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Chapter Four
Joshua
I was just about to finish with my e-mail for the night when one came in at the last second. It was from Naomi. Embarrassment spread through my chest as our last encounter replayed in my head. Admittedly, I’d just run out on her. We were alone and there was going to be way too much time until the next class needed that room. I went into survival mode, minimizing the time I’d have to spend alone with her.
I opened the email, there definitely wasn’t a happy tone to it. But she wanted to meet for office hours? I sighed and sat back in my seat. She actually wanted to talk about the theories I lectured on, which was a surprise and massive step up from the light questions I got from other people who stayed after class, asking about the paper, or the midterm. I didn’t want to be a dick and brush her off again, so I emailed back to confirm a time slot. I hit send but kept my email open. A few minutes later, she responded with a simple, “Thanks, see you Friday morning.”
I pushed away from my desk in my home office and stood up to stretch. I’d been working on lectures as well as answering e-mails. I also had a little bit of grading from syllabus quizzes. I glanced around the room. My place had been hastily bought but it was nice, had character. I wasn’t too far from Amy, my place was a little bigger, a three bedroom, two bath. I used one of the bedrooms as my office. The house was modern, there wasn’t much charm to it like Amy’s house had, but the neighborhood was cool, not too far from a private beach that was quiet and not well known.
I walked out to the living room. The house had an almost entirely open floor plan. The bedrooms and the guest bathroom surrounded the living room which connected to the kitchen and dining area behind it. The front room was obscured from the great room by an archway. There was definitely nowhere to hide in my house. I thought about calling Amy to see what she was up to but changed my mind at the last minute. Instead, I walked outside to my garage and pulled my bike out. There was nothing to do other than wash it and give it a wax. The street was quiet and breezy. It reminded me of the times I used to spend on the Harley late at night, just driving. Running from my issues.
#
I almost forgot about the meeting I had with Naomi come Friday morning. I hung back in my office and kept the door open for her. Usually it was locked, usually I wasn’t inside. Naomi was on time. She strode in wearing shorts again and a cropped sweatshirt. Her hair was pulled into a high ponytail. Each time I saw her, I remembered how beautiful she was.
“Hi, Dr. J,” she said.
“Morning, Naomi. How are you?” I asked and stood up to shake her hand. She hesitated but shook my hand. Her palm was smooth as silk. She took her hand away faster than I did and sat down across from the desk. I sat too.
“I’m okay…um, Wednesday was a little bizarre, don’t you think?”
I was surprised, I didn’t think she would want to discuss that head on. Her eyes were unwavering as she looked at me too, I wondered if she always had that confidence about her. “Yeah, again, I’m sorry for running out like that. I hope I didn’t offend you too badly. It’s just that…you know, it’s a balancing act for me when I give office hours or stay after class,” I said. I implied a couple of things, I wondered what she’d pick up on.
“No offense, Dr. J…but you seem a bit full of yourself,” she said. My eyes popped and my jaw fell slack. Naomi laughed at me and then took a notebook out of her bag and a pen. “I wanted to talk about Erikson’s theory as it ties in with cognitive development. You didn’t talk about them in tandem but it seems like they would go hand in hand?” Even though I was still stunned by her, I recovered quickly, I had to.
“They do go hand in hand. All developmental processes do and I’m glad you’re already thinking along those lines, it’ll give you a head start for the first paper,” I started. “For psychosocial and cognitive development specifically, it’s simple. Cognitive development is the hinge on which almost all behavioral traits develop,” I went in depth as to how the two processes seesawed together in a developing mind. Naomi continued to surprise me when she commented on Freud and some of the philosophy of psychology. We ended up in a deep talk that lasted the full hour I’d set aside to meet with her.
When our conversation lulled, I felt like I’d come out of a deeply enriching experience. I’d never felt like that before after speaking with someone. Especially a student. Naomi was different. She was just different.
“See, this was a great talk. Thanks for meeting with me,” she said while putting her notebook away.
“It was. You shut me up,” I said, that made her chuckle. “I’ll see you in class,” I said. Naomi waved and left my office without any other preamble. I watched her go and couldn’t help that my eyes lowered to her ass as she walked away. Long legs and curves and she seemed to have no interest in me whatsoever. I shook my head and then put my notepad into my briefcase as well as my laptop. Class was starting in fifteen minutes and I needed to get my second cup of coffee before then. I ended up running around campus to make it to class on time. Even so, I was two minutes late jogging through the door.
“Hey guys,” I said as I breezed into the room. The class was filled and Naomi was in her back of the room seat, talking to that guy next to her. I swore his desk got closer and closer to hers each class. “I thought we’d switch it up today and work in discussion groups,” I said. I put my bag down on the podium and then gestured to the girl sitting in the first desk farthest to the right. “Starting with you, count to four,” I said. She started off by saying her number and everyone went around until they all had a number, one through four. “So get in groups with your numbers and then I’ll assign topics from the assigned reading. Then everyone can discuss and bring up points to talk about for the larger class discussion,” I said. The class shuffled around. I pulled my notepad out of the briefcase and tore off the different topics to pass out.
When I looked up, my eyes went to the back of the room, I couldn’t help it at that point. I knew for a fact that the blonde guy had a different number than Naomi, yet somehow, he was in her group. I had to give it to him, the guy was trying hard. I walked around the room and handed out topics. After catching myself staring at Naomi a few times, I had to consciously keep my eyes on everything and everyone else but her. Part of me thought that it wasn’t fair that I couldn’t be friendlier with my students. But the more rational side of me knew that it was an impossibility in this lifetime.
When half an hour had passed, I called the classes attention and we discussed the chapter and I lectured a bit. After class was the usual line of questions until there was no one left straggling.
