Page 168 of Breathe Like Hell

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I woke up in Mila’s bed, feeling rested enough, then started to get ready for the day. When she woke a few minutes after me, she scolded me for letting her sleep in on my birthday. She insisted on making me waffles—toaster waffles—and we ate them together at her kitchen table before she snuck back into her bedroom and returned with a gift bag.

“Mila! No!”

“Oh, calm down.” She rolled her eyes, setting the pink bag on the table in front of me. “This is hardly a gift.”

“It’s in a bag with tissue paper.” I gestured to it. I’d explicitly asked for no gifts in probably all the years I’d been friends with Mila, but she usually found some loophole—or decided she needed to get me something anyway. I didn’t want the attention that came with my birthday, because it only reminded me of how many years I’d gone without any attention at all. Somewhere inside of me, that little girl was still alive and waiting for someone in her household to acknowledge that today was supposed to be a special day. It was easier to tell everyone I didn’t want it, than to explain that.

“But it was literally free. Free to me.”

“Okay…” I eyed her suspiciously, then carefully plucked the tissue paper out of the bag and peered inside. Inside, was a portable DVD player, the type with a USB to plug into my laptop, and several DVDs. “This was not free,” I said, my eyes stinging a bit.

“I took the DVD player thing from my parents’ house because they were getting rid of it, and all these DVDs were thrifted over the past few months. Ninety-nine cents each. Essentially free.” She smiled. “I know you like watching the same movies sometimes, so if I saw one I knew you loved when I was at the thrift store, I bought it.”

“Milaaaaaaa,” I whined. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She stood up and hugged me, then watched over my shoulder as I pulled out the small collection of thrifted DVDs she’d sourced for me.

“I feel very special. Thank you.” I reached up to hug her backwards, smiling at all the movies.

“Of course. You’re going to have to try harder if you really want me to ignore your birthday.”

I laughed. “Okay. I’ll work on it.”

We finished eating our breakfast together, then Mila drove me to campus, dropping me off as close to Stanton as she could. She blew kisses out the window as I walked up to the entrance of the building, then waved goodbye as I disappeared inside.

I would have another class in this building next semester, so it wasn’t quite the end yet for this. But I tried to pay extra attention to everything inside as I walked to Micah’s classroom. The windows lining one side of the hallway that gave a nice view of students walking past, the large glass panes showing the top of the distillation column inside the Unit Ops lab, the other miscellaneous plaques and research posters on the walls.

I entered the classroom and took my usual seat in the back by the windows, avoiding eye contact with Micah for as long as possible—until it became unbearable. My eyes shifted to the front of the room.

He was already staring at me, of course.

A flush heated my cheeks, stirred by the pure admiration in his gaze. He looked so fucking proud of me.

Fuck. I love him.

Dr Micah Killshaw.

I tucked my hair behind my ear and looked back down at my desk, sinking my teeth into my lower lip to hold my smile. This was the last time he’d really be my professor, and I was getting butterflies in my stomach over that truth. In the future, I could refer to him as my mentor, since I’d still be a student working in his lab, but he wouldn’t be my professor again. Not after this.

A few minutes before the allotted exam time began, Micah started passing out the exams himself. Usually the TAs did this, but it was Micah himself today. It was difficult for me not to stare at him as he walked up and down each individual row, laying a packet facedown in front of each student.

Anticipatory jealousy twisted in my gut when I thought about how I wouldn’t get to witness this sight forever: Micah, in a classroom. Sleeves rolled up. His confident voice commanding the whole room. His side profile against the glow of the projector.

His future students would still get to see it, but not me.

Eventually, he reached my row.

I looked up at him as he laid down my exam, his eyes catching on mine. Muted blue with that dark ring around the edge of his iris. He gave me a short nod to reassure me, to remind me to have confidence in myself.

And then he walked away to finish passing out the rest of the exams, calm and collected and perfectly put-together, while I remained so completely and irrevocably affected by him, like always. Warmth in my cheeks, my pulse fluttering, a tug in my belly.

Once the allotted exam time started, Micah instructed everyone to flip over their exams, and also put a timer on the projector to show how much longer until the exam period was over.

I flipped over my packet, my eyes instantly noticing something in the top right corner. A small birthday cake sticker.

My gaze immediately flicked up to the front of the classroom, where Micah was watching me, the slightest grin pulling at the corners of his mouth.