Bitter (wlw) (teacherxstudent)

thirty-three

The next morning I knocked on Sam's door still half-asleep because of the nightmares about her leaving me I kept having. But I wasn't going to tell her that.

"Hello, you" she said as I walked in.

"Hi" I walked towards her, not really knowing if she was in the mood for any kind of physical contact. "How are you?"

"Better" she kissed me. "You?"

"Just glad you're better" I smiled, wrapping my arms around her.

"Ready to go?"

"Yeah" I said.

I wondered if she wanted to talk about what happened or not, but I soon gathered she probably didn't.

"I realized I never asked you if you're enjoying this new semester" she said during the drive.

"Oh, yeah. I like the two new courses better than the ones I had before. It's great"

I'd been following four courses, two of them had started in January and the others I'd been doing since September, one being Sam's.

"That's nice. I remember I used to have so many doubts about my choice when I first started college, so lucky you"

"I mean, wanting to study literature here has been my personality for the past, like, five years maybe. So I'm glad it didn't turn out to be a mistake" I shrugged.

I didn't have enough time to spend time with Sam in her office, as much as I wanted to, so I headed straight to class. As I sat down I saw Mei walking towards me with a flustered expression.

"What happened?" I asked, not knowing if it would be appropriate to laugh or not depending on the answer.

"I can't believe it" she sat next to me. "Collins. Professor Collins"

Just hearing that name made me feel as if my heart had just sunk to the soles of my feet. Had Maya told her everything?

"W-what about her?"

"I bumped into her again. I hate myself. I hate the world"

"Oh" I sighed in relief, laughing. "Maybe if you stopped using your phone while walking you'd stop bumping into people so often"

"You should be defending me here" she frowned. "Plus, I don't care about having bumped into most people I've bumped into. But her, she's a problem"

"Uhm, why?"

"Because she's our professor, Ellie! And she's hot"

"Both reasons are not valid enough for you to be so mortified" I said, knowing well that I'd also be mortified in that situation.

"But also, she looked so pissed this time! I don't know, she might have been just in a bad mood or something. She literally looked down to see who the idiot who walked without watching where they go was and her face looked as if I'd just insulted her in the worst way possible-"

I was pretty sure she wasn't in that good of a mood, despite her telling me she was feeling better than the day before, but I was also pretty sure that her knowing who Mei was didn't really help the situation.

"Yeah, she was probably just in a bad mood before it even happened. Don't stress about it"

"Of course I'm gonna stress about it. I hate myself" she covered her face with her hands.

"You shouldn't" I patted her shoulder. "Wanna come with me to work later? My shift's with Sarah today" Luckily, I wanted to add.

"I know, she-" she lifted her head. "I mean, yeah, of course" she cleared her throat.