Chapter 6
Dwight
“Dwight!” I spin around to find Richard Harris hurrying down the corridor to catch up to me. “How was your first day?” he asks as he slows to walk beside me.
“It was good, I only wish these students invested in an alarm clock or a watch so they wouldn’t be late. I thought they were all up on that smartwatch shit.”
He laughs. “Don’t give me that, you were a student once, and I remember very clearly how you and Grace would sneak in late to my classes, thinking I wouldn’t notice.”
I rub my forehead. “Shit, I forgot about that.” The sheer mention of her name has my stomach knotting.
“Listen, I didn’t want to say it over the phone, it felt a little insensitive, but I was terribly sorry to hear about Grace. She was a lovely girl.”
“Yeah, she was.” Using the wordwasstill cuts deep.
He places a hand on my shoulder. “If you ever need anything, you know where I am."
“Thank you, Richard, I appreciate it.”
“I’ve got to run to a meeting. Have a good evening,” he says as he hurries off ahead of me.
“You too,” I call after him.
As I drive off campus, a flash of black hair in my periphery catches my attention and as I near her, I crane my neck to get a better look at the girl walking on the sidewalk. I don’t recognise her face when it comes into view and a twinge of disappointment grips me that it wasn’t who I thought it was when I first saw her.
The girl from my class.
Quinn, I think her name was.
I can't seem to get her out of my head. Since she barrelled into my classroom late this morning, sporting a bright pink blush staining her cheeks, I haven’t been able to shake her from my mind.
I hate latecomers, I mean, is turning up on time really that difficult?
I've been teaching long enough to know the difference between those that want to learn and want to do well, and those that don't. The ones who are here because their parents made them, or those that are purely there for the fun of it. But she doesn’t seem like one of them at all.
I called her out for being late, something that I instantly came to regret, seeing the remorse and embarrassment that was evident on her face.
As she stood at the front of the class this morning, clearly shocked to see me there, probably expecting Professor Whittaker, I didn’t miss the way she took me in, her eyes trailing over my body, staring at me in front of a room full of people as if they weren’t even there. I've had my fair share of female students crushing on me in the past, meaningless crushes that end quicker than they began, but the way she looked at me was different. I can’t explain it.
And despite how irritating it was that she arrived late, I noticed her too. I noticed the way she bit her lip on her way to sit beside her friend, keeping her eyes low, trying not to draw even more attention to herself. I noticed the way she fidgeted in her seat as if she could sense me watching her, and I noticed the smile she failed to hide when I turned my annoyance on the half-naked girl who embarrassed her.
Yeah, I’ll admit, that was purely for Quinn’s benefit. I don’t know exactly why I did it, but it felt pretty good. I’m the professor, I’m allowed to reprimand my students for being late, but the comment the girl made about Quinn’s appearance to humiliate her even more…Notcool, especially when the girl herself was wearing something that would make the girls on the cover of Playboy magazine look overdressed.
I felt in a way that it was my duty to stand up for Quinn.
This girl, is going to be trouble, I can sense it. Trouble I don’t need in my life. But the second I laid eyes on her, it was if someone took a defibrillator to my chest, and kick-started my heart back to life, the one that stopped beating the second my wife’s did.
I pull into the driveway of my childhood home, it’s the first time I’ve seen it since I left. The garden hasn’t changed, still pristine, weed free and a rainbow of flowers of every variety in full bloom. My mom has always took pride in her gardening.
I pull up behind my parents’ car and switch off the engine and step out. I walk up the steps and knock on the door, my heart hammering against my ribcage.
After a moment, I see movement behind the frosted glass panel of the door and a second later it opens, and my mom stares up at me with a vacant look on her face, as if her brain hasn’t yet registered who’s standing in front of her. I see the second her brain kicks in and she lets out a gasp, her hand flies up to cover her mouth and tears begin to well in her eyes as she chokes back a cry.
“Hi, Mom.” I smile.
“Oh, Dwight. My boy.” She steps forward and engulfs me in her arms. I bury my face in her neck and hug her tight, breathing in her familiar scent that takes me straight back to my childhood. I can feel her body shake as she cries softly against my chest.
“Let me look at you,” she says, taking a few steps back to get a better look at me. Her eyes take me in, and she smiles. “Come on, your dad’s inside.” She reaches for my hand and leads me into the house.
