An Unfinished Painting

3- Back on the dating market

   I keep waking up to empty bottles of alcohol next to me, lying anywhere other than my own bed. Hopping into the shower, tying my hair back in a loose low pony tail, buttoning up my light blue shirt, stepping each leg into my white pants that touch the ground, sitting down on my bed to put my white socks on along with my white loafers, and the only thing on my face is my round thin pair of seeing glasses.

I see all the dots that turn towards me as I enter the lecture room ten minutes late. Placing my brown leather bag on the desk and finally, I start to teach. My voice is not that deep or loud, I have a relaxed soft spoken voice that on occasion becomes raspy if I speak too much. Usually when it comes to teaching big lectures such as this, I talk into a little microphone and even then, I still have to speak a little louder than I usually would, in order for all my students to clearly hear me.

"Good Afternoon Professor!" It was the same girl from last week, "How are you?" She asked in the same care free attitude from the first time we met.

She was smiling at me even though I had an expressionless look on my face, "What is it?"

"You probably don't remember me, I'm May." I remembered her, but I had forgotten her name almost immediately when she introduced herself the first time. I tend to disregard people's names in general, especially if they are my students. There is only so many names and faces I can possibly remember. Instead of responding to her, I grabbed my brown bag and started walking out of the classroom.

"Would you want to grab coffee sometime?"

I looked over to see her walking right next to me, "I told you last time."

May interrupted me, "Well instead of a meal, I thought you would prefer grabbing a cup of coffee with me."

I annoyingly glanced over at her, I do not form relationships with my students for the most part. But grabbing coffee was not that big of a deal and I thought it would make her stop bothering me if I went out with her once. I was also a little curious of why she was trying so hard to see me after school hours.

I stopped in front of my the classroom door, "Fine, what time?"

May seemed more surprised than I thought she would be. She smiled then continued to talk about how she knows this coffee shop that she really likes to go and rambled on about how they use good quality beans compared to other shops. I think I stood there listening to her ramble on about this for another five minutes. After she told me the time and what the shop was called, I finally went back into my office. For about twenty minutes I had some peace and quiet, until Sidney showed up.

"I'm going to set you up on a blind date tomorrow," She announced right as soon as she walked in my office room.

"I'm busy," I tried ignoring her as I was looking over the work for my next class I was teaching that day.

"Oh yeah? Doing what?" She asked in a sassy tone as she sat in one of the chairs in front of my desk.

I looked up, "I'm meeting someone at a coffee shop."

She had an evil smile on her face when I told her this, "So you're going on a date." She leaned back into the chair, "Who's the lucky girl?"

"No" I hesitantly said, "It's really not any of your business. A student asked me to grab coffee with them and the only reason I said yes was because she wasn't going to stop insisting on this request until I agreed."

"A date with a student," Sidney completely ignored what I had just told her, "Gotta be careful there, I know our students are all of age but the last thing you would want is to loose your job."