Bitter (wlw) (teacherxstudent)

seventy-four

"So, how's working in New York?" Sam's dad asked her as we sat at the table, food already on our plates. She'd told me she and her parents didn't keep in touch that often, so I guessed they didn't know much about her life after she moved. Me being part of it included.

"It's great, I'm loving it. I'd always compare it with London at first, but I've really been starting to appreciate it more everyday now. I feel very at home. I still can't believe I got this job opportunity" Sam said, looking genuinely happy.

"We're so proud of you, darling. Is the university a good working environment? How's teaching there?" her mom asked.

"Yes, it's all so well organized and my office is definitely much better than the one they gave me in London. I don't know if you remember the pictures I'd shown you back then" she chuckled. "Teaching is also good, not much different than London. Although it took a while to get used to the American university system, even if it's not that different from here"

"That's amazing, we're so happy for you Sam" she nodded. "So, how did you two meet?" she added.

I suddenly realized I had no idea about how much Sam had told her parents about me. I was pretty sure they knew I was fairly younger, maybe not how much younger. But you could kind of tell. And I doubted she'd told them about our...situation, that year.

"I, uhm...we moved into the same building around the same time. Causally bumped into each other" I said, trying not to show I'd just almost choked on my food. That wasn't a lie, after all.

"Really? What a lucky coincidence! So you're neighbors, that's convenient" she laughed. "And you're still studying in university, right?"

"Yeah...uhm, yeah. I'm studying English literature" I said, praying there wouldn't be any follow up questions about what year I was in and where I was studying. There was more than one university in New York, after all.

"Oh, so you bonded over your love for literature!" she joked. Or at least, I took it as a joke. Maybe not.

"Yeah" I laughed as much as I could at that moment. I briefly looked at Sam, who also looked as if she'd almost risked suffocating. We both forgot to talk about what details were okay to share.

"Are you from somewhere very far from New York?" the woman luckily changed the subject.

"I'm from a town about three hours away from the city, you probably don't know it. So yeah, not too far but also not close enough to not move" I said, feeling Sam's free hand rest on top of mine, probably to reassure me.

"But you'd probably already been many times, right?"

"Yeah, a fair amount of times I'd say. But paradoxically, Sam showed me lots of new places I didn't know. I'd only ever been to touristy spots until this year" I shrugged, nodding towards Sam.

"She's always wanted to know every detail about any city she's in, so I'm not surprised" her dad intervened.

"I'm not denying that" Sam said, before the conversation started to center around how our trip to London was instead of just me.

The rest of lunch was really pleasant, I started to feel like I really had no reason to be nervous about being there because Sam's parents were really kind and nice people. I could tell how much they cared about Sam and they were genuinely interested about what both of us were saying. Sam was probably right when she said we were going to have a fun week.

Once we went to the bedroom again, to rest a bit before we went out so she could show me around town, both of us seemed to have the same thing in mind.

"Sorry for not-" we both simultaneously said as the door closed, causing us to burst out laughing.