I glance toward the door and spot him in the hallway, on a call, clearly irritated, running a hand through his hair. Today he’s wearing a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and for the love ofNewton, why can’t I stop looking at his hands?
When he finally walks in, later than usual, I can’t help wondering what held him up.
What do you care, Amalia? The man has a life outside these walls.
His gaze finds me almost immediately, and my hands start fidgeting under the desk.
Does he know I talked to the dean? I don’t think he stopped to follow up on whether I actually went through with it.
Today he’s clearly in a hurry to get through the material, because my hand races across the page just to keep up with everything he’s putting on the board. Behind me I hear several classmates growing confused, struggling to match the pace of his dictation and the board simultaneously.
God, my wrist is going to give out.
I’m fairly certain a sigh escaped me louder than I intended, because his whole body stills, and he turns from the board toward me. His expression gives nothing away, but I’m completely sure he can see the strain on my face as I try to capture every formula and proof before he erases the board.
Something shifts in his eyes, and I take a breath and keep writing. When I look back up at the board a few moments later, his hand is moving more slowly. It doesn’t escape me how, every so often, he turns toward me and glances at my notes to see how far I’ve gotten.
Is he slowing down for me? Be serious, Amalia. He probably just strained his wrist from gripping that marker hard enough to fill eight boards in thirty minutes.
At some point he sets his papers down and says, hands in his pockets, “You’re free to go. See you next week.”
Free? We still have at least twenty minutes, and now I’m genuinely curious about what happened to make him cut us loose this early.
My classmates are already filing out, so I take the opportunity to walk up to the podium.
“I’m sorry, are you okay?” It comes out before I’ve fully decided to say it, and I feel my shoulders do that thing where they try to climb toward my ears. I clear my throat quietly, like that might somehow undo the last five seconds.
What is wrong with you, Amalia? It’s his business why he let you out early.
His eyes narrow on me, more precisely on my hair clips, for just a millisecond. Something about the way he looks at them makes my hand twitch at my side, fighting the impulse to reach up and make sure none of them have staged a revolt. With his arms folded across his chest, he answers.
“I’m perfectly fine, Amalia. Why?”
“Oh, it’s just that it’s the first time you’ve ever let us out early, and you seemed kind of...stressed?” I wince slightly, which is not at all what I was going for.
He spends a few more moments looking at my bun, from which I know at least three strands are currently sticking straight up, then at my green earrings, and then at my lavender hoodie.
Something softens in his expression, and I make a mental note that he probably likes lavender.
“I’m fine, Amalia.”
I just nod, understanding that’s all I’m going to get from him, so I grab my backpack and head for the door.
But before my foot crosses the threshold, I hear his voice behind me.
“How does it feel to see the fear in their eyes?”
My heart skips a beat at the sound of it, and without meaning to, a smile spreads across my lips. I stop to answer.
“Pretty damn good.”
I can’t see him, but I could swear the corner of his mouth is slightly raised right now, and my stupid heart does a small jump.
The restof the day passes in a blur between seminars and my mind already mapping out a battle plan to get all my projects done ahead of schedule.
I stop by the library because señor Gustav sent me a small job to take care of. Just some invoices that need to disappear from a database, and even though it’s nothing particularly serious, the feeling I get when I delete the records is like the first bite of a chocolate cake after a week without anything sweet.
I check the table one more time to make sure I haven’t missed a single invoice from the list he sent and confirm that none of those documents appear in the interface anymore.
