While We Wait (One Shot Anthology)

Law & Love (Erik Stevens)

Erik rubs his face, pushing his circular gold glasses up as he tries to bat away the tiredness that is threatening to consume him. He looks back at the textbook before him and frowns as the little black words on the pages seem to suddenly start moving, crawling like little black ants into sentences that don't make sense. He groans, head falling back as he closes his eyes, gritting his teeth in frustration. He shouldn't be having this much difficulty in understanding this topic. It should be easy but instead, the words won't stick and the passages don't make sense. Erik doesn't want to make a fool of himself. He already knows his classmates and professors judge him. The Black boy from Oakland, nothing but a gang banger or an "affirmative action" student in their eyes.

He huffs, fighting back tears of frustration as he snatches his glasses off, dropping them onto the textbook. He rubs his eyes even harder, trying to fight the tears away that is threatening more than ever to spill. A soft shuffle alerts him to someone being near and he peeks from between his fingers to see the girl who is in his criminal law class and lives across the hall from in the Law Student apartment dorms nicknamed "The Courthouse". She's pretty--warm brown sugar skin, black eyes that look like pools of oil, glasses like his but in silver, an hourglass-shaped body with some thickness to her and is maybe 5'2", give or take an inch.. Her nails are always done--this time painted a shimmery shade of pink--and her cuts are always fresh--her barber had given her a simple yet nice design on the side of her freshly white hair. She's a quiet yet smart woman from what he can tell from in class.

He is surprised when she wraps him in a warm embrace, holding him. He doesn't know why but this is the last straw and he begins to cry, hugging her waist as he sobs into her chest. She holds him, running her fingers through his locs--she must have released the ponytail they were in--and rubbing his back. No words are spoken as Erik sobs, his pent up stress, anger, and shame being released.

Erik has no idea how long he cried, hugging her like she was the lifeline he needed not to drown. When he had no more tears left to cry and had given his last hiccup, he pulled away, looking down to avoid looking at her. He didn't want to see the look of pity she probably had or worse: judgment.

"You good?" came her soft voice, slight roughness to it as if she was hoarse.

"Y-Yeah."

"You sure?"

Erik finally looks up at her and sees eyes filled with concern, not pity or judgment, looking at him. He goes to use the sleeve of his hoodie to wipe his face but she holds out a baby wipe and he thanks her with a tight smile.

"I'm...I'm okay?"
"You don't sound sure."

"I'm not but I don't want to take up any more of your time...you really didn't have to do that."

"I know."

He looks at her, confusion on his face.

"Chelsea. We have Criminal Law with Kowalczyk and we live across from each other."

"Erik."

She nods before picking up her bag. Erik finally notices the wet spot on the grey hoodie she's wearing and he blushes.

"S-Sorry."

"Don't be. You finishing up or are you going to torture yourself for another hour with rereading the same pages again?"

"Wait...How...?

"I noticed you come in about three hours ago. You've also been in the same spot for the last three hours and haven't moved."

Erik blushes even harder at not realising that she had been watching him. So much for his military training as a Special Ops.

"Do you want help?"