Goodbye, my friend.

We are a mere three weeks into this semester and already it has been quite tumultuous. While I have a few minutes, let me see if I can do this story justice.

For whatever reason, law school professors have a difficult time grading exams in a timely fashion. So, we received our fall grades on the Friday before spring semester started. Like most students, we all arrived at school on Monday ready for classes, but also ready to catch up with friends that we hadn’t seen since the hell of final exams six weeks earlier. By the end of Monday, our class involuntarily lost two of its members. They were there on Monday, and then they were gone. The assumption is that they were on academic probation and did not make satisfactory progress. Both had meetings with the dean on Monday and both did not return; thus, the assumption.

One of these classmates was a dear friend. We studied together during finals, and we spent a lot of time together during the semester. I remember one day as we were walking into tax class I told her, “If he calls on me today, please help because I didn’t do the homework.” To which she replied, “What? Well, I was counting on you to do the homework because I didn’t do it either.” First of all, let me state the obvious, i.e., I always do my homework . . . well, almost always; but, a girl has got to sleep some time.

During the five minutes that we had before class started we were trying to skim the material and quickly realizing that it was quite detailed and we were sufficiently screwed. I was starting to panic and hyperventilate. Not to mention that the “unprepared” neon sign was flashing over my head.

By the time the professor walked into the classroom, fear suddenly engulfed my entire body. I did not want to be the student who was humiliated in class for being unprepared and then asked to leave. I looked at my friend, and she looked at me. In her eyes I could see that same fear. We knew what would happen if either of us were called on during class. I said, “Let’s skip.” She said, “Ok.” And we both just walked out of class. We didn’t close our books. We didn’t take our laptops. There wasn’t time for that! Class was about to start, so we just walked out.

Since this was such a spontaneous decision, we also didn’t have a plan. There wasn’t too much we could do since we had another class in an hour; so, we ended up spending the hour at Sonic, laughing at the irony of the situation. When the hour was over, we walked back into the room and just traded out our books for the next class—for which we both were prepared.

And now she is gone. Not only is she gone from school, but she is gone from my life. She won’t return phone calls. She won’t respond to e-mails or text messages. I know she is upset and that this is going to take time to heal, and probably the last person she wants to talk to is a law student. Last week she moved out of her house and returned to her home state. I doubt that our paths will ever cross again. Another classmate now occupies her seat. But I hope I was more than a law student or classmate to her; I hope I was her friend. Better yet, I hope I am her friend. And I hope that, in time, when the hurting has healed, she will reach out to me.

So much more is happening. Law review has been hell. I almost quit law review last week, but that story will have to wait for another day. Some of my professors just make me want to bang my head against a wall; other professors convince me to do otherwise. The plans for the summer are still up in the air, not to mention plans for employment. And life goes on for this mature—yet tired—law student. And that’s about all the time that I have for today.