Like the Red Rose blooms in the Oxford Garden

Chapter 6: You were bigger than the whole sky, more than just a short time

"When talking about essential acceleration, we need to take the radius and use that to calculate velocity and friction that way." Nina watched the pen in Gastón's hand draw a smooth circle on the paper. "Now, you draw the axels on this, and the different force vectors."

It was the first day of the Easter vacation at Oxford. All the students were given a week off while the trinity term had just started a week ago. The physics course she was taking had been odd since it ranged one and a half terms. The exam would be in three weeks... but she didn't want to even think about it.

She was not looking forward to finishing the course at all. Not because she didn't believe that she couldn't pass it. She did actually feel quite confident now, after all of Gastón's help... that was the issue. After the course was over, he would no longer be helping her. She'd no longer have any excuse to spend long winding evenings at the library alone with him.

Nina had pretty much come to the conclusion that physics were not her thing anymore, but still these past months had been the happiest she had felt in a while, by just being in his presence. It often felt like nothing had changed at all and things between them were much warmer than when she had first come to Oxford. He helped her with the physics course, and after a while, she had had the courage to ask him to go through a couple of her literature essays. Often the tutoring sessions stretched out because they just kept talking.

She knew that there was no way she could get over him now. Nina didn't want to get over him. If she had had any doubt before, it was gone now. She loved him. His laugh, his smile, the way he had the most patience in the world while explaining stuff to her. He was a fantastic teacher. Everything she had always loved about him, she loved even more now.

But it was not up to her. If Gastón still felt the same, wouldn't he already have made a move? He usually didn't beat around the bush with what he wanted. Sometimes the hope in her did wake up, whenever she thought that he was looking at her a little bit longer than normal, but it could have been easily that she had just imagined it.

It didn't matter if she knew what she felt. If he didn't love her anymore, there was nothing she could do. She didn't want to lose him either way. She couldn't be that desperate ex who could not accept reality.

"Nina? Are you listening?" Nina shook her head to get her focus back. Gastón was holding the pen out for her. She grabbed it and it almost felt like, with the way he was handing the pen to her, that he was purposefully trying to avoid even slightly touching hands. Like she needed any clearer indication of what kind of place she held in his heart.

Not that there had been anyone else either. Gastón didn't seem to go out at all, at least with any girls. Any time she had seen him come out of classes, he was with James and James only. In the mornings he always appeared out of their dorm with Oliver and Jacob, so he didn't spend his nights anywhere else either. That just gave her more hope, no matter how foolish it might have been.

"Yeah, I'm listening." She started drawing the arrow indicating the velocity on the paper. "So, after this, I just insert all the variables in here, and calculate the right one?"

"Yes." Gastón smiled at her. "You're really getting the hang of these."

"Not without you." Nina looked back on the paper, "How did you draw a perfect circle on this paper. You couldn't draw those well before."

"I know," Gastón laughed, "but we're supposed to decide our minors this year, and I was kind of thinking of architecture actually."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I really want to get into environmental construction once I graduate, and they really could complement each other." Gastón directed his eyes towards the computer screen, "It is just an idea, I haven't really mentioned it to anybody—"