My Professor's Secret

02|

two

Taylor and I spent the rest of that evening trying to settle into our room together before exhaustion got the chance to flatten us. We moved around each other in small, careful ways, like two people learning the boundaries of a space that suddenly belonged to both of us.

At some point, my body decided it had reached its limit.

The moment I finally plopped down on my bed was quite possibly the best feeling I'd felt all day. My muscles ached in places I didn't even know could ache. My shoulders were sore from hauling boxes, my feet felt bruised from walking the campus, and my back was screaming like it had been holding my nerves up all afternoon.

The only thing keeping me upright was adrenaline. And even that was fading.

My first lecture was tomorrow. Between move-in day and the way my nerves had been working overtime, sleep felt like the only reasonable thing left to do.

Taylor's schedule, on the other hand, was completely different than mine. Not only did she have orientation in the morning, but she also seemed like the kind of person who could run on three hours of sleep and pure audacity.

I wasn't that kind of person.

Because most of my classes were later in the day, I planned to use the morning to familiarize myself with the campus without having to wake up extremely early. That was probably the most exciting thing college had to offer someone like me.

Exploration without pressure.

Freedom without eyes watching me.

Morning arrived quicker than I hoped it would.

The sound of Taylor shuffling around the room pulled me out of sleep before my alarm clock even got the chance. I cracked one eye open and watched her move through the dim room with a quiet confidence, like she'd already lived here for weeks instead of one night.

She paused near the door and glanced back at me.

"Sorry," she whispered. "I'm trying not to be loud."

"It's fine," I mumbled, my voice half asleep.

She nodded once, then slipped out.

The door clicked shut behind her, and the room fell quiet again.

For a moment, I just laid there and listened to the silence. It didn't feel like the silence back home. That silence had weight. This one felt... open. Like I could fill it with anything I wanted.

Having to share a space with someone else would definitely take some getting used to, but I appreciated the fact that Taylor didn't make things unnecessarily awkward. There was something about her energy that made it easier to exist beside her without feeling like I had to perform.

And I mentally thanked her for diffusing the anxiety I'd built around the first conversation after our first night living together.

There wasn't much left for me to do on my side of the dorm thanks to last night's willpower, so I figured scoping the place out would only benefit me in the long run.

Besides the dorm, I made sure everything else was exactly the way it needed to be weeks in advance of this day. I might have even been a little overprepared, but that was fine.

Overprepared meant in control.

And control was comforting.

After getting ready, I left to roam the campus. The sidewalks were scattered with other students attentively strolling around, probably with the same intent as me. Some looked confident. Some looked lost. Most looked like they were trying hard not to look lost.