The Runaway Professor

11. Bonds

Hastily walking to our spot behind the main building, I was stopped by a gut feeling. Turing on my heels, I viewed Leo intensely talking to a.. well someone with broad shoulders. Taking her genuinely new expression I was unsure how to categorize her encounter. Arms crossed, I positioned myself behind one of the arches, not letting her out of sight and perhaps attempting to take a glimpse at the someone.

Squinted eyes I analyzed the clothes, until someone stood besides me looking the same way I did.

"Are you coming by today?" Cate interrupted with a dazzling smile and the beige sweater I had seen her wear in the previous week, just as smooth on her body all over.

Reluctantly tilting my head entirely, I nodded. "If you're still not fed up." I smiled softly and targeted Leo and her new fling as it seemed again. Who was that?

A soft hum reeked through the air. "Who are we so fond of today?"

"No one," I replied and shook my head, pulling my attention away from the scene to make my point.

"I see," she hummed, not greatly convinced of my answer as it appeared.

Not that I was buying it either, but she could at least have pretended to believe it. Rushing into management class on time was my personal moment of pride this week. Being stuck in your own head was rarely pleasant, nevertheless showing up late for every class of the day due to it is even wore. Reasoning my delay the first three, perhaps four times was manageable, but the following? I was short on excuses and the Professors only rolled their eyes at me. Assignment became fewer, with the upcoming exams and by all means, I was aware that our professors wanted to do us a favor, but it is not helpful to get fewer yet demanding ones at that. Homework that cannot be done within one night.

Air standing still and somehow uncomfortably warm, I could picture the sweat stains under my armpits, forming dark pools on the white top. It was genuinely late —and cold at that— to peel myself out of the sweater and sit in anything shortsleeved.

A meaningless conversation with the girl next to me almost made the lecture less boring. Almost. She was not uninteresting per se, but our momentous chat was not thrilling either. Alice? I glared at the brunette again, as if her name would magically appear on my mind. It did not. I stared at her for a minute and decided to keep looking for her name.

I was catching myself counting the minutes until I would be leaving the hall. Every glance towards the clock became shorter distanced to the next. Therefore, time was passing by painfully slow.

For the most part I scribbled little stars into my notes or filled in squares with lines. A great success.. rolling my eyes at my own laziness, I rushed outside with the crowd of students. Whilst they almost crushed me in-between I was relieved to say the least to find myself taking a left turn, when they walked right and headed to the cafeteria or wherever their chosen spot for their lunch break was.

It became a habit of mine to visit Cate once a week in my lunch break. Strangely enough, she was the one initiating the visits and on top of that we were building a relationship as student and professor. I asked questions regarding her classes and she gladly helped. Teasing didn't die, though. It was very present and I got a tingling, Cate loved getting under my skin, which might have been the reason my visits were at one lunch break per week.

Plunging down in the wooden chair, I did not groan as usually. My voice stood still and I knew I had about twenty seconds before she'd notice I was too quiet. She would take off her glasses and her eyes would be all mine.

Grabbing the bottle from my bag, I drowned at least half of the untouched water, wetting my dry throat. Bad habits seemed to follow me like my own shadow lately. Not touching my bottle until noon was not uncommon, though I had been attempting to make changes for years.