Falling Slowly

2. Oh Shit, He's Hot

1.6k words

Emma tapped her purple pen on the desk, shaking her leg. She stared at the clock in the front of the large room to make sure she hadn't came in suspiciously early. The professor hadn't even made it back from his break, but he left the door open.

As if he had heard her thinking of him, he came in and put his things down before he noticed her. His eyes stopped scanning the, what he thought was empty, room. They landed on Emma's piercing blue eyes. He immediately felt a weird sensation of intimidation toward the young girl.

She didn't break the stare either. The first thing Jean had told her was to never be the first to break eye contact. He finally took in a sharp breath and looked at the pen in her hand.

"My syllabus clearly states that I only allow red or blue pens." He cleared his throat and fixed his tie before taking a seat at his desk.

"Emma Parker." Emma leaned down to her bag and pulled out a pen that looked a shade darker than the one before. "Biology major."

"And you're in Chemistry?" The professor raised an eyebrow, not daring to look at her again.

"Biology consists of Chemistry." Emma pursed her lips. "You should know that you are a professor after all. Right?"

"You have great potential." The professor said before the wave of students came in. When everyone was seated, he stood up. "Good afternoon, everyone, I'm Dr. Henderson. I am your Chemistry teacher this semester. Let's go back to Kindergarten and name one thing we like about Chemistry."

Emma sighed, resting her chin on her hand. She somehow paid close enough attention to realize when the people speaking were a few seats away from her. She put the pen down and sat up, getting ready for her part.

"I'm Peter Parker." The guy next to her smiled with his lips pressed together. "I love mixing different reactants to create a new product."

Emma took a deep breath at her turn. "I'm Emma Parker." Emma looked away from the stares people were giving her. "I'm a biology major, so my practices with chemistry are mostly fermentation and the earth cycles."

Emma flinched when the guy next to her tapped her shoulder. "That's really cool." He whispered. "Also, who's your parents, I might know them?"

"Um, my parents are from Canada." Emma shook her head, smiling slightly. "Near Alaska."

"Oh, so we're different sets of Parkers'." Peter nodded understandingly.

"I guess." Emma shrugged.

"Parkers, you two have something to tell the class?" Dr. Henderson called to the top row.

Emma turned away from Peter and held her hands together. "No, sir." Emma sighed.
___

Class couldn't have ended sooner. Emma only had three classes that whole day, two in the morning and one in the afternoon, but it seemed to drag on forever. She hurried outside to find the closest gate toward Henderson Industries.

Emma found it and began heading toward it when someone grabbed her shoulder. She turned quickly, ready to knock them out, but stopped when it was just Peter. She let out a breath of relief and began walking again.

"Wait!" Peter caught up to Emma. He gripped his backpack a bit tighter then before, matching her strides. "Why are you so jumpy?"

"I'm a girl in 2024, you gotta watch out for yourself." Emma shrugged. "What do you want?"

"I wanted to apologise for getting you called on in class." Peter stared at the ground as they passed dozens of people doing their own thing.

"Well, I was talking, wasn't I?" Emma looked over at Peter, studying how his curls wrapped over the top of his ear.