Sparks Fly

Chapter Seventeen: Wrong or Right?

I'm late, again. Sorry. This one's long, so hopefully it makes up for being tardy.

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-VIVKELLER23

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Rain

She couldn't shake the feeling that something had been seriously off about Teagan. Was it just fanciful thinking or had his eyes turned ominously dark just before she got up to leave? It was almost like he had switched something off inside him, made the light go out in those exquisite green-grey eyes.

It was unnerving, this connection she had to him that she could sense the changes in him. It was insane that being so attuned to him could completely affect her. They weren't even close enough to be considered good friends, even if he had been the one to save her and comfort her after Timothy's attack. She knew all of this, and still she hadn't gotten much sleep worrying about what the reason for his change had been.

Rain wasn't any closer to figuring out what had set him off yesterday. That was why she was sitting in Tilden's class on a Monday morning, with her head on top of her desk. Ten minutes into the class, and she'd given up trying to keep her head up when all she wanted to do was get some sleep...

"Sullivan!" the eccentric Doctor Tilden bellowed.

Rain sat upright in her chair. "Yes, Dr. Tilden?"

"Is this vital information putting you to sleep?" he asked her, his arms crossed over his chest while he glared at her through narrowed eyes. But his disapproving manner lost something since he was standing barefoot on top of a stool.

Sometimes she wondered if he'd gotten his Doctorate simply because the instructors in the program had given up all hope in helping the guy.

Should she answer him honestly and risk the unpredictability of his response? The danger with a professor like Tilden was that you couldn't put him in a box. Everytime you thought you had him figured out, he'd throw you a curveball, literally, though the guy was as uncoordinated as he was bonkers. He'd knocked more than a few football players off their chairs in the span of a couple of months.

No. Perhaps it was best to nod and let him continue his life lessons.

Rain shook her head and offered an apologetic smile to placate him. "I'm sorry. Of course, I'd love nothing more than for you to continue spouting your wisdom." Spouting? Really, Rain? She could have kicked herself. What good was attending a college, paying thousands of dollars in tuition, if she couldn't use some of the knowledge she gained for moments like these?

And a hundred audience members said: "Nothing, Rain. You're screwed." Shoot.

But she'd forgotten Dr. Tilden had a special sense of intelligence that caught things no one else could even see. He also completely missed some. "Why, thank you, Rain. I do say, I quite like the fact that you find me the ever flowing fountain of knowledge."

She hadn't said that at all, yet she nodded. "Of course."

Tilden gave her a knowing smile that only served to cement her suspicions that he was seeing something she couldn't. "You would do well to look into the things you can learn from Miller, too."

Well, that wasn't cryptic at all, was it? She was starting to hate the constant back and forth. One teacher warned her to keep her distance while the other all but encouraged her to look deeper. Tilden's suggestion wouldn't have bothered her, if she could be absolutely certain that digging into the hidden depths of Teagan's soul wouldn't tear at her own defenses.