The Anomaly by J.A. Cooper Page A

it’ll take me about four minutes to reach Hollins and another minute to find room 201.
    But I decide to pace myself and run up the stairs when I reach the building. I prefer to make a good impression on my professors from day one. I mean, it’s better than standing out in a bad way by being late. I’m breathing heavier than I’d like to as I push open the classroom door. I stop short. Carter is standing in the front of the room.
    His expression tells me that, like me, he’s surprised. He drinks me in with his eyes. Those green eyes that make me melt—not only because green’s my favorite color, it’s also because of the way that man looks at me with them.
    He’s wearing a beige sweater zipped up over a white T-shirt, but I can still make out his lean, muscular frame. It’s easy to tell that he’s the athletic type. I immediately want to go up to him, but I’m not sure why he’s even here. Instead, I look around for an empty seat in the classroom, taking one in the back row. Though a few students in the class are looking at me, I try to move as quiet as possible.
    I glance at Carter, but don’t want to tempt myself and get too close right now. I sit down. We watch each other. Carter smiles and moves closer to the desk at the front of the classroom. He picks up a paper and pencil from the desk and makes a mark on the paper.
    “Well, it seems like the last student’s here.” Carter looks up at me. “Nice of you to join us, Leigh.”

Chapter 2
    W eeks Earlier
    I’ve wanted out of my relationship with Todd for the longest time. He’s the world’s biggest moocher, and I’m tired of it. The only reason I’ve kept on in our relationship is that he’s become something of a habit. And habits are comfortable things. But at this point, the fact that we’ve been dating since high school doesn’t matter to me anymore.
    I was a freshman and he was a sophomore when he first asked me out, so it’s been almost seven long years. Who would have thought it back then...shy little Leigh dating one of the most popular guys in school, one of the stars of the baseball team. But we lasted through those years, even after he started college a year earlier than me.
    I sometimes wonder if people just “assumed” we’d be together forever. I know that’s what I thought back then, when I was more naive and innocent. Now that I’m living in “the real world”...my own apartment, a part-time job, plans for the future...and have matured, Todd and I don’t seem so ideal as a couple anymore.
    It’s tough enough trying to keep up decent grades in school while working twenty hours a week. So it doesn’t help when Todd eats up my groceries and uses my expensive skin care products. He even had the nerve to tell me once to buy more of my pricey body butter, while his bottle of lotion sat on the dresser. I mean, he already graduated from Westfield University and I’m going to be a senior there soon. So I don’t see why it’s so hard for him to contribute more. Todd’s lame excuse is that he has a low-paying, entry-level job. One of the things that grates on my nerves, though, is the fact that he thinks it’s the company’s fault that he doesn’t have a higher-paying, more prestigious title. It has nothing to do with the fact that he won’t go in one minute early or stay one minute late or, that he does only what he needs to do. Todd definitely lacks ambition and initiative.
    And my parents pay the rent for my apartment. We did some “cost calculating” when I started looking at colleges and the decision was mutual. Because I graduated with an “A” average, yes, I deserved to live on my own. Going out of town, though, was not cost effective. My parents would pay the rent for an apartment here in town, and I would work a part-time job so I could save some money. But none of us had factored Todd into the picture.
    “So it’s not like you really have this big bill every month. You work to pay for the extras in life,”