Miss Arden {wlw-professorxstudent}

Chapter 16

KATHERINE'S POV:
"I know, baby. I know", I kissed the top of her head as she kept clinging to me.

"I miss them so much my chest hurts. I want to wake up to my brother's stupidly excited jumping on my bed and not a phone call of him asking me for the millionth time why I am not at home, why I keep ignoring Mum, why I can't come back", her voice cracked and she kept sobbing.

"I didn't want you to worry. I wanted to get over it. I thought I could leave it all behind. At least for a while. I don't want to face it. But I'm hurting. Katherine, I'm hurting", I played with her hair and she hugged herself tighter into my stomach.

"I know, darling. But it won't get better if you don't reciprocate your mother's attempts at reconciliation. It won't become easier in the mornings and I don't want you to dread waking up because of disagreements you can take care of. And if you can't that's fine too. Then, it'll hurt even more but you have to try. You have to try making this right for yourself. She has done a terrible thing. She cheated on your dad. But maybe there's still details you missed or details you weren't meant to be aware of", she hiccuped and sighed heavily, as the sobbing slowed down into little rivulets of tears running down her red cheeks.

"What kind of details? There's literally nothing that could make this better", she complained in a mumble.

"There's always more to the story, Kalina. Hear her out. You love her. Her relentless efforts to get through to you obviously show that she loves you too. And I know it doesn't feel like it but trust me. It'll help", I knew it would help. She was harbouring a lot of sadness and talking to the source of it had always proven itself useful to me.

"I'll go. I'll talk to her", she spoke into the contemplative silence that had settled around us. I nodded and kissed her lips.

We drove in a comfortable silence that night. After weeks of constantly talking about one's day, you run out of things to pull up and start a conversation about. I did not mind. Silence with Kalina never felt like it needed to be filled.

Her house was still only a 10 minute walk away but it had minus 11 degrees outside now that we had reached the last weekend before winter break rolled around. Half way there I got a message and asked Kalina to read it for me. It was Miss Ziya asking for a first year's table of grades.

She had taken over my position with the first years and, well, sometimes she needed things I still had. Kalina giggled and I raised my eyebrow at her. She blushed. I grinned.

"I find it funny that you're on a colleagues base with one of my closest friends' mum", she pointed out and I shrugged.

"I suppose you would find that funny. I find it funny that you're friends with the son of one of my colleagues", she hummed and started chewing on her lip.

"Will you be okay?", I asked. I had to actually leave her at her place as I needed to get the documents for Miss Ziya. Though I would have waited the entire night, if that was how long her and her mum needed to work things out.

"Yeah, sure. I mean I can always lock myself into my room and call Anthony, if it goes terribly", she gave me an overly enthusiastic thumbs up and I frowned.

"Sorry, I'm just stressed. I don't know how I want this to go", I took her hand in mine and rested them on my thigh.

"Whatever happens, I'll still be here. Okay? And I doubt Arin would ever abandon you", she snorted.

"Yeah, he wouldn't. He'd miss my fantastic cakes", she sighed jokingly. I gasped.

"Baby! You've never made me a cake before", I joked but I was in fact genuinely surprised and she laughed at my face.