Praying to the Moon

Chapter Two- The Rose

Walking into my lecture hall I had a million thoughts rushing through my head. I hadn't even caught his name and he expected me to message him first? I sat down towards the back of the class and daydreamed into the distance as people filled the seats around me.

"Good morning class, I trust you have all had a good and refreshing weekend. I have a YouTube video to show you!"
The professor for this class was middle aged but tried to keep his students interested by shoving youth culture down our throats with relevant references to our curriculum.

The video began to play and every few seconds my daydream would be interrupted by a keyword like "Pavlov". On a normal day I would fill my word document with notes. However this morning I hadn't even taken my laptop out of its bag or off the floor. I was trying to find the courage to send him a message, would it be too quick if I did it now? Would I seem to eager and scare him off? A second of pure impulsiveness meant that I was reaching for my phone and opening a new message. I typed his number into the top of the screen and stared at the screen. A million potential sentences went through my head before I decided on a quick, casual message.
"Hey this is Lily from the hallway. I don't think I caught your name?"
I quickly hit send and placed my phone face down on the desk, I didn't want to see when he replied, I was so worried.

The class continued to drag on but as time passed I actually found myself beginning to listen, like I would do on a normal day.  I promised myself that if I made it through the rest of the class, I could check my phone as soon as it ended. I had promised myself this for two reasons. The first one being that one minute not paying attention in this class is enough to fail any future tests. The second reason was that I knew I wouldn't have enough restraint to reply straight away and I knew he was the type of guy that may be scared by eagerness. I had to play it cool, I had too much to lose. I think I was beginning to like him, a lot.

This wasn't the first time that I was aware of my perfectionism. I had been called out for it in the past, with things like study and relationships. I had to feel like I was doing everything correct and well or else everything spun out of control. I suppose it came down to my anxiety, the desire to feel like I was in control of everything. I couldn't come across as anything negative, I had to always be perfect. This placed a massive weight on my shoulders and meant that I was often suffering panic attacks over something most people wouldn't worry much about. For example, when I would work part time, if a customer seemed short with me, I would be upset about it for the rest of the week. I would analyse every single action and try to decipher what negative traits I had to try and fix them in the future. It drove anyone around me completely crazy.

The class finally came to an end and my heart raced, both with excitement and nervousness as I realised I could now check my phone and reply. I first placed everything back inside my backpack and began to leave the classroom. This was my only class for the day so I decided I would go home and watch movies. I grabbed hold of the bulky door and turned my phone around so that I could now see the screen. I had no new notifications. I had messaged him well over an hour ago, why hadn't he replied? Maybe he was doing what I was doing? Checking his phone after class. I decided to walk over to his lecture hall and see if anyone was still inside, if his class was still inside then he probably just hadn't checked his phone yet. That's it, I'm sure, he's probably busy.

I approached the doors to his lecture room and looked through the small window that sat above the door handles. The window was tiny enough to look in but too small to see out of from a distance if inside the lecture hall. The room was dark and there was no sense of movement, nobody was inside. I felt stupid as I realised that he had probably seen my txt when I sent it, but chose to ignore it. As I walked home I couldn't help but begin to think the worse. Had someone dared him to talk to me? Were him and his friends having a laugh? Did I make it even funnier for them by actually messaging him? I can't believe I actually thought he was interested in me, I never want to go to class ever again.