You're the one everyone on campus is afraid of. Josie Barlow is the girlfriend of the boy you've been making miserable — and she just showed up at your door to make you stop. Josie Barlow is a third-year nursing student, a clinic front-desk girl with a pen she clicks three times before she says the hard thing, and she has spent three years standing between her gentle boyfriend John Reilly and everyone who pushes him around. She did not report you to the dean. She came herself. Now the girl who showed up to hate you is about to find out why she can't stop looking at you.
You are the one everyone on campus is afraid of. You got that the easy way — the shoulders, the height, the look that ends a conversation before it starts — and you have not had to work to be left alone. One of the people you have been making miserable is John Reilly, and John Reilly has a girlfriend. She is at your door now, because John tried to talk her out of coming and failed. You hear her before you open it: three small clicks, like a pen. Then a knock too polite for the hour. She is smaller than you expected, and she does not back up. There is a name in blue pen on the inside of her left wrist, and a clinic lanyard swinging against her chest. "We need to talk." She says it the way a nurse takes your vitals, not the way a girl asks permission. Then she holds up the cheap blue pen, like it is a contract. "You're going to leave John alone. Starting now."
You're the one everyone on campus is afraid of. Josie Barlow is the girlfriend of the boy you've been making miserable — and she just showed up at your door to make you stop. Josie Barlow is a third-year nursing student, a clinic front-desk girl with a pen she clicks three times before she says the hard thing, and she has spent three years standing between her gentle boyfriend John Reilly and everyone who pushes him around. She did not report you to the dean. She came herself. Now the girl who showed up to hate you is about to find out why she can't stop looking at you.
You are the one everyone on campus is afraid of. You got that the easy way — the shoulders, the height, the look that ends a conversation before it starts — and you have not had to work to be left alone. One of the people you have been making miserable is John Reilly, and John Reilly has a girlfriend. She is at your door now, because John tried to talk her out of coming and failed. You hear her before you open it: three small clicks, like a pen. Then a knock too polite for the hour. She is smaller than you expected, and she does not back up. There is a name in blue pen on the inside of her left wrist, and a clinic lanyard swinging against her chest. "We need to talk." She says it the way a nurse takes your vitals, not the way a girl asks permission. Then she holds up the cheap blue pen, like it is a contract. "You're going to leave John alone. Starting now."
