Still (Grip Book 2)(20)

10





Grip





"Bristol!" The barista calls out, scanning the crowd for the person who  ordered the grande white chocolate mocha. I get it every day at this  coffee shop within walking distance of NYU's campus, and the drink has  become my own inside joke for my relationship with Bristol.

Plus, that shit's the bomb.

"Uh, mine." I step around several other customers waiting for their orders.

Yeah, I miss Bristol so much, I give her name to the barista for my  coffee. If that makes me a pussy, I don't care. I don't need caffeine.  My heart is already galloping in my chest. After two weeks, she's  finally joining me at our place in New York.

"Damn, Grip," says a low-timbered voice from behind me.

I turn to meet a pair of laughing eyes behind dark-rimmed glasses.

"I knew you were trying to be all incog-negro in my class," Dr. Israel  Hammond continues, "but I didn't know you resorted to using girls' names  to keep your identity a secret."

Shock and nerves lock up my words for a second. Is this how my fans feel  when they meet me? I've been in Dr. Hammond's class for over a week and  haven't mustered up the nerve to approach him. It's like being  star-struck, but smarter-more like mind-struck, because this guy's a  genius.

"Professor Hammond."

"Call me Iz," he insists. With his close-cropped hair, Malcolm X  T-shirt, elbow-patched blazer, and shell toe Adidas, he's a study in  contrasts, all these cool pieces that don't quite fit but make sense as a  whole. "And technically I'm not a professor. It's just for this  semester. Then it's back to writing and running my organization."

After the success of Virus, he started an organization focused on the issues of criminal justice reform his book raised.

"Okay, Iz." I clear my throat and hope I sound like a grown man, not a  fangirl. "I didn't even know you knew I was in your class."

"I've known since before the first day." He gestures to the corner with two leather armchairs. "Wanna sit?"

I settle into the seat and consider the man I crossed the country to  study with. He's not your typical academic. Once you get past the  glasses, he's more lumberjack than scholar. He's probably a good six  five in socks with hulking shoulders and huge hands. If I didn't know he  was faculty, albeit temporary, I'd assume he was a baller.         

     



 

"The administration actually notified me that you'd be in my class  before the semester even started," he says, taking a sip of his coffee.

"Why would they do that?" Irritation scrunches my face. As hard as I've  been trying to be normal and like everyone else, the administration  singled me out.

"Having someone famous in your class could be disruptive." He shrugs  those massive shoulders. "If half the students will be lining up for  autographs or throwing their panties across the class, I'd like a heads  up."

A smirk works its way through my irritation.

"Thank God there's been nothing like that," I say. "I don't think most people know I'm even there."

"Well you sitting at the back with that hat pulled down low isn't much of a disguise, but I guess it's working for you."

"It also helps that your class is huge."

"Yeah. I had no idea there would be such a response."

"Are you kidding?" I know I'm gaping, but I can't check it. "Your book  is . . . life-changing. This is my first semester on campus. I've been  an online student for the last year and a half, and I relocated from LA  for the semester just for this class."

He's a stone-faced man, but surprise ripples across his rugged features.

"I had no idea." His eyes drop to his drink and then lift to narrow on my face. "Why would you do that?"

I hesitate, self-conscious in the presence of someone who has become a  hero of sorts to me-not the Superman, Marvel comic kind of hero, but the  kind whose superpower is reason and whose kryptonite is ignorance.

"I read Virus on my first world tour over the summer, and it articulated  so many things I had either never considered, or knew but never put  into words," I say. "I didn't set out to sell a million records. I  wanted to be successful, of course, but fame is seductive. It has this  way of making you forget who the real person is behind all the hype, and  the bigger I get, the less I want this distance between who I am in  public and who I am in private. If anything, I want people to know the  things I really believe in and stand for."

I pause to look at him frankly.

"I come from nothing. Where I'm from, a life like the one I'm leading  now is a fairy tale. I want to leverage my success to change things for  people who don't actually believe another life is possible. Your book  helped me see that."

"So, if my book did all of that," he says, taking his glasses off to  clean them on the hem of his T-shirt, "why haven't you at least come to  my office hours? I can't even get to my door most days for the line of  students in the hall, but if we hadn't bumped into each other here, I  wouldn't have ever met you."

I take another sip of my drink, using that time to collate my thoughts.

"I guess I didn't want special treatment because of . . . you know."

"You don't think you're special?" he asks.

"Um . . ." This feels like a trick question. "Well, everybody is special."

"Does everyone sell a million records?" He tilts his head, both brows lifted like he really wants to know.

"Well, no, but-"

"Do hundreds of thousands of fans across continents fill arenas to see everyone?"

"Look, I see what you're getting at, but-"

"Would you say Martin Luther King was special?"

"Yeah, obviously."

"But he would argue that he wasn't better than anyone else." He plows  on, not waiting for the response I'm not sure of anyway. "And what about  Ghandi? Wasn't he special? But fighting a caste system, he would have  been the last to say he was in any way superior."

He and I watch each other, the sounds of conversation and lattes being  slurped and coffee shop music coalescing around us as his words sink in.

"I guess my point is we are all created equal," he says. "But it's what  we choose to do with what we have that makes us extraordinary."

He laughs, flashing white teeth against skin the color of mahogany.

"Or not," he says. "'Cause best believe most people don't do enough with  what they're given. The fact that you did so much with the little you  had makes you special. Own that."

And just like that, uprooting my life, even missing my girl to the point  of aching feels worth it. Some people are a revolution and, with their  words, overturn the things you thought you knew. You don't always see  them coming, but once you're with them, you know the impact they have  will be like a crater, deep and lasting. That's how much of an  impression they will leave. Over the next hour as Dr. Hammond challenges  me, pokes at my perspectives, and picks apart my preconceived notions,  there is no doubt in my mind he is one of those people, and his impact  on my life, unfathomably deep.         

     



 





11





Bristol





This is my new home, at least for the next semester.

It's not the pictures of Grip and me, of Rhys and Kai, Aria, and our  friends sprinkling the mantle and other surfaces here in our temporary  Tribeca apartment. It's not the clothes hanging on my side of our  closet. It's not even my favorite Cookie Dough ice cream that Grip has  already stocked in the freezer. These aren't the things that make this  place home.

It's him.

If I'm in Antarctica, as long as Grip is there shivering beside me, it's home.

Now where is he?

I wander from room to room, checking both floors, but there's no sign of  him. It's kind of anti-climactic considering I took an earlier flight  to get here. That's what I get for trying to surprise him. I know his  schedule as well as I know my own: he had class today then a session  with Qwest's producers and writing team this afternoon.

Grrrrr.

I refuse to torture myself with thoughts of them working together while I  was stuck in LA, although "stuck" isn't the right word. I was just a  little busy making Kai's debut the freaking number one album in the  country. If we thought the offers were pouring in before, now I'm  flooded with movie roles, endorsement options, and more opportunities  than she'll be able to handle. If all goes according to plan-mine and  Rhyson's, that is-soon Broadway will be knocking, too.

"Dammit."

The muffled curse reaches me from the greenhouse, and quiet steps take  me toward the outdoor retreat where I'm now sure he is. I wonder if it  will always feel like this when I'm about to see him. Anticipation  trembles in the air. My mouth dries and then waters with the promise of  his kiss. There's a pillow fight in my belly and feathers float all  around. Mrs. O'Malley's eyes still gloss over when she thinks of her  Patrick, of the years they had before his illness. They made this place  together. I take in the tinted windowpanes and the space they created  for one another.