Finding Marcel

>3<

Chapter three

When I woke up the next morning, I had made a decision. I was going to walk into that room, look Marcel in the eye, and greet him properly.

Unfortunately, my morning didn't go exactly as planned. Instead, I felt a nervous knot form in my stomach as I made my way down the hall, imagining a number of scenarios. I could walk inside, and there could be a note on the door that notified everyone of the loss of a student-- me. How ridiculous could I possibly be? I knew Marcel (for the most part, but that was years ago), and kicking me out of a class just wasn't something he would do.

I stood in the doorway, but to the side so others could still enter. My fingers tightened around my paper coffee cup, while my left hand sat inside my jacket pocket. Marcel was at his desk again, typing furiously on his laptop. He looked up for only a moment to see the rows of seats slowly filling up, to see his students pulling out their notebooks and mini laptops. A few curls fell down into his face, so he pushed them straight back and returned to his work.

I sat down in the same seat as I had the day before, and mentally prepared myself to actually focus. I couldn't stare at Marcel's face the entire time and daydream like a secondary-schooler; I had to grow up already.

"Crap, I forgot my pencil," the girl next to me muttered, digging through a floral-print bag.

I rummaged through my own bag, finally pulling out a mechanical pencil. "Here, you can use mine," I said, offering it to her.

The girl tucked her straight brown hair behind her ears and smiled, showing crinkles by her hazel eyes. "Thanks! Promise I'll give it back. I must've left mine back in the room when I was rushing out the door today."

"No problem! I do that a lot, too." I looked down at Marcel, before turning back to the girl. "I'm Bella, this is my first year here."

"Mine too! I'm Linda." She smiled again, "is this your major?"

"Yeah, yours?"

"Nah, I'm majoring in Earth sciences. Meteorology, to be specific."

We ended up talking until class started; Linda was really nice, and I found out that she lived on campus (in a dorm) with a girl named Kaiya.

Marcel clapped his hands once, gaining everyone's attention. "All right, it's time to start. Today, we will be discussing the life cycles of stars."

* * *

I pushed my phone up against my ear, listening to it ring over and over again. It had gone off during my core math class, the Teletubbies theme song echoing off the walls of the small room. I immediately silenced it, but everone's eyes were already on me. As soon as that class was over, I rushed outside to call Louis back.

The cool breeze blew hair into my face, so I had to hold it to the side with my only free hand. I leaned back against the brick building, watching a group of finches fight over a piece of sandwich bread. It smelled wet outside, and the air felt thick with precipitation, so I knew it was going to rain at some point.

"Hello?" Finally, Louis answered.

"Thanks for calling me in the middle of math; everyone just loved the Teletubbies theme song."

"My ringtone is the Teletubbies?" I rolled my eyes; he didn't even care that he interrupted one of the lectures.

"It just seemed fitting. That's beside the point, though. What do you need?"