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scholarship for my last year at UCLA, and she was a notoriously difficult grader.
    I held my breath and flipped to the last page, hoping she was just trying to pull some kind of prank.
    D+
    My heart sank. I couldn’t afford a D+ in this class, not if I wanted to keep my scholarship and my average high enough to get into graduate school. A D+ was no better than a regular D, and it certainly wasn’t the B I was hoping for.
    To my surprise Professor St. James was still eyeing me, but I couldn’t read her face. Was she pissed? Was she pleased? Did she hate me as much as I thought? What had I done to be the subject of her ire, other than raise my hand a smattering of times during the quarter? I could never tell what Professor St. James was thinking, and my face burned when I felt the tears gathering in my eyes.
    Don’t cry Nola, don’t you dare cry.
    I bit my cheek and forced a painful half-frown to my lips. “Professor St. James,” I gritted through my teeth. “I don’t know what happened. I put a lot of work into this essay. Is there any way I can revise it for a higher grade? I’m on a partial scholarship and I really need to keep my GPA above 3.3.”
    Professor St. James removed her red-rimmed glasses and pursed her lips like she was considering my words. She wasn’t known for giving her students many chances, but I had to try. I couldn’t afford to lose the money for school, not when I was just a year away from getting my degree.
    “I had such high hopes for you,” she said, shaking her head in disgust. “But you’re like the rest of the girls. Too concerned with playing nice. Such a pity.”
    “Playing nice?” I was baffled. Professor St. James spoke to everyone like they were dolts, but I was genuinely stumped. “I don’t understand.”
    She let out an exasperated sigh like I was bothering her with meaningless questions. “Every time you approached a forceful argument you backed away. Do you think I made it this far by throwing stones and hiding my hand?”
    I stared at her blankly. Throwing stones?
    Professor St. James rolled her eyes, too impatient to wait for my answer. “I cannot be bothered to discuss this now. You are not serious,” she said with a wave of her hand.
    My stomach lurched. She was brushing me off and I was going to fail for the first time in my entire life. Everything I sacrificed so hard for was about to be snatched away if I couldn’t figure out how to fix it.
    “Professor St. James, please, if there is anything I can do to bring this up. Anything—“
    She held up her hand, silencing me. “Come to my office tomorrow at five p.m. We will discuss this.”
    I almost breathed a sigh of relief, until I realized I’d picked up one of Tara’s shifts.
    “I have to work at six, can we meet earlier?”
    “I cannot be subjected to your whims, Ms. Chambers,” Professor St. James clucked. “I will meet you at five, not a moment before—or later.”
    I dragged my hands through my curly hair trying to figure out how I could meet with Professor St. James and get to work on time.  If we kept our conversation to a half hour, I could make it if I caught a cab, but I didn’t have money to burn. I was between a rock and a hard place, but I knew I had no other option but to figure it out.
    I sighed. “Fine. See you tomorrow.”
    Professor St. James turned on her heels and continued handing out essays, no doubt crushing more dreams. I stumbled out of the lecture hall and into the bright blue sunshine in a daze. I was thisclose to being done with school. I was so close to accomplishing my goal and getting my degree that I could almost taste it. But Professor St. James had just thrown a huge roadblock in my way.
    My mind raced, trying to figure out how to meet with her to get help on my paper and still make it to work on time. Ross had already threatened to fire me if I was late, but how could I not be a few minutes—or more—behind when I was cutting it so close?
    I walked across campus