Mania

Lesson 4. Confidence

Clemencedid not sleep well that weekend, unable to stop her mind from sifting through Abigail'swords and replaying Erin's actions. As she thought through the events, Erin's face in Clemence's mind suddenly became less soft.

Clemence's muddled attention span made completing work difficult and she found herself staring blankly at her computer screen, lounging languidly across her bed or desk chair or even bedroom floor. As a result of her detached state, Clemence stayed up into the early hours of the morning trying to complete her work before crashing out at 3.30 am and sleeping through her alarm.

Clemence rushed down her school halls, receiving stern looks and abrupt jostles from the oncoming crowds of people that walked idly by and got in her way. She checked the time on her phone, stomach sinking when she realised she was almost fifteen minutes late. Messages from Abigail and Erin dropped down onto the screen, demanding to know where she was.

She rounding the corner, slowing her pace down as she cautiously approached the door to her lecture before coming to a standstill, hand hovering over the handle. She peered through the glass sliver, grimacing as she watched her professor taking his confident strides across the floor, hands moving, his deep voice seeping through the cracks. Students either sat hunched over, pens scribbling or sat up right, eyes following the professor across the room.

She debated on abandoning the class, putting the next two hours to use in the library instead. After last week's introduction, she was sure he was simply going to tell her to leave anyway. She sighed, pushing herself to swallow the knot of panic in her throat, knowing if she skipped this class then she would just be unprepared for the next.

She ran a hand through her hair, hiked up her shoulder bag and tugged the bottom of her baby blue shirt down, fingers finding the waistband of her jeans as she pulled them up.

She opened the door.

The professor stopped talking; the silence and sudden turning off heads towards her making Clemence grit her teeth. She held onto the door handle anxiously and turned to see Professor Friedrich, arms crossed, staring at her.

She took a deep breath.

'I'm really sorry I'm late.'

'You've interrupted my class.' His voice was low and steady, the accent luxuriating the words. His eyes held hers and she swallowed.

'I'm really sorry.' She didn't know what else to say.

'I have every mind to just send you away.'

Clemence's mouth opened slightly as if to try and defend her case but no sound came out, her fingers flexed around the door handle.

'Shut the door and take a seat.' He muttered, turning back round to face the class.

Clemence let the handle slip from her fingers, her hand immediately finding the strap of her bag as she hurried past him and up the stairs, hyper aware of the sounds of her steps and breathing among the silence, catching eyes with a grinning Erin and concerned looking Abigail. She sat on the end of the row next to Abigail, fishing around in her bag to pull out her notepad and pen, trying to compose herself. As she looked up she caught the professor's eyes still on her before he looked away, launching back into his lecture.

The first hour drew to a close and Clemence had kept her head down, writing four sides of detailed notes.