Unfair

As we entered the lecture hall, I gazed around at the emptiness and felt overwhelmed. I hadn’t been in a lecture hall yet and it seemed so intimidating. Caeden felt me tense next to him and looked down at me as a few students milled past us.

“What’s the matter?” I snapped my attention to him and smiled uneasily.

“Nothing,” he shot me an unconvinced look and I added, “Just the first time in a lecture hall is all.”

He relaxed his shoulders and pulled me tighter to his side by my waist, “It’s not as scary as it looks, I promise.”

It was at that moment that I realized I had no idea how old Caeden was. He pulled me along the back of the room to the center aisle where we carefully picked our way down the stairs to the middle of the entire hall. I entered the row first and placed my bag on the seat to my right, while Caeden just placed the notebook he had on the small desktop and slumped into the seat, getting comfortable for the hour and a half lecture we had next.
He watched me fidgeting with getting my notebook out and playing with the corner of the cardboard cover that was softening and whitening with my anxious energy.

I couldn’t help being a little nervous, I was just starting to get used to college life and I had finally met a boy who really liked me. Casting a quick glance at him, I saw him smile before he placed his hand on top of mine, stopping my mutilation of the notebook corner. I shook my head at myself and sighed.

“Sorry.”

He shook his head in response and grinned, “It’s cute, but yeh really have nothing to worry about.” His fingers intertwined with mine and he stroked the back of my hand with his thumb in soothing circles. My body relaxed slowly and I let my eyes look over his face before the opening of the teacher’s office door brought my attention, reluctantly, to the front of the room.

“Welcome to Philosophy.” I stared at the young man who was our professor. I had been expecting a balding, graying man who had a droning voice that I would have to struggle to pay attention to, not a late-twenties black haired professor who seemed to be bouncing with energy. I found myself unable to close my mouth that had dropped in immediate surprise. “I can tell that some of you are surprised that I’m not Professor Surth. He retired last year and I was lucky enough to get this job since I had admired him when I had him.” He looked around the room, “I want you all to put away your notebooks. We won’t need them.”

He walked behind the counter that served as the teacher’s desk and pulled out a plush ball about the size of a kid’s soccer ball. I closed my mouth and squeezed Caeden’s hand as I had a mini panic attack.

An icebreaker game.

I had been so successful to avoid them in high school, but I had heard of them. The day seemed to darken a tiny bit.

Caeden’s concerned stare burned the side of my face as I struggled not to run out of the room, to just face forward and hope that I didn’t have to participate. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Caeden straighten up a tiny bit and shift closer to me so that our shoulders were touching. The small bit of contact comforted me, but didn’t get rid of the small knot of panic in my core.

He tugged on my hand and I finally looked at him. Our eyes met for a few seconds and he recognized the panic in mine. A small smile ghosted across his lips as he put his arm around my shoulders protectively.

“So we all know how this works. I toss out the ball and you say your name and one interesting fact about yourself.” The knot grew. “Then throw it to any other person in the room and we’ll continue that until everyone has gone. I know that it’s a little middle school-ish, but since this is a big class I want to be able to remember your names and treat you all equally.”

I had to admire the man. He wanted to do the best he could, I just wish that I didn’t have him as a teacher at the moment.

“I’ll start. My name is Holden Theroux. Yes, I was named after the Holden in Catcher in the Rye, my mother loved the book.” He looked around the room and I stared at my desktop, suddenly fascinated at the fake stain job. I heard the muffled catch as a student caught it.

“Juley Grenten. I was the captain of my high school soccer team.” I looked up in time to see the ball go to a boy a few feet away from me.

“Eros Klust. My mother liked Greek mythology…” He looked around and spotted me. My stomach sank as he smiled and gently tossed the ball to me. Clumsily, I caught it and took in a shaky breath.

“Deirdre Leighan,” I paused searching through my mind for some kind of interesting thought before I blurted out, “I’m fluent in Gaelic.” Which was true, I just thought that it was boring.

Apparently, Caeden disagreed with me when I shot a quick glance at him, I saw that his mouth had dropped open and he was staring at me in awe. I felt my face heat up and I tossed the ball to another boy a few rows in front of me.

As the rest of the class prattled on about names and facts, Caeden leaned closer to me and whispered nonchalantly, “So when were yeh planning on telling me that yeh were fluent in a language that I knew?”

I felt the blush deepen and I tried to shrug, “You never asked.” I saw him grin out of the corner of my eye and I smiled minutely as his hand took mine again.
The ball finally came to Caeden.

“The name’s Caeden Shea. I’m fallin’ in love with this girl right next teh me here.”