Boy Meets Geek Read Online Free PDF Page B

being literary.”
    “Very good,” professor Timms said. “All valid critiques. All getting at the substance of the story without actually attacking the person who wrote the story or the genre the story’s written in.”
    I was really on a roll now. And the support from professor Timms was egging me on. “Exactly! If I was going to be so low as to attack something just because of the genre it was in then I might say something about how a story about a kid being upset because mommy and daddy are getting divorced isn’t exactly original, nor would anybody care to read it even if it was well-written.”
    That tapping started again and I knew I’d gone too far. Only it was so worth it. It was worth it to see the utterly pissed off look on Ryan’s face. It was worth it to give as good as I’d gotten. Let the asshole stew for awhile.
    “An astute observation,” professor Timms said. “That last remark probably isn’t quite in keeping with our critique guidelines in this class, though it might be deserved considering what prompted this conversation. Carry on, and I trust we won’t have any more problems at this table.”
    That last bit was said with a pointed glance at Ryan, but she also looked over to me and I blushed. Okay, so when I got angry maybe I got a little too angry. Maybe I got carried away. But he’d really pissed me off. He deserved it! Always flitting around the room like he was the bad boy of the creative writing program. He wasn’t even hot enough to be the bad boy of the creative writing program, and it definitely didn’t make him dark and mysterious because he was still upset five years after the fact that his mom and dad got divorced. If I had to read one more boring story…
    “Bitch,” he muttered.
    “Hack,” I whispered right back.
    “Fine,” he said, low enough that he couldn’t be heard by anybody else. Not even by anyone else sitting at our table. “You want a critique? I’ll give you a critique. This stuff reads like trash. It reads like something somebody who’s trying to write a trashy pulp novel from the ‘50s might come up with. It reads like you’re doing some sort of cheap fan fiction or something. It’s no good, your writing is no good, and you’ll never amount to anything!”
    I knew I shouldn’t let him get to me. I knew he was trying to get a rise out of me. And yet what he was saying hit so close to home that I couldn’t help it. Every time he finished a sentence it felt as though he was stabbing straight into my heart. I felt moisture gather in my eyes, and I hated that I was letting him get to me like this.
    “Oh yeah asshole?” I said as I stood.
    I picked up my bag and threw it over my shoulder. I was reacting badly to this, I was really angry and about to do something very stupid, but I couldn’t help myself. It was as though I was in the middle of a wreck that I could stop before it really started, but I was going to see it through to its messy end. “Sorry I can’t be more “literary” like you are. Maybe I’ll ask my dad to divorce my mom’s ass and leave us out in the cold for his new family so I can be as great a writer as you are asshole!”
    I was yelling at the last part. I looked up and every eye in the room was on me. Professor Timms was looking at me and her finger was tapping furiously on her arm. I blushed and turned to run from the room. My only consolation was the look of shell shocked surprise on Ryan’s face. Good. At least I’d finally got through to that prick!
    The waterworks finally came when I got out into the hall. I wiped the tears from my eyes, but I couldn’t help it. I was proud of my writing. I thought I did good stuff. I also wasn’t very good at dealing with harsh critiques like that. I knew he was just trying to get a rise out of me, I knew he was just pissed off about getting called out by our teacher in the middle of class like that, but there was a gnawing dark doubtful part of my soul that was whispering to me