Time Skip by Craig L. Seymour Read Free Book Online

He was determined that his parents wouldn’t have to pay for anything but room and board, and whatever part of tuition he couldn’t find a scholarship or grant to cover. He would not be calling them up and asking them to pay for food or any other miscellaneous expenses. So, for the first time, he used his knowledge of the future to his financial advantage. An acquaintance at work was friends with a bookmaker, and Lovelle placed a sizable bet on a baseball game that he had attended with his father the first time it was played. Although he had qualms about taking other people’s money under such false pretenses, he was less than troubled in taking cash from a bookie. He parlayed a chunk of his earnings into a nice little severance package.
    When the time came to register for classes Trina managed to get them into the same "Intro to Government" class. Beyond that core requirement class their varying interests took them in different directions. As for himself, he quickly declared his major as Criminal Justice and set about to position himself for a career in the FBI. His plan was to take any and every class that he thought might qualify him to work in some counter intelligence capacity, with an emphasis on the Middle East.
     
    *****
    Although Lovelle saw himself as a lone wolf, he quickly found out that he really did miss having friends around. And Trina had a lot more on her plate than just him. He may have come to school with only one friend, but she had six or seven from high school, and several new ones to boot. She got along great with her dorm mates, and quickly adopted their friends as well. Still, Lovelle knew this was actually to his advantage. Spending all of his free time with Trina was probably not the best prescription for his loneliness.
    Of course, Lovelle didn’t fare so well with his own roomies. Not surprisingly he found them immature. Them, and nearly everyone else in the freshman dorms. As he saw it, he had three options. Party with the drunken teenagers, find a girl himself, or get used to being alone a lot. He chose option three. He had always been much happier alone than in the company of people he didn’t like, so drunken teenagers were definitely out. And, even if he decided to give in and start dating, he couldn’t. He absolutely couldn’t go out with Trina. Just being her friend was a test of his willpower. But, as long as she was available, he couldn’t date someone else without hurting her. So he spent a lot of time in his room and at the library. The library was the closest thing he could get to the internet, which had been one of his favorite pastimes for years.
    All of this resulted in making him the best student he could ever be. For the first time in his life he actually did all of his homework, and really cared about what he was learning. It was funny to him how the moment he stopped caring about grades, and started caring about learning, he became the student he should have always been. Actually, he knew that wasn’t so odd. After all, the best teachers are the ones who get you to actually be interested in the subject.
    The rest of their freshmen year went along pretty much like that. He saw Trina occasionally, and she expressed her concern about his hermit status. He assured her repeatedly that he was fine. She even went so far as to encourage him to find a nice girl, but he knew that was a trap he didn't want to fall into.
    Finally, towards the end of the year, he caught a break. Trina met a nice guy. Not understanding what a relief this was to him, she felt the need to explain to him why she was “moving on”. She asked him to dinner, but not in a casual way, so he knew something was up. Her demeanor was as odd as it had been when she asked him to pick her up from work on that day she’d bared her soul to him.
    “Curtis, we both know there’s a little something extra between us,” She began, “I don’t really know why we haven’t been able to work that out.” His heart