My dad and Bastien are as well as can be expected.Love,
Thalia* * *From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: re: re: re: re: Absence due to family emergencyGlad to hear it. See you in class on Monday.CalebChapter Twenty-TwoThaliaThe tile floor is freezing. I didn’t take that into consideration when I planned my outfit for the day. In my head, I just knocked on the office door, Caleb called out ‘come in,’ and I waltzed into office hours.
I should have known better. Office hours are never waltzed into. There’s always a wait, and it’s usually a long one, and more often than not I get tired of standing and wind up sitting on a cold tile floor, trying to get some reading done.
Currently, I’m trying to read an article in Neuroplasticity Bulletin about brain cancer survivors who forgot their first language but learned a second, and I’m not having much luck.
Instead, I’ve read the same paragraph at least five times, but the only thought I’ve managed to have is Love, Thalia.
I didn’t mean to sign my most recent email to Caleb that way. I meant to sign it Best, Thalia, or Sincerely, Thalia, or Professionally and Platonically, Thalia, but I’d been at the hospital all day, then come home and watched The Tudors for four hours straight, and then finally, at two o’clock in the morning when my brain was fried and filled with nonsense, I’d emailed Professor Loveless.
And I signed it Love, Thalia, sent it off, and didn’t even realize what I’d done until he responded.
With any other professor, I’d feel awkward for a few minutes and then shrug it off, because I’m sure people sign their emails without thinking all the time.
But given that the last time I saw this particular professor, he’d just dried my tears and driven me across the state and I’d repaid his kindness by kissing him, this feels more awkward. A lot more awkward.
His door opens. A girl I don’t know comes out, clutching a textbook in front of herself and looking slightly worried about math.
“Next?” Caleb’s voice calls from inside, and the guy sitting across the hall from me stands and goes in while I try to get back to my reading, butt freezing on the floor.
I’ve been back on campus for a week. It’s currently almost five on Friday evening, which means I’ve spent three class periods trying to fight off thoughts of Love, Thalia. I feel like that student in Indiana Jones who wrote on her eyelids, and that thought doesn’t make me feel good.
I sit there for ten more minutes, then fifteen. I finally make some headway with the Neuroplasticity Bulletin and when the guy comes out of Caleb’s office, I’ve finally read three entire pages.
“Anyone else out there?” Caleb’s voice calls.
I clear my throat, getting to my feet.
“Just me,” I say, and push his door open, heart beating faster than I’d like.
“Thalia,” he says, and he smiles a smile that makes my heart skip a beat.
I’ve imagined this moment several more times than strictly necessary, and in those imaginings, Caleb didn’t always smile. Given that the last thing I did was kiss him without permission, I couldn’t blame him for any other reaction.
“Have a seat,” he says, gesturing. “I’ve been wondering all week whether you’d come by.”
“You have?” I ask, heart thrashing again as I sink into one of the chairs opposite him.
The building may be new, or at least newly revamped, but the chairs are clearly a holdover from its former life, old wooden things upholstered in avocado-colored leather.
“I have,” he confirms, sitting himself, his chair creaking slightly as he looks down, grabs a pen from his desk, holds it between his fingers. “You’ve got a fair amount of homework and a quiz to make up, and you seem like you prefer to have your ducks in a row.”
“I do,” I say, and the knot in my stomach unwinds.
Apparently we’re taking the simplest approach to what happened: we’re pretending that it didn’t. I can do that. Much better than talking about it.
He’s wearing his glasses. He’s worn his glasses every day since I’ve been back, at least that I’ve seen, and because I’m a chronic overthinker I wonder if it’s about me.
I know it’s probably because he’s been running late in the mornings, or hasn’t gotten his contact prescription renewed, or his eyes have been bothering him, or one of ten thousand reasons a person would wear glasses instead of contacts.
But I can’t help but wonder whether it’s got anything to do with the fact that I said there, now you’re Caleb before I kissed him.
“And I apologize for not contacting you or coming to office hours earlier,” I say, spine straight as I pull a notebook from my bag, along with my day planner. “To be honest, I’ve had a lot of work to make up and I’ve also gotten slightly behind with grad school applications, so my ducks aren’t as in a row as I’d like.”