Chapter 3
An Improbable Prediction
A few days later Tegan finds herself with her mother at an Honors college welcoming ceremony at the university she will be attending that Fall. Tegan’s good grades in school meant she is eligible for the University’s honors college which really only means some extra classes and a bit of prestige. Richard and his father are there too, sitting on the opposite side of her mother. Tegan is nervous because after the ceremony there will be interviews that determine who gets the scholarship money and how much. Tegan is barely paying attention to the current honors students telling the audience about college life and all the wonderful benefits of the honors college.
But when Richard’s brother, Charles, the same brother who’d come to Tegan’s German class, comes up on stage to talk, Tegan’s mother turns to her and whispers,
“Oh, Richard’s brother is cute.”
She’d been wanting Tegan to date Richard for months. But Tegan had one thing she could not look past in a person and that was excess weight. However, the figure who came out on stage was tall, slender — almost gaunt — with a shallow chin, glasses, and crooked teeth. Tegan’s first impression is “teeth and glasses.” She forgot she’d already seen him once before a month earlier. Although he wasn’t conventionally attractive, and certainly not as attractive as Mike, Tegan did silently agree with her mom. However, she brushes it off as pointless since she will most likely never see him again. He is 3 years ahead in college with the reputation of being a modern-day Einstein. He is studying math. Tegan will be entering the art school. When will their paths ever cross?
And yet Tegan’s subconscious either knows something she doesn’t or is simply trying to throw her prudish, virgin ego off guard before her interview with the craziest, most messed-up thought it can pull out of thin air because at that moment Tegan feels the presence of an invisible hand rest itself on her shoulder and a soundless voice whisper in her ear:
“Someday you will have sex with him.”
