The College Student (Excerpt)

Inspired by Demi Lovato

By Bryanna Martinez

It has already been a month since Sobedia has been taking care of Lylah as Demi attends classes. It’s been new for Demi instead of a diaper bag filled with baby items and books, her books are in a backpack. Instead of baby bottles, there is a bag of snacks and juice to snack on. Demi’s attention shifted from Lylah to now her professor’s full attention.

“Everyone’s exam results were very exceptional and successful, the high 80s to mid 90 percent! Congratulations on the midterm. Hope all of your projects are going well, working on the first five pages on top of learning new topics of mental illness in class,” announces Dr. Jameson handing everyone their midterms and rough drafts for their senior project.

As Jameson passes papers down, she pauses at Demi.

“Lovato, kudos, good job,” smiles Jameson setting down Demi’s midterm, rough draft, and letter. Demi looked down at her midterm which she received a 100 percent out of 100, an “A” while her rough draft was a 97 percent out of 100 (minor grammatical errors) and a professional letter from Satow and Bayer. Ignoring her exam and rough draft, Demi picked up the letter and opened it as Jameson began talking about the next half of the project — 3 drafts, for the professor, self, and peer review. Opening the letter Demi became worried. What if she was declined? What if she said too little during her speech? Or too much?

As Demi read the letter a grin peered through her face.

Demi grinned ear to ear and internally squealed. This was the best news but not the number one best, Lylah beat that. Although this news, made Demi’s day, her career is slowly launching. This only makes Demi work harder and think ideas for her project, which Demi began brainstorming her body paragraphs for the 10-15 page senior project.

During her break, Demi called Sobedia and checked on Lylah to see how she was doing. Lylah was perfect. Lylah ate well, slept well, had tummy time, and played in her playpen a bit. Soon, Sobedia was going to take Lylah to her house to run an errand and do laundry while Demi had two classes left. Everything was grand over at Casa Valderrama.

During her mini-break, Demi grabbed a Jamba Juice and walked to her following to class, film. As Demi entered film class, Professor Lee was congratulating those who did well on the midterm and passed back exam scores.

“Lovato, good job, here is your exam!” announces Professor Lee passing Demi her scantron sheet. She received another “A”. Another pass.

As everyone filled in, Demi saw Nick sit with Lana, his crush and they smiled at Demi. As Demi tried to figure out where to sit, Lana gestured to join her and Nick. Demi felt a bit obscure sitting with Nick and Lana. Both of them weren’t as friendly with Demi only if it was some grading thing. Nick wanted to “pretend” he did not know Demi and Lana was quiet but spoke her mind.

‘They want me to sit with them?’ thought Demi.

As Demi sat next to Lana, Nick and Lana greeted Demi amicably and talked to them briefly about the midterm. Lana received a 102, the highest grade in the course and Nick received an 89. Demi shared she had gotten a 97, which the two were surprised.

“Where’s baby Lylah?” asks Lana surprised to see Demi had not brought her daughter in a month.

“She has a babysitter who is excellent and with her currently till I come home later from Psychology.”

“Right ’cause your a full-time student majoring in Psychology,” chimes in Nick.

“Right.”

“How long have Nicholas and you have been friends, Demi?” asks Lana.

‘Nicholas? How long has Nick been under Nicholas?’ laughed Demi to herself.

“We grew up in the same town, same schools, and lived five streets up,” Demi said casually.

“Really?” asks Lana.

“Oh yeah. Did you know she sings really good too? Like phenomenal!” smiles Nick.

“No kidding,” smiles Lana, “do you write your own composition too?”

“I haven’t in a year or so, Lana,” replies Demi.

// Flashback//

“So please don’t catch me,” sang Demi strumming her guitar and writing in her songbook.

“Another song was written?” asks Dianna de la Garza, Demi’s mom, looking into her daughter’s lavender color room.

“Yup! Working so hard on these. I had a great inspiration today,” smiles Demi trying not to blush.

“Cute guy?”

“Maybe,” smirked Demi, “I am almost done then I’ll get clothes and myself ready before day two of the internship. We all got booked hotels.”

“Sounds good.”

[Two weeks later]

“Oh, I am a lightweight, easy to fall easy to break,” writes Demi on Wilmer’s bed watching him get ready for bed.

“So writing anything good?” asks Wilmer plopping to the side of Demi.

“Something like that,” smirks Demi.

“Something like that hmm,” smiles Wilmer kissing Demi and placing his hand on her cheek.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

//Flashback over//

Once Demi, Lana, and Nick died in their chatting Professor Lee had everyone’s attention. The students were eager to find out their final project. Each quarter, Lee assigns a new “film studies final.” Either travel to Universal Studios, learn about the history of a certain genre of film and create an interview from it; creating a set from a famous scene; to everyone’s favorite — writing a script and filming it. I mean, Universal Studios seems fun but not for the next four months. The scripts made the tension boil since Lee submits them to his “famous” friends nobody has met to film showcases. Rumor has it, one went to Cannes.

“Okay class, the final for this quarter is everyone’s favorite! Scriptwriting and directing your work! Not anybody else’s work or parody. Your work!” announces Professor Lee.

Everyone started cheering and began talking amongst themselves about teaming up as groups of three to four people. Lee began writing each genre on the whiteboard

“We need a good genre,” said Lana.

“We?” asks Demi a bit dumbfounded.

“Yes, as in Nick, you, and I! We would be a perfect team,” said Lana smiling.

The advantage of having Demi on their team was that she is a strong and driven student, that is a reason Lana recruited her. They knew their project would be done before the deadline, the script would be easy. It was just in the matter of ideas and actors.

“Rom-com is so lame,” says Nick with a yawn.

“I am not a psychological thriller person,” adds Demi, “they tend to glorify mental disorders.”

“Sci-fi it is,” chimes Lana, “our only choice next to other lame ones.”

As Professor Lee assigns genres to groups, the class met with their groups before he adds another to the list. Luckily, Demi didn’t have to move seats, so they discussed the themes of sci-fi and ideas of it. “We have to recreate my script for ‘​Is There Somewhere . I have the perfect Arthur and 1 Ellie in mind!” exclaims Lana handing out her thick and bulky script to Demi and Nick.

“I am not much of an actor. I could direct it,” smiles weakly Demi.

As the groups talked for ten minutes, Lee decided to talk to the class before he dismissed them.

“Next month while you are directing and editing the script, I will be having a guest speaker/professor here to assist you all. He is a great friend of mine from Texas,” announces Lee. Then the class ended.

The rest of the evening, Abigail and Demi were focusing during their Psychology class, children free thanks to Sobedia is watching Joshua and Sobedia.

[Sobedia’s POV]

As I was watching the babies, Joshua and Lylah, I prepared sopita for Joshua and made dinner bottle for Lylah. After, I watched cartoons with Joshua as Lylah practiced sitting up a bit.

All of the sudden, I received a call from my eldest, Wilmer. It’s been weeks since I have heard from Wilmer.

“Hola mama!”

“Hola mijo! How are you?”

“Very good mom, super busy but really good. And you? How have you been? What are you doing?”

“Very good. I am babysitting for two students right now.”

“Awesome! I will be coming to visit at the house next month for two months. Looking forward to seeing you! I have to go bye, mom!”

“Sounds great! Bye, Wilmer!”

(Sample of my original fanfiction work: “The College Student” as seen on Wattpad 2)

2 Full length chapters: “The College Student” https://www.wattpad.com/story/146929416-the-college-student