✧˚ °➶𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓟𝓻𝓸𝓯𝓮𝓼𝓼𝓸𝓻'𝓼 𝓟𝓮𝓽➶˚ °✧

Chapter 2. Ahead

The rest of my first day was rather uneventful; I couldn't stop thinking about Mr Hart, but that didn't hinder my mind enough to finish the work he had given me. I sat in the library for an hour and completed both of the sheets he had given me. Their topics had been slightly like what I had solved on the board that day, but they felt easier, with little conversions needed and lots of whole numbers: baby math.

I returned to my dorm, then, and was surprisingly grateful that Abigail had made my bed for me this morning; she must have known that it would make me feel a little at home here.

My friend didn't know of my sex work, but she did know of my abusive home life and supported me to move out. I used to stay at her house when things with my parents got heated. She was the only one who I could talk to about that, and she was always there for me.

I put my bag down, opening up my messages on my phone to see a text from Abigail.

'Come to my dorm when you can :)'

I smiled and replied.

'Alright omw'

I left the dorm and walked down the hallway a couple turns away from my place, until I arrived at her dorm. I knocked on the door, and was excited to see her. She had told me before that she would be roommates with her boyfriend, and that they had gone through a lot of arguing with the University to allow it. I knew that they would last as a couple, though. She loved to talk, and he loved to listen.

The door opened and my friend answered, smiling hard at the sight of me.

"Hey!" She greeted me, practically jumping up and down. She wore the same thing as this morning when I had seen her, a baggy tee shirt and some jeans. "Come on in," she said, stepping aside and allowing me to walk into her living quarters.

"Nice place." I said, observing her dormitory.

The table was located near the kitchen, a small bathroom near it. There were two doors leading to two rooms, the two bedrooms I presumed. It was cosy and had plenty of lighting.

I sat down at the table, looking at the papers that were laid out on the wooden surface. It was statistics homework that she had been assigned. My eyes flicked over the instructions as I spoke.

"Is Henry in?" I asked her. Abigail's boyfriend, Henry, took Mathematics with economics, his classes would be located on the same campus as ours, but further away likely.

"No," Abigail said, grabbing two cans of soda from her fridge. "He's hanging out with friends. They're planning to make a study group. Apparently his class is very difficult, using concepts that are hard to grasp. Although," she sat down next to me, looking at the work I observed. "It can't be any harder than this stuff. Been staring at it for an hour and I don't even know where to start."

We opened the cans and took a sip at the same time. I looked at her as she waited for the words to escape my lips.

"Do you want some help?" I offered half-heartedly.

She nodded, happy. "I don't plan on getting help from you every time I find something difficult, but I'm just having some trouble starting off."

"That's fine, I don't plan on doing your homework for you anyway." And with that, we covered a couple of the questions on her homework.

I didn't really enjoy statistics, but I had taken stats in high school because I had to choose a certain amount of subjects, and I took all of the maths courses that I could, even if tests would double up.

By the time we had finished, Henry had arrived and we greeted him.

"How's it going, Hen?" Abigail asked her boyfriend, who walked over and placed a hand lovingly on her shoulder as he looked at the work we had just completed.

"It's good. I've got some study plans made with some friends - didn't realise how much time University is going to take." He crookedly smiled at his own misfortune. He looked at me. "How'd your first day go, Natalia?"

"It was pretty good, thanks. Class was fairly easy and the teacher was... definitely qualified." I said, smiling a little at the memory of Mr Hart.

"Was he hot?" Abigail suddenly asked, rewinding back to the conversation we had had before our first classes.

"Okay," Henry said, going into his room. "I'm not part of this conversation." He closed the door behind him.

Abigail looked at me. "Close living quarters is going to be hard for gossip sessions."

I chuckled, looking away from her. "There's no gossip to be said." I tried to dismiss her previous question, but she circled back.

"So..." Abigail began. "Your professor - tell me all about him. Don't tell me about the material you were covering, because I already know that you aced it." She smiled deviously, smart-ass.

"Well..." I thought for a second, wondering where to begin. "His name is Mr Hart."

"Not Professor Hart?" She asked, raising an eyebrow judgmentally. "So what - is he casual about titles, or just young?"

"He's quite young." I said. "Probably in his early thirties."

"Is he attractive?" She asked, leaning forward and speaking more quietly, probably not wanting Henry to hear her ask such a question.

"I mean... yes." I said. But there was a lot more I could have come up with regarding Mr Hart's attractiveness...

The way he looked at me with those azure eyes. The way his fingers held my chin. The electricity I felt when our skin touched. His lips. His hips...

"Oh!" She exclaimed, excited about my fairly vague answer. "What does he look like?"

"Well... he's got dark hair and clear skin with a pretty complexion. Blue eyes, and a great body."

She smiled hard at this description. "He sounds like a catch... maybe too much of a catch."

"Pfft," I giggled, "How can he be too much of a catch?"

"I mean," she leaned in a little, her voice lower than before. "It sounds like you might have feelings for your teacher."

"What?" I asked, suddenly ruffled. "That's such a weird thing to say, Abigail. I would never even think of such a thing - that's so creepy."

She became cold suddenly, no longer smiling or accompanied with a radiant, bubbly energy. "Okay, well... you don't have to get all defensive about it."

I hesitated before standing, acting as though I had somewhere to be. "Okay, well... I have to study, I guess. I'll see you later."

"Okay," She said, deciding not to fight with me.

I saw myself out of her dormitory and in the hallway where I found myself both ahead of my schoolwork and with nowhere to actually be.

Once I had returned to my dorm, I got out some textbooks and opened up chat GPT, asking for it to teach me some new formula for advanced calculus. I spent the rest of my day there, studying material that likely wouldn't be appreciated by anyone. And that night, I dreamt of the one person I realised who would truly be able to appreciate it.

➶˚ °✧     e n d    o f    c h a p t e r   2    ➶˚ °✧