The Big Fish by Madison Henley (best free e reader .TXT) 📕

 “You’re early.”

She breathed, her adrenaline finally oozing from her. Meredith let her olive messenger bag slide off her shoulder as she took a seat in the front row.

“I’m always early.”

Georgia smiled thinly.

“Right.”

Keliah hopped off Georgia’s desk and buttoned her jeans while giving Meredith a thin smile. She turned to Georgia, her eyes immediately narrowed.

“Coffee later?”

“Tea.”

Georgia corrected.

“Sure.”

 Keliah turned to face Meredith who averted her gaze anywhere but her best friend’s eyes.

 “We need to talk.”

Meredith momentarily grimaced, flipping a page through a book she had randomly pulled out of her bag while Keliah and Georgia had their sexual banter act.

 “I’m good, Keli. It’s fine.”

“I meant about Gabrielle.”

“Oh.”

“Later. We will.”

Meredith nodded in response and watched her walk all the way out of the classroom door before returning her eyes back to her book, rereading the same line five times while telling herself not to make contact with her professor. The silence thickened when Keliah left. Georgia sat on the desk, crossing her legs at the ankles and drew letters in the air with her stilettos as she waited for the time of awkwardness to pass.

 “I see you took my advice and registered for my creative writing class…”

Meredith nodded, turning a page after skipping three paragraphs. If she was actually reading the book, she guessed she should be on the next page. Her reading pace was certainly not that slow.

“I’m flattered- -”

“Are we seriously not gonna talk about what just happened?”

Meredith finally closed her book and looked up at Georgia.

“What?”

“I am not your child, Professor Kerouac. Your hands were in between my best friend’s thighs.”

Georgia immediately tensed and averted her eyes to the floor.

 “Well, when you put it like that….”

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ears and pushed herself off from her desk and stood in front of Meredith, beginning to explain herself when other students began to walk in.

“Let’s discuss this later.”

Meredith nodded before smiling thinly at the students who sat around her.

“I’m glad you all were brave enough to select me for Explorations in Creative Writing. Someone besides Meredith read me their imitation poem of Cynthia Zarin.”

***

 “Merry Christmas, Happy Quanza, Happy fucking new year! I have not seen you since last year!”

 Keliah giggled at her own lame joke.

“You saw me this morning.”

Keliah narrowed her eyes at Meredith, feigning displeasure.

“Under very unfortunate circumstances. Don’t you knock?”

“It’s a classroom…for my class. Don’t you knock?”

“Okay we’re not here to talk about me. Even though I am dying to tell you all about riding Kerouac.”

“Keliah!”

Meredith chided, gazing to see if the other people in the coffee shop heard her vulgar language. Her mouth had gotten a lot filthier since the meeting of Georgia and Meredith could only wonder what her professor said behind closed doors.

“No one is going to hear me, Mer.”

“You don’t know that. Keliah, you could get into some serious trouble. You’re…”

Meredith looked around before continuing.

“underage dating a professor!”

Keliah swirled her tongue around the straw to her drink and sucked hard, her cheeks going hollow. She knitted her brows together before swallowing.

“Anyways. What happen with you and Gabrielle? The bitch has gone incognito since Christmas.”

“Oh is that the game we’re playing? We can talk about my toxic love life but not yours?”

“Mine is anything but toxic.”

“Oh, excuse me. Illegal.”

“Damn Mer, the holidays were that bad?”

Meredith immediately sunk in her chair, gazing outside of the shop. The images of her and Gabrielle’s encounters flashed in her head like a movie, which she so desperately tried to analyze and dissect at night when private tears or warmth didn’t put her to sleep.

“I told my parents about Gabrielle and what we were.”

She spoke to the window.

“You’re fucking lying. Meredith! How are you still breathing? Shouldn’t you be crucified or something?”

Meredith couldn’t help the tug on her lips. She felt like a weight had been lifted off of her, but now her family was concerned about getting the striking couple back together.

“Well, Roelle found out and of course forced me to tell.”

“I’ve never liked her, you know.”

Keliah smiled before leaning forward, grabbing Meredith’s head by each side and pressing her lips against the center of it.

I’m so happy for you, Mer. Really, I am. If only Sweden was just as accepting as your parents.”

Meredith shrugged and took a sip of her lukewarm tea.

 “I don’t know. Maybe this is God’s way of telling me to move on, that my happy ending does not consist of Gabrielle.”

“God did not say that! You did. Didn’t he say if you love something let it go and if it comes back to you, it’s yours.”

“That was Richard Bach.”

“He might as well be God.”

“Let’s hope not. God will be dead very soon if he is.”

“So pessimistic.”

***

Meredith met Georgia at her condominium where Georgia had instructed her to meet. They usually met at the coffee shop where Keliah and her had drinks hours before, but Georgia wanted privacy for the conversation she was going to have with her student. Meredith stared around at the place before she sat down on her couch. She couldn’t help the thought of how many times Keliah must’ve been here before her, doing God knows what.

“Do you guys…talk about