Forelsket

I hate waking up. You’d think the feeling of disorientation that seems harder to shake off than a semi-trailer would be enough to persuade me out of 8am classes, but here I was in my third semester still picking them and thinking, “Oh I’ll just go to bed early, it’ll be better this time!” Wrong.

I turned over to look at my alarm clock that was positioned on the windowsill and did short of jump out of my bed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I heard Gabby groan and turn towards me from under her covers, rubbing her eyes and watching in a daze as I frantically pushed through the cardboard boxes scattered all over the floor and towards my closet.

‘Keelyn, could you be any louder?” I ignored her whine, and scrambled for some clothes. I had seven minutes exactly to get to class and I wasn’t going to waste even one of them talking.

Putting on the shorts from the day before and the only t-shirt I’d bothered to hang up so far, I slipped on my flip-flops and hauled ass to Wey Hall. Luckily for me, it wasn’t too far from my dorm; unluckily for me, I was already late despite my hurried measures.

I reached the second floor of the building and tried to slow my harsh breathing by the time I reached room 209. Turning the corner my stomach dropped as the door was already shut. Words couldn’t describe how much I hated unwarranted attention, but coming to the conclusion that it would only get worse the longer I waited I turned the knob. The talking that had been taking place stopped and I lifted my eyes from the floor long enough to see the disapproving look of the professor in front of me.

“I’m uhm, I’m really sorry, Sir.” He cleared his throat and I quickly honed in on the only open seat and took it. I want to die, I thought as I felt eyes burning into my already red face.

“As I was saying,” The man pacing in front of the class broke in, “I’m Eli Bentor, and I’ll be taking you around the world in this survey of art history from prehistory to fourteen-hundred A.D. There will be three exams in this class, two midterms and a final, as well as a paper and a group project. As for today, I’m not going to waste a period going over a syllabus you can find on the webpage, instead we’re going to jump right into discussing the project.”

At this point I felt it was safe to lift my head and survey the room. It was a full class—at least 29 other students adjourned the seats around me. An attendance sheet was being passed through the rows, and as it reached mine, the boy in front of me turned to pass it to me and when he did I almost puked with nerves. The same steely blue eyes from the bookstore locked on to mine, a glint of recognition crossing them. He looked down at the sheet and motioned for me to take it out of his hand, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips as my mind scrambled to connect with my motor skills. His look was taunting me. I ripped the paper from his fingers and shot him a deep glare before turning my attention to the sheet and passing it behind me. As I turned back to face forward he was still looking at me, so I exasperatedly mouthed a “what?” at him, shaking my head in irritation as he turned around with an eye roll.

“You two,” I looked towards Professor Bentor. “Would you like to reiterate what I just said to the class?”

“I uhm,” There was a lump stuck in my throat again; I had no idea. “You were talking about the project, Sir?” He looked thoroughly unimpressed with my response, and I knew I was rapidly working my way to the top of his shit list.

“An impressive answer,” I furrowed my brow. “For someone who was too busy side-chatting to pay attention. I like to think of myself as a reasonable man, but I won’t put up with people who refuse to listen. If you don’t want to be here, I advise you drop the class as soon as possible. You two can talk to me after class and maybe I can help arrange that.” I almost puked all over my desk; I had never been this embarrassed in my life. “Class dismissed.”

I didn’t stand; instead I let all of the other students file out while I hung me head with shame. Once they were gone and the boy in front of me began to stand I followed suit up to the podium.

“Mister Bentor I’m really sorry, I promise I wasn’t trying to—“

“Look,” He placed his textbook down and leaned against the lectern. “I’ve heard every excuse in the book. I teach art history and while I have a passion for it I understand that not everyone else will. Hell, half of this class will have dropped by the results of exam one,” He shifted his view between the two of us. “Which is why I have no time to deal with students who’d rather talk than listen. If it was up to me I’d drop you from the class,”

“No! Please no I-“

“But I won’t. Instead, I’m assigning the two of you an extra paper on the creation of the Parthenon. Since this will give you two more than ample time to talk outside of class, I’m sincerely hoping we never have to have a conversation like this again. Good day.” He nodded to both of us and then left the room.

Godsmacked was an understatement for how I felt.

“Well, that was new.” I turned and glared at this boy who was single-handedly ruining my life, day-by-day.
“No, that was absolutely degrading. What the hell is your problem?” His eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Are you always this abrasive, Princess?”

“Abrasive? No, no no,” I was floored. “This is not abrasive, this is absolutely fucking baffled as to how you’ve managed to completely embarrass me two days in a row.”

“Whoa now,” He took a step forward, raising his hands in defense. “Yesterday was completely you embarrassing yourself, I was simply voicing the thoughts of the other hundred people in line. And today,” He flashed a smile. “Well, if you hadn’t been so busy gawking at me you wouldn’t be in this mess either.”

“Gawking? Are you kidding me?”

“Well, you are blushing. It’s okay to think I’m handsome, you’re not really my type but I’m flattered nonetheless.” Before I knew what I was doing I was shoving him hard. He hit the whiteboard with a “thunk” and let out a noise of surprise.

“Really princess, are you going to make a habit of roughly shoving me into things? Not that I can’t get behind it, I just think that’s moving a little fast for only knowing each other for two days.”

“For your own safety,” I said the words slowly, trying to restrain the banshee threatening to release itself. “Don’t mess with me. Don’t talk to me, don’t talk about me, just leave me alone. I will happily slap your name onto this paper if it keeps you from screwing something else up. Okay? Okay good, great talk.” I clapped my hands with mock enthusiasm before storming to the door.

“Hey!” I rolled my eyes, turning. “I appreciate the offer but I’m going to pull my weight on this paper. We could uh, get food and talk about who writes what if you uhm,” I followed his wondering gaze down, down, down…

“You are un-fucking-believable, you know that? Go find someone else’s ass to stare at over waffles. I’m going to be late.”

At the time I would have never admitted it, storming out of Wey Hall and across campus for my next class, but I actually kind of liked him staring. Maybe he knew that.