The New Teacher (Teacher!Markiplier x Reader)

Chapter 52

Tomorrow came pretty quickly, the offensive sound of your alarm screaming into the morning air woke you up. You were expecting to be surrounded in a mountain of paperwork and a moat of drool, but when your eyes came out of their blurry sleep-haze you could see that your papers had been neatly stacked on your desk.

You also noticed a hand written note lightly folded on the table next to you, not properly folded but just enough to make a slight crinkle in the paper that was so obviously ripped from one of your notebooks. You could tell because the side of it was torn diagonally as though it wasn't pulled from it's bindings properly. "See you in class, sleepy head" it read.

Smiling a goofy grin that only your sleep-deprived mind could muster up an image of, you read it in Mark's voice. It was currently 6:14am - God knows why you set an alarm for such an awkward time, although it was more than enough time to get to the clinic and back for classes. You thought for a moment, playing with the idea of going back to sleep for five minutes, shook your head and started getting dressed knowing that if you allowed your head to touch that pillow again, you would probably not wake up again for another couple of hours - jeans and a t-shirt would have to do.

You brushed the spine of your textbook, it was one of those books that you'd borrowed from the campus library, the plastic coating that outlined the precious printed pages was all flaked and torn. Wearing the fingerprints of all of it's past owners before you. How many people had used this book? Well, it was the second edition so it would easily be 6 years old, and one person a year would have borrowed it, meaning you would be the sixth or seventh owner - assuming that someone had checked it out of the library every academic year. Only seven at most? Whoever had this before you, really didn't look after it. Maybe you could track them down and- You were getting distracted.

'An idle mind ponders on the most fruitful of fancies', you were sure you'd heard that somewhere before, if not - you should trademark it.

You traced the title of the  book, it was written in that weird golden print, "The Turn of the Ancient Greek Era" you thought for a second and picked it up, placing it vertically into your backpack, it was almost as worn as the book containing it. 'Just in case I don't make it back in time' you mumbled to yourself, a feeling of pride swelled in your chest, you were being so organised for once. If it wasn't for the shadow of constant nausea hanging over your head, you would have actually felt good about yourself. Starting for your bedroom door, your head perked up, putting your backpack down to wedge open your door, you ran back to your desk; mixing in the strange concoction of accomplishment and sickness inside you. You plucked a few pens out of the trash can shaped pot that sat on your desk, slid open the draw and peeled away an old notebook from the bottom of it. These things were vital to attend a lecture, even though you almost forgot it. Sure, you could have taken your laptop, but screw carrying around that heavy thing all day.

You slotted your notebook just behind the library book in your bag, admiring how both seemed almost as old as each other, threw your pens into the abyss as well. Zipped up the back, threw it onto your shoulder. Then you left.

Just before you unlocked the door to your apartment you stopped to listen for a moment, everything was silent, there was no racket of Nova getting hurriedly ready for lesson, no sound of the coffee machine screaming at the top of it's lungs as she tried to press the beans down to make it brew quicker. No random radio music, that was far too loud for this time of the morning, playing dully behind a closed door.

It was sad, in a way. How fragile your friendship with her had become. You tried not to blame yourself, after all, what exactly had you done to make her act in such a way? For goodness sake, she was the one who suggested you flirt with Mark in the first place! It was after that night, the one at the club, that's when it all went wrong. You knew exactly who to blame. Jesse. He was a shit stain on the carpet that - no matter how hard you scrubbed - would always be there, whenever someone walked over it the stench of rotting crap would still remain. But that was just your opinion.