You Can Run To Me

Chapter Thirty-Seven

He was everywhere. Not literally, of course, but to Natalie, it seemed as though every time she looked up he would be looking back... and then he would look away, as though suddenly ashamed that she had noticed. Actually, cutting down to the quick of it, he wasn't everywhere. Not like he had been before. Nat couldn't pinpoint the difference. Maybe it was the way he wouldn't focus on her eyes as much now, or maybe it was her imagination again, as it always seemed to end up being.

He was back in her law class, along with everywhere else on campus. It was like déjà vu when he would stare at her much as he had before Jolene, and it was like all those hellish weeks had been deleted from his memory. She tried to do her best to ignore him; it seemed like the best course of action. The worst was when he would seem to wait for her, after Law, or in some random corridor. But these days it wasn't quite as though he was staking her out, more as though he'd genuinely just happened to spot her, and wanted to try and talk to her. Every time she would more or less blank him (or at least seem to) and move along as calmly as she could.

Then came the note. She was in Law, again, trying her best to understand sentencing, when Sylvia nudged her. She had been on better terms with Sylvia recently, since she'd stopped snapping at her, and had started studying with her in the library most afternoons. Nonetheless, she was reluctant to pause in her concentration right at that moment, because there was a pretty big chance that she'd completely lose all understanding of the topic if she did.

When she did, rather exasperatedly, turn on the fifth nudge to see what it was, she found Sylvia holding a folded piece of lined paper as discreetly as possible out to Natalie. She raised a quizzical eyebrow, and pointed to herself. Sylvia nodded, but looked utterly bemused. Clearly it wasn't from Sylvia, then, and so chances were she had no idea what it was about. Nat had rarely been on the receiving end of an under-the-desks note before, and certainly never in college. Her curiosity piqued, she tried to subtly open the note.

Why don't you like me?

Were my dashing good looks just too much?

P.S. I think if Dick gets any more excited he might turn into an actual puppy.

Her face cracked into a helpless smile (albeit small), and a small puff of laughter escaped - it was just too funny. She had thought she knew exactly who it was from before, but now, confronted with the note, she wasn't so sure. It wasn't Ephren's handwriting, and she couldn't imagine him saying something like that to her. The seal on the deal was the little childish caricature of Richard Houghton, their breathless Law professor, as a panting puppy, complete with wagging tail and flapping tongue. Completely taken aback, she looked up, scanning the faces around the room. It must have been a guy, surely, and no doubt they would have been watching for her reaction. Or maybe it wasn't even intended for her.

She then realized that a full line of students (and a few of their neighbors) was looking at her curiously, Ephren included. But he was at the end of the trail, and he was smiling at her in such a self-satisfied way. Everyone else who was looking at her was just curious, except Ephren and a guy next to him that she was pretty sure sat on the lunch table with him – Alec maybe, or perhaps Deacon, she suspected he was called, though she had no idea which, if either. Those two, unlike all the others, seemed to be sharing a secret amusement at her reaction. But that meant it could still have been Deacon – or Alec – who wrote the note, rather than Ephren. Maybe they were actually playing a prank on her to see how she'd react.

She smirked, ready to cause a little trouble. She passed the note on to the next person. They looked at her strangely both before and after they read it, but they laughed too. In reply to their cocked eyebrow, she whispered that she was just passing it along. With a shrug, they showed it to their friend, who proceeded to hand it on to the next person, who passed it on again... and soon enough the entire room had as good as seen it. By which point, naturally, 'Dick' himself was starting to notice the ripple of laughter and the general lack of attention.