BWWM | Oneshots & Short Stories

Lesson Learned - III

"Is this Creative Writing?" Ryleigh was pulled out of her thoughts when she heard a voice close enough that she was sure they were speaking to her.

Tearing her eyes away from the blank whiteboard, Ryleigh politely answered, "Yes."

"Okay, cool." The girl took it upon herself to sit next to Ryleigh and strike up a conversation. "I heard Professor Lewis is a phenomenal teacher, but she's pregnant, about to pop any day now. By the way, I'm Alexis, what's your name?"

"Ryleigh." Smiled at the girl next to her. Her skin was a tad darker than Ryleigh's which set off her pretty white teeth and her cheeky smile.

"Wow, I've never met a girl named Ryleigh before." Alexis chuckled. Ryleigh glanced down at her phone, wondering why Chris hadn't texted her back yet. She nervously bit her lip. They'd stayed up all night talking. Usually she would think she was moving extremely fast, but new city, new her. She was trying not to overthink her actions these past few days.

"I was named after my dad." Ryleigh responded and thought of her father, Ryan-Lee. "How long have you gone here? Are professors usually this late? It's almost ten after."

"No, not usually, something must be going on, let me check my email." Alexis busied herself with her phone and as she did so, Ryleigh went back to analyzing she and Chris' conversation the night before.

It had been light hearted, nothing too deep, they mostly argued over book characters.

"Sorry I'm late guys." She heard a voice say as they passed by, walking down the center aisle of the lecture hall. Ryleigh was sitting about eight rows from the front, on the end of her row. She'd been so into her thoughts that she hadn't even heard the professor come in. "I know, all of you were expecting Professor Lewis but she actually went into labor last night, a lot sooner than expected. We were told she's having a hard time so though she planned on being gone for only a few weeks, she might not actually teach this semester."

After a few groans of disappointment, Chris kept speaking. "As the head of the English department, it's my job to find you guys a great teacher, couldn't on short notice so here I am, I'll probably be your professor for a good chunk of this semester. My name is Christopher McAlister, you can call me Chris."

"Holy shit." Ryleigh whispered to herself with wide eyes. As soon as the words left her mouth, Chris locked eyes with her.

It took him all of five seconds to realize he was staring at her in front of a lecture of one-hundred students.

"Uh, for now, we're just going to work off of Professor Lewis's syllabus." Chris turned towards the whiteboard and got the projector situated so he could display the syllabus on the screen.

Ryleigh couldn't focus, she couldn't even sit still. Her feet were tapping under the table and her heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest.

Staring blankly at the screen, Ryleigh tuned into what he was saying, "So those are my office hours, write them down and don't lose it. If those hours don't work for you, shoot me an email and we can work something out."

"Anytime?" She heard Alexis say next to her while twirling the ends of her hair.

"Yes." Chris cleared his throat before looking at Ryleigh. He'd hoped she was looking at him, that they'd be able to afford a little bit of eye contact but she had torn her eyes away from the board since he'd gotten there.

During his twenty-minute reading of the syllabus, Ryleigh sat there, wondering what she was going to do.

There's only one logical thing for you to do...stop seeing him.