Professor Fischbach

One

BANG. BANG. BANG. God, I hated the sound of construction in the morning. Of course, I happened to live in a dorm right across from where the construction was taking place. The building across from my room was being worked on a whole lot lately, and I often got woken up from it. I yawned and reached for my phone to check the time. It was 8:30 am on a Wednesday... and I had class at 9. Crap! It took fifteen minutes for me to get to my English class, which meant I had fifteen minutes to get ready before I absolutely had to be out the door. I swore I had set an alarm, but I must have forgotten to turn it on.

I climbed down the ladder of my lofted bed as quickly and quietly as possible since my roommate was still fast asleep. Her first class wasn't until eleven, and she liked getting as much sleep as she could. I threw on some clothes, put my hair up, brushed my teeth, washed my face, stuffed a granola bar into my backpack, and I was out the door.

I absolutely hauled ass and continuously checked the time on my phone the whole walk to the building my class was in. Of course, it was on the other side of campus. It wasn't the farthest class from my dorm, but it was up there on the list. By the time I got into room 224, I was out of breath, slightly sweaty, and four minutes late. My professor had already begun discussing the lesson when I arrived, so he paused to greet me.

"Hello, Ms. Sanders," he said.

"Hi, Professor Fischbach. Sorry I'm late," I awkwardly responded. I could practically feel my face turning red as I quickly sat down next to my friend Katie.

"Rough morning?" she asked quietly as our professor resumed talking.

"I forgot to set my alarm. Construction woke me up," I replied, trying to be somewhat silent. I had already missed the first few minutes of class, and I didn't want to miss anything else. I pulled out my laptop to take notes.

"Mark can't be happy that his favorite student is late! And you didn't have time to make yourself look good for him, either!" Katie said.

"First of all, don't call our teacher by his first name - that's just weird. Second of all, I'm not his favorite student. And what makes you think I try to make myself look good for him?"

"I don't know, it just seems like you're always wearing something cute on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays when we happen to have this class. But I don't blame you. I'd do the same if I had a crush that I wanted to impress," she admitted.

"I don't have a crush on our teacher, Katie!" It was getting difficult to type everything Professor Fischbach was saying while simultaneously attempting to shut my best friend up.

"Oh, please. It's really obvious. And besides, you flat out told me you thought he was, and I quote, 'sexy as hell' at that party last weekend."

"I was more drunk than I had intended to be. That wasn't supposed to come out," I mumbled, sure that my face was beginning to look like a tomato.

"Well, it did. But anyways, I'll leave you to your note taking, Ms. Sanders," Katie decided, trying to sound like our professor.

Even though I no longer had someone talking in my ear to distract me, I still found it hard to take notes. Katie was right. As much as I hated to admit it, I did have a bit of a crush on Professor Fischbach. But, I mean, he was a graduate student at our college. He was one of the youngest professors there, and he certainly wasn't much older than me. So my crush wasn't that weird, right? I had tried to stop myself from falling for the guy, but his dark hair was always so perfect to me, even when he came to class in a rush and it was messy from the wind. Plus, he pulled off glasses better than any other guy I knew and when he occasionally took them off, I could see how gorgeous his brown eyes were. He was never completely clean-shaven, but the scruff fit him so well. Seeing him always dressed nice was a bonus, too.

Yeah, I definitely had a crush. But it's not like it was distracting me to the point that I wasn't doing well in class. I had straight A's, and this class was no different. It was my best and favorite subject, and I understood everything especially well the way Professor Fischbach taught it. He seemed to be really pleased with my work and my grades, so I didn't want that to change. I liked being on his good side.

Although it took a couple minutes, I got caught up with the note taking, and class seemed to pass quickly. It was only fifty minutes long, but I wouldn't have minded if it was twice as long. I could honestly listen to Professor Fischbach's voice all day. That was another attractive thing about him: his deep, soothing voice...

"Do you want to grab breakfast? You've got a little free time before your next class, right?" Katie asked as we were dismissed.

"Sure. Pancakes sounds better than the granola bar in my bag that I forgot to eat," I realized. As we headed for the door, our teacher stopped me.

"Sanders, can I speak with you for a moment?" Oh god. This was because I was late, wasn't it? I was never late to his class. I immediately got nervous.

"I'll wait outside," Katie told me with a wink. The rest of the students filed out as I walked over to the professor's desk.

"I'm really sorry about being late today, Professor Fischbach. I must have forgotten to turn my alarm on last night," I explained, messing with the straps of my backpack.

"I don't care that you were a little late, Aria. It happens to the best of us," he smiled.

"Oh." I was slightly relieved.

"I wanted to talk to you about the last paper you submitted. It was written incredibly well. I was honestly blown away by it," he clarified.

"Wow, really?" I was probably blushing again.

"Yeah. In fact, I was wondering if you'd allow me to use it as an example for my class next semester."

"Of course, if you'd like to," I assured him, grinning.

"Great, thank you! Well, that's all I needed. I'll see you on Friday," he said.

"Alright. I won't be late!" I laughed. He began packing up his stuff and I met Katie outside.

"Do you have to do extra credit to make up for being late?" she joked as we started walking to the nearest dining hall.

"No, he didn't care that I was late. He liked my last paper and he wanted to know if he could use it as an example for his class next semester," I told her.

"Oh, darn. I bet you'd rather do some extra credit for him," she nudged me.

"You're sick, do you know that? Let's just get some breakfast and drop the subject!" I scolded her, and luckily we did find something else to talk about as we ate a quick meal before our next classes.