Professor, Professor || BWAM

the seventh.

I press my body against the heavy stained glass doors and a gust of wind rushes past me as I exit.

"Hey! Hey, wait!" a voice called out after me. But I don't want to wait, I don't want to stop. I want to run.

But, I told myself that I would stop running. Mama told me that you only run when you're scared and I'm not scared of anything anymore. So, I stop.

Relax, hold yourself.

Two breaths in, two out, smile and stand up straight.

Behind me. 6 o'clock,

"Hey, you."

I turn to see Ilya, smiling at me.

Dimples.

Another knit sweater.

Hands plunged in the pockets of his slacks... but thumbs out. Confidence or timidity?

Tousled hair in the wind.

I return his smile and start to breathe out of my nose again, "Hello, stranger. I haven't seen you since the first day of school."

"Oh, but I've seen you," he responded and I tilted my head at him, "I mean- not in a creepy way, just like I've seen you around the registrar's office and stuff uh, I work back there too. I'm the department head's assistant."

"You told me."

He smiled, "You remembered. Anyway, you're just always in a rush so I never have a chance to say hey."

"I'll try to slow down next time so you can catch up."

He chuckles, "Or you can just slow down enough to tell me your name."

"Why? Does it concern you?"

"Absolutely. I need to know the name of the courageous woman strong enough to stand Dr. Kazem for almost a full month."

"Adeola Adebayo." I say proudly, my chest feels open again.

"Adeola," he sighed dreamily. I watched as his full lips pronounced my name carefully, tasting the word in his mouth, swishing the syllables between his tongue and cheek, his Adam's apple rising and falling,  "I like that."

"Do you?"

"Very much," he confirmed.

"Well, Ilya it's nice to see you again but I do have an unbelievable amount of work to do. So, I'll see you around, and now you know I mean that when I say it."

"You are a woman of your word."

I start to walk away and he calls after me, "Adeola, Adeola!"

I turn around, walking backwards, "You just learned my name four seconds ago and you're already abusing it."

He laughed walking towards me, "I feel like every time I see you, you're always in a rush to go somewhere. Do you ever slow down?" his hair blew in his face as he stepped farther into the elements.

I shook my head, stopping so he could catch up.

"Well, if you can find time in your impossibly busy schedule, you should come down to the House of Internationals tonight. It's where the bulk of the international students live and hang out on campus. Come by, meet some new people. There's quite a few Nigerians there." he put a raven lock of hair behind his ear.

"Thank you, but I didn't leave Nigeria to come here and be surrounded by more Nigerians."

"Then come and see me. I want to get to know you more."

"What makes you think that I want to get to know you?"

He smirked, "Come on, I know you're at least a little curious."

Hmm, cocky.

"I have nothing to be curious about. I already know everything that I need to know about you, Ilya Erzhanov."

His eyes widened, "How did you know my last-"

I point to the metal name tag clipped to his sweater, "See you later...maybe."

༄

People see me and they think they know me. Smart, humble, well-mannered. A good girl.

Why? Everyone pretends, even if it's just a little. We act professional, we act polite, we act perfect, how we're expected to be.

It's an unspoken expectation so how can you think you know any of me?

Dr. Kazem can be rude and ill-mannered, sure. But the real reason why people don't like him is because he isn't nauseatingly complacent. They don't understand why he doesn't play along with the charade as well. So instead, they pretend as if there's something wrong with him.

However, I'm not justifying his bad attitude. It's just refreshing to see, considering that most people have those kinds of things in their heads anyway, they're just too scared to say them.

That's why I don't bother with first impressions, they're misleading and give no context as to who the person really is.

I'm more concerned with the impression after they get comfortable with me and relax.

That might be the seventh impression, the tenth, or in Kazem's case, probably around the fifty-sixth.

Either way, I can wait.