This Lawless Love [wlw]

Chapter One: Professor Goldberg

"Ms. Antonik?"

The woman darts up suddenly from her patch of peonies as if startled but the graceful poise and lazy smile she maintains as she stands to gaze at the girl says otherwise.

"Almenira?" She prompts when the girl continuously searches her eyes. "Is everything alright?"

"Ms. Antonik...I am so sorry to ask but...Could you give me a ride to school? This is so embarrassing, I'm sorry."

Ms. Antonik holds the stare for a moment longer, expressionless, before a laugh bubbles from her glossed lips.

"My dear, it's nothing to apologize about."

Almenira darts her eyes to the left, awkwardly because yes, it was something to be embarrassed about. She was nineteen with no drivers license, after failing her road test a total of 3 times. She convinced herself that the walk to the train station was better for her anyways.

As luck would have it, though, she slept straight through all the alarms she set right on quiz day. Her fault entirely, she'll admit. Staying up until 6AM to binge watch Law and Order wasn't worth it.

Now if she wasn't on campus within the next 25 minutes, the professor (who she's certain is a diagnosed psychopath) would lock her out. No make ups. No exceptions.

"Let me grab my keys, okay?"

Almenira mumbles her thanks as she watched as the woman retreated from her, admiring how the highlights of her blonde hair glisten in the sunlight.

Ms. Antonik comes back out within a couple of minutes, stripped of her dirt stained garden clothes and now had shorts and a white tank top clinging to her figure, black bra straps peeking out.

'Lord, help me' Almenira thinks as she follows her to the car and settles in the passenger seat, making an effort to avoid glancing at the woman starting the car.

"How late are you?" Ms. Antonik asks, sparing a smirk at Almenira when she turns to back out of the drive way.

"20 minutes until my entire semester is screwed."

"I better step on it then, huh?"

They continue in silence and Almenira vainly thinks she'll be able to get through the car ride without further conversation and in turn, without risk of making a bigger fool of herself.

But Mother Fate has never been very kind to her.

"I don't miss college days, in all honesty."

Almenira forced herself to chuckle, which upon realizing just how forced it sounded, made her want to jump out the car.

"Uhm well, it's not so bad. A lot better than high school. Less drama, more freedom and whatnot."

Ms. Antonik hummed in agreement. "What do you major in again? I hope classes aren't a pain."

'If only you knew,' Almenira thought before telling a complete lie. "Uh, they're fine. I've only wanted to off myself a few times since September...I major in finance by the way."

"Oh? I didn't take you for a money pincher!"

This time, Almenira's chuckle was genuine. "Me either! I honestly planned to major in design up until last year."

"Design to finance is a radical shift. Change of heart?"

'Change in my tuition payment plan,'

"Sort of. Didn't really want to be a starving artist anyways...Finance isn't so bad."

In reality, finance was the worst. Ever since elementary school, math has been her enemy. Almenira can easily recall the humiliating moment when her 7th grade math teacher called her out in class for being the only student who scored way less than an 80. She just couldn't wrap her head around the idea that positive integers multiplied by negative integers equal negative products.