Eager to Learn (Complicity Cycle) by Sadie Romero Page A

an empty seat near the back.
    “ As I was saying,” said Dr. Giacomo, “it’s paramount in a class of this size and difficulty to stay focused and ordered. If you oversleep or feel like being disruptive some morning, I’d rather you not come at all. I honestly don’t care if you miss class. I’m not your daddy, and I’m not your mommy. Don’t send me emails about why you didn’t come, because frankly I didn’t notice and I don’t care. If you show up, show up quietly and on time.” His eyes lingered on me pointedly.
    I slumped deeper in my chair as a few more glances flickered my way .
    “ I will say that this is a very rigorous course. While you’re free to play hooky, doing so will be to your detriment. I don’t waste time in here, so you will need to attend to pass the class. However, you’re all adults, and you all have agency over your own affairs.”
    He continued going over the syllabus in detail, laying out the expectations of the coursework and policies regarding cheating and the weighted balance of grades and so on. When he finished, he assigned pages to read in our textbooks, gave us a problem set to work, and dismissed class early.
    Everyone crowded toward the back, but I pushed through them, moving to the front.
    Dr. Giacomo was talking to his teaching assistant, a scarecrow grad student with oversized glasses.
    I waited for them to finish speaking before I approached. I pulled a printed form out of my binder.
    “ Dr. Giacomo?” I said, hoping I was pronouncing it right.
    “ Yes?” he said, turning the cool burn of those hard blue eyes on me.
    I was standing on the classroom floor, and he stood on a raised platform and leaned against his podium. He towered over me.
    “ I’m… I’m sorry I was late,” I said. “I forgot the room number, and then—”
    “ If you were paying attention,” Giacomo interrupted, “you would understand that I don’t care. Although, in the future, you should take care with first impressions. You’re setting a bad precedent.”
    “ Yes, sir,” I said.
    He waved me off and turned back to his teaching assistant.
    “Dr. Giacomo?” I said again.
    He looked back at me with a raised eyebrow.
    “I didn’t just come to apologize.” I held out the printed form, and he took it. “I have a condition that may affect my performance in this class,” I said. “I have to ask you to sign this, acknowledging that accommodations can be made for my disability, if necessary.” It was a canned little speech that I’d gotten pretty good at delivering. I felt my confidence lift just a bit off the ground as I rolled through the familiar words.
    “‘ Caitlyn Seager,’” Giacomo read. He regarded me with some hint of new interest.
    “ Everyone calls me Lynn,” I said.
    Giacomo folded the paper and slipped it into his leather shoulder bag. “I’m afraid I have a meeting and don’t have time to give to this matter attention just now. Could you come see me during my office hours this afternoon to discuss any arrangements?”
    “ Yes, sir,” I said.
    “ Good,” he said. “My office location is in the syllabus. In case you forget that too.”
    My face burned. “Yes, sir,” I said again.
    I left Choppin Hall and stepped out into the soup of late-summer Louisiana heat. Though I sometimes found this heat oppressive, it felt good that day because it lined up with the embarrassed smolder in my face and chest. I equalized with the weather, taking it in and becoming a part of it.
    I walked across campus, and a light gleam of sweat glazed me immediately.
    The trees and grass of the quad were almost painfully green, their brightness thrown in sharp contrast against the first-week-of-college purple worn by practically all the incoming freshmen, proud to be new LSU students.
    The campus had two hearts. The first was the quad, which everyone passed through on their way to wherever they were going. It was an open place to bump into everyone you knew and make on-the-spot