take me back to the night we met

Chapter 1

I

Derek was barely paying attention to the words coming out of his best friends mouth. He was vaguely aware of the fact that he was still talking but it was now becoming background noise. Mark was sitting next to him at a study table in the Columbia University library and despite the fact that Derek seemed to be ignoring him Mark had been incessantly rambling since they arrived. Derek on the other hand had his face buried in one of the many books that were littering the table. The original plan had been to study for the project they had been assigned in their Gross Anatomy class the previous day but Derek was the only one sticking to that plan. He tried to focus on the words in front of him rather than Mark's story of some random blonde he had met at the bar the other night. He zoned in on the diagram labelling the ideal positions for an appendectomy incision and scribbled his notes down on the open notebook next to him, hoping his friend would finally decide to join him in studying soon. 

"Derek!" Derek couldn't ignore Mark this time as he felt the sharp pain of him burying his elbow in between his ribs.

"What?" He hissed, trying to keep his voice down so they wouldn't attract the attention of any other students. When he looked up at Mark he was grinning at him with that usual mischievous look in his eyes. Derek suppressed the urge to groan at the thought of what Mark had planned.

"Look over there, the third row of shelves," Mark said nodding his head in the direction of the rows of books. He was staring at something now, or more likely someone Derek thought. He expected to see some random girl that Mark would inevitably ask him if he should talk to before disappearing over to her without even waiting for an answer. Instead, his breath and any sarcastic response he had been ready to throw at him ended up caught in his throat. "It's that redhead from our Gross Anatomy class that you have a crush on."

"What are we twelve?" Derek scoffed with a roll of his eyes. "I don't have a crush on her."

Despite claiming that he did not have a crush on her he hadn't taken his eyes off of her. She was partially hidden by the shelves but that didn't stop Derek from staring. It was a late Saturday afternoon which meant that they had no classes for the day and she was dressed in something a little more formal than the usual comfortable clothes that she usually wore to classes. She tucked a strand of red hair that had fallen out of her loose bun back behind her ear. She reached for a book on the top shelf and easily pulled it down. She was tall, it was something that wasn't easy to miss about her - and it was something Derek had admired about her - but those heels that she was wearing put her at easily over six foot.

"I don't have a crush on her." Mark echoed in a mocking tone, clearly not believing him for one second. "Yeah okay, says the guy that hasn't taken his eyes off of her since he noticed her."

There was just something about her, something that made it so hard for him to look away even when he wanted to convince himself he wasn't ready for a relationship right now. If Derek was being honest he couldn't count the number of times he had lost track of time staring at her blue eyes from across the class and now the dark maroon lipstick she was wearing wasn't helping as it made her eyes seem impossibly brighter, bringing out the colour even more. She magnetic and Derek couldn't stop himself from being drawn in.

"Look, Mark, we're med school students unlike you I just don't have time for relationships. I need to focus on my work." Derek explained. Explained, lied, it was the same thing to him really. He had somehow convinced himself that if he told himself he wasn't interested enough that eventually, he'd believe it. So far, it hadn't been working.