Die, Thy Foul Beast!

Summary: “With one final blow to the evil overlord monster Matt, the heroic knight Andrea slayed the foul beast so that it would eternally burn in the flames of the underworld, never to rise again and torment the helpless villagers again,” he recited dryly. I winced. "Err..."

Also, disclaimer, I don't own the original image of the cover. Everything else is mine though.

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The clock ticked in the corner. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Every continuous cycle had my nerves drawing tighter and tighter until the sound of papers rustling made my head jerk up. I caught a brief glimpse of amused brown eyes surrounded by wire-rimmed glasses, and our gazes locked together for a millisecond, before I immediately looked back down, this time my cheeks flushing pink. Again. Seriously? You’d think that months of being in the same class as the man would have acted as desensitization training of sorts. But NO. With the way I turned red every time I even caught a glimpse of my Creative Writing class’s TA, I would bet money that he assumed I either had a constant sunburn or was incredibly shy.

“You had something to talk to me about?” The shuffling sound of the papers finally stopped. I didn’t look up this time.

“Ye - “ I stopped, clearing my throat when my voice came out as a squeak. Pitiful. “Yes,” I finally managed to choke out. “I was sick last week and didn’t get to turn in my creative writing project, and I was wondering…” I trailed off then, because my mouth was becoming really dry. I assumed that he would be able to fill in the rest of the sentence anyway.

“If you could turn it in now?” Matt prompted. I nodded, shifting my weight nervously, wanting nothing more than to flee the room before I inevitably embarrassed myself. “Andrea, you know the rules. No late work.” His pitying yet disapproving look had me clenching my hands and crinkling the papers in my grip.

“I know that, but - “ I protested.

“Andrea.” His condescending demeanor had my fists clenching for a whole other reason now. I mean, wouldn’t he give me a chance to explain at all? Granted, I hadn’t been all that verbose around him, but STILL. I had emailed the professor before-hand, and gotten permission to turn in my work late. I was getting slightly too angry to try and remain calm though to explain that.

“If you would just let me - “ I tried again.

“Look, I have something to get to right now, and I’m already late, so I would appreciate it if you would just learn how to let some things go.” He crossed his arms.

“You want me. To learn how to let. Some. Things. Go?” I spoke haltingly between grit teeth. Now normally I wouldn’t have been so angry at the blatantly obvious lie, but I was embarrassed and annoyed at having let myself get so hung up on someone like this guy for months. Months of my life that I would never get back. “Well maybe I would if you didn’t treat people younger than you so obviously condescendingly. Just because you’re a grad student doesn’t mean you get to bully undergraduates.” I winced at the whiney tone that had come out in.

“Excuse me?” Unfortunately, his coolness hadn’t been shaken. I knew I was just coming off as immature as he had accused me of being, but I was already in too deep to retreat right? Nothing left to do, but to lay in the grave that I had dug.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that having such a low IQ affected your hearing as well,” I snipped childishly. Matt stared at me incredulously.

“Okay, I’m just going to do you a favor and pretend I didn’t hear that and leave now.” He grabbed his jacket that was draped on his seat chair, and got up. My blood pressure rose exponentially. Oh, so he was doing me favors now huh? Staring at his back made my chest hurt for some reason, and wasn’t that realization just the icing on the five-layer, triple chocolate cake?