love bot [h.s]

four

ava

In the past twenty-five minutes of my lecture, my iPhone would not stop vibrating. It had gotten to the point where I had to silent it completely in order to focus.

I rose my hand in the middle of Professor Harris going on and on about Wölfflin's modern take on using psychology in his pieces.

"Yes, Ava?" She had asked softly, resting her animated hands on the podium beside her laptop.

"I have a family emergency, may I be excused for a call real quick?" I held in a breath as I had one hand on my battered black leather bag and the other on the lid of my own laptop.

"Yes, yes please!" She gasped with wide doe eyes. "Take your time, Ava! I hope everything is alright!"

The class wasn't really affected by my sudden outburst, in fact they seemed bored and on the verge of lulling off to sleep. Professor Harris was sweet though, she cared about her students much more than any other teacher I have ever encountered. Being in her late fifties and having taught for thirty years plus surely had to be stressful, she didn't need to know each of her student's names or greet them kindly outside of her class, but she did.

"Thank you, Professor!" I echoed aloud while swiftly shoving my Mac book into my bag and scurrying out of the classroom. I almost felt bad for lying, almost .

Without another beat passing by I pulled out my phone and checked my notifications. One hundred and two notifications filled with missed calls and text messages, the calls being from my house phone and the texts from Niall and my mother. My jaw had slackened a bit immediately being close by the bite of my lip, my thumbs precisely dialed my own home number by heart. My heart thumped four times in between each dial and on finally on the sixth one the phone was answered.

"Harry, sweetheart are you okay?" I breathlessly blurted out as if I had run a mile and back before phoning him.

"Ava! I finally learned how to use the phone! You see, every time I would wait for you to pick up someone else would answer that wasn't you and I don't know why but they had gotten extremely angry with me for calling so many times." I could visualize that pink pout as I heard his surprisingly raspy voice whining to me.

"Who were you calling?" I smile so wide that my cheeks ache instantly.

"Not sure," he hums as if he were thinking. "Your phone is very small and like," he pauses and shuffles around. "The buttons are too tiny for my thumbs and it keeps interfering with my dialing."

I lean my back against the wall farther down the hall as I belt out a large cackle of laughter from the back of my throat not caring about the looks I received from the passing students and professors.

"Did you call Niall?" I inquire another question, quite liking the response to his first experience with another piece of technology that isn't him.

"I think so," it's like his furrowed eyebrows were etched into my brain because that is all I can imagine. "He didn't answer me and I didn't know what to do I just wanted to hear your voice, Ava."

I grumbled away from the receiver, slightly angry with Niall for not answering the lonely bot's call. "It's okay, babe. I'm here right now and this is my last class of the day, I will be home very soon."

"Do you promise?" He crowed with a giggle.

"I promise." I reassure him with a firm nod, even if he couldn't see me.

"I miss you very much," he sighs longingly.

"Me as well, babe." I pace back and forth, reading the cluttered flyers along the walls while doing so. "I've gotta go, I'll see you soon."