on her finger a week or two ago, hoping that she might've liked the paper a bit more now that she was engaged.
Spencer bit her lip. "I had a teacher once who told me that all great things in literature center around life and death, so I just decided to explore one of them more deeply."
The teacher looked over the paper again, her face remaining expressionless. "I should probably have all the papers graded in a week, so I guess we'll see how your…unique choice paid off," she said before getting up to leave.
Spencer nodded. The nerves in her stomach only got worse.
Spencer read the paper and its comments and the very few corrections over again.
A B. And a note from the professor telling Spencer to see her after class.
"I really wanted to talk to you about this paper. It's well-written and the topic is definitely an interesting choice…" the professor began as she looked over the paper.
Spencer was a bit flustered, but didn't want to come off as rude. "Then I don't understand why I got a B?"
"As well-written and almost completely grammatically correct as it is, I just felt as though it was…missing something. I read it and it just didn't feel sincere. Have you ever been in love before?"
Spencer was still for a moment before she finally nodded.
"Then you know it's not black and white like you seem to be portraying it as. Your argument is great, but I don't feel like this was as earnest as it could be. I think this paper has a lot of potential, though, Spencer. There's still another month left in the term, so if you'd like, you can rewrite this paper. I really don't do this with a lot of my students, but I think it has great potential," she repeated before handing Spencer back the paper.
She stared at the paper later that night.
It occurred to her that she was so concerned with schoolwork and her grades that she had pushed away one of the most important persons in her life. The schoolwork and her grades and what her teachers decided to give her were out of her control, to some extent. She was striving for perfection that was unattainable. She knew better than anyone that time was fleeting and so was life.
So why wasn't she spending this fleeting time with someone she really loved? She certainly could never get it back.
She put the paper on her bedside table. She rolled over to her other side to retriever her phone. She had gotten two phone calls in the last week from Toby, after she had snapped on him.
She started feeling guilty, knowing she still believed in love and that they fought so hard for love and she just…pushed him away.
"Toby…I'm sorry I haven't talked to you in a while and the last time we spoke, I was really rude and…I totally don't blame you if you hang up the phone on me right now," she said as soon as she heard the dial tone stop.
It was silent. Finally, she heard some kind of response. "I was worried about you," he answered.
She nodded. "I figured. I'm sorry, I just…I acted like an idiot. Do you think you could find it in your enormous, kind heart to forgive me?" she asked.
"Yes, of course, Spencer," he answered without hesitation.
She breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "So maybe…we could make up for that lost date?" she asked with a small laugh.
Addictedtospoby: Sometimes, the writing is just so horrible. Like, cheesy, ugly, and sometimes it kind of makes me want to stay a virgin forever (because it's really like...eugh). The saddest part is that I would totally not be surprised to find that in a piece of smut (except like half of it would probably be misspelt). And it would probably be more explicit.
spobylover1237:This may sound weird, but I swear this is probably the most explicit thing I ever wrote (and it's really not explicit at all). Thank you!
AL3110: Ha! Funny joke! I AM a poor, lost soul. But I actually have a heart. Wait, lol, I don't.
Guest:Thank you very much, anonymous guest!
eveningshades1107: I actually thought you were serious until I read "I jest". One of my BIGGEST pet peeves with smut (I admit, I have read it a time or twenty) is when someone says "their tongues battled for dominance". I mean, I haven't kissed very many people (and certainly not like THAT), but I imagine that's not really what it's like. And...we don't need to know that much. Like...ew. And I hate when a writer says something like "manhood" or "member" or "sex" or something like that. I mean, you're writing about it already. Why not just write d- then or you know...that word? I believe I said I was HOPING for Lady M, but I wasn't sure yet. But it was fun. Doesn't hurt that Macbeth is like one of the only kids I can tolerate and I actually like a lot (and he doesn't butcher Shakespearean English, either). I stumbled a bit on the unsex me monologue, just because I was getting into it and then all of a sudden, my Shakespeare teacher would interrupt and be like, "Well, what does this mean?" to a room full of vegetables who had no freaking clue what a great piece of literature Macbeth is. I have a feeling this will be pretty much all of high school for me. The problem is that at my school, there's literally only forty kids in my grade. The guys are all kind of...I can't tolerate half of the guys because they only are in possession of half of their brain 90% of the time. The girls are all "OMG shoes and makeup and designer clothes and...ew, do you see what she's wearing?" and there's only like sixteen girls in my grade. I can relate to them about basically nothing because they're all into sports. There are two other girls really into musical theatre, drama, and music, and they're super sweet, but I'm not really *friends* friends with them. And then there was this girl who was into all of that stuff and she was kind of weird, but I got really bored of her complaining about basically everything in existence (and whining "Why me, why me" and claiming that everyone was bullying her) and she left my school so...that's that. There are these two other girls who I talk to on occasion (one, I was really good friends with in the sixth and seventh grade until another girl I thought I was friends with told me a bunch of BS that she supposedly said about me; the other is just really sarcastic like me and I like her a lot). Yeah, back to your suggestion, we don't really have hierarchies like that in my grade; it's basically: you're socially acceptable; you are not. I am not! And I'm fairly sure half of my grade would not understand half of the words you just used in that monologue. I can't remember what it was, but my history teacher used this word I learned when I was in the fifth grade on his test and mostly everyone in my class had to ask him what that word meant [whilst butchering its pronunciation]. I just cringed. And I should also mention that I'm in the honors class, which means we're supposedly way ahead of the regular class [said teacher had to remove the essay from the test and half of his regular class failed anyway]). But thanks for the advice.
MizzIsTheFizz: I take it that you are a Carrie Underwood fan? I love her voice. It's so strong and...it's pretty. Anyway, thanks. If everyone in my grade (minus like maybe five or ten people) was replaced with all the awesome people I've met online (through both fanfiction and tumblr), I would be like the happiest person ever. But nope, I'm stuck in that place with all those crazy people (some good crazy, some crazy-crazy, some I just don't get along with). I bet they don't even know who Marina and the Diamonds and Lana Del Rey are...I'm weeping for everything. It makes me really scared to see a ten year old writing smut. I don't even remember if I really knew what sex was when I was ten. I was just crossing my fingers that there was chicken strips in the cafeteria for lunch. I wasn't worrying about how I'd write two characters banging each other. Thanks!
Guest (lola): I was just like...eh, can we not? But now that I was done, I was just like *tiny sigh of relief* we can move on with life. You can recommend a song, but I can't guarantee that it'll show up in this collection! I can try, but I have quite a large amount of one-shots slated to appear (that makes me feel so official). But if I have time to get to it, it is a lovely song and I will post it (if I get the chance to write it). Otherwise, I think I probably will write a one-shot on its own. By the way, I watched the video and I was ready to start crying for the frog and the snail and the owl and (what looked like) a bunny. Especially the bunny. He got cold at the end. So sad.
Guest (Maria): Aw, thank you! I'd sit with you, too (kind stranger)!
My blanket smells DELICIOUS. Ooh, I said DELICIOUS. I guess Renee Graziano is going to hunt me down now (and I guess she could, since we probably live within a ten mile radius of one another, considering she lives with me on an island that's like 13 miles long).
You so didn't need to know that, but it's so fluffy and comfy and warm.
The next one-shot (which I've already written, but I probably won't get around to uploading until Monday) will be To Love You More by Celine Dion, AKA one of my favourite songs ever (though I don't have a favourite song, and much to my uncle and cousin's dismay, as they dislike Celine Dion). I personally like it, but I don't think it'll ever do the lovely song justice.
Please review/follow/favourite! I don't get paid so your reviews make my day. I have a steady income of usually at least 2 reviews/day, which is good enough for me. And also, don't forget to check out my tumblr, which is in my profile, but in case you're too lazy, it's (you know what comes next). I keep losing followers and it makes me kind of sad, but I hit 100 followers, which is huge for me. So happy. Please check it out! I rant about Spoby on a daily basis. What could be better? (Answer: everything) -Kayson