There are two and a half weeks left until midterms and my grades, like the melting early October ice outside my window, keep sliding. The search for Prince Charming is a welcome distraction, but I know at some point I’m going to have to face the music, which is screeching, whether I’m listening or not. I still can’t bring myself to get a tutor, but I’ve agreed to see a therapist to help me better adjust, untangle some of my past, and deal with the magical delusions I seem to be experiencing. I don’t actually want to do therapy either, but Earnell and Keli suggested it when I told them I was “seeing things.” I’m confident I can fix my grades alone, but I’m not sure I can fix my mind. I know what kind of tricks it plays, the chaos it can cause, especially when I feel ungrounded and out of place. Hopefully after therapy, I’ll finally be normal.

Dean Harrison also recommended therapy. “One day it just might become one of your greatest assets,” she says decidedly.

“I highly doubt that,” I rebuff. She then stares at me entirely too long with blank eyes before pouring me a cup of tea. She’s always offering me herbal beverages. “We don’t drink this in Cleveland,” I tell her. “And we’re not in the United Kingdom so there’s no need for all this tea. Hey, this is how they drink tea at the Victorian Tea Club,” I say, laughing and prissily extending my pinky finger. I sip delicately as if I’m the wealthiest person in the world. Is this how Bill Gates drinks his tea also? Why do rich people always have to be so measured? There’s no need for this kind of pomp and circumstance in the trenches.

“Some say tea is a portal to another dimension,” Dean Harrison blurts out randomly.

“Who? Who says that?”

“Some.”

“Some who?”

“The who that are some.”

She gets weirder every time we meet.

I expect today to be no different. I’m headed to my weekly check-in with her now. I’m ten minutes late, per usual, and sprinting across campus. I’ve never met a Black person so totally out of the box. Dean Harrison has a short bowl cut, wears custom-tailored cream or light orange dresses (only those two colors), and doesn’t understand Black colloquial speech or humor. One time while leaving her office I said, “I’ll holla at you later.” She looked at me confusedly and said, “It is not necessary to yell at me or anyone else now or later. Balanced audible tones are more than suitable.”

While standing outside her office I finally realize who Dean Harrison reminds me of. This entire time I have felt I’ve seen her likeness and mannerisms somewhere, but couldn’t place it till now. Mr. Spock from Star Trek! I feel relieved, satisfied.