The Fear Of Faith [2]

15. Bethan

The whole of Sunday was spent in bed with my laptop doing some work. I had no idea what Cal was doing but I did venture out of the room a couple of times for the bathroom and he wasn't home. I took a shower in the evening and climbed into bed early, hoping to get a good sleep so I could concentrate on my classes the next day.

For the next few days, my classes dragged along real slow as I tried my best to focus. Cal had stayed on the sofa every night and left for work every morning before I got up and came home after I'd retired to bed. I was finding it hard to just drop everything and move past being angry for what he'd done but as time was passing by, my anger was fading and I was starting to wonder if it was pointless keeping up the silent treatment.

He had apologised and I knew it was sincere and I also believed that he'd been at the party to check if I was okay. It didn't make what he'd done right and hiding it from me was the most annoying part but now I was really starting to miss him. We were living in the same apartment and were miles apart. It was hurting me that I couldn't roll over through the night to lay on him and that I wasn't waking up to his grinning face.

It was clear that he wanted to make up and I was starting to feel the deep ache in my chest to just climb onto his lap and hug him and tell him to forget it all even happened. The hardest part about that was, Cal was now giving me the silent treatment back and I wasn't sure if just running right to him for a hug like nothing had ever happened would go down so well.

The first half of the week had finally passed by and as I headed across campus towards my first class of the day, I was nervous as hell. It was my first Medieval English class of the week and the first time I'd see Brodie since I jumped him. Nobody around campus seemed to have stared at me or whispered about me the last few days so I'd figured people didn't really know about what happened. It was a relief that Brodie hadn't been letting his mouth go about me.

I entered my class early so that I could grab a good seat and greeted Professor Fawkes who was eating at his desk.

'I always like an early bird,' he said as he smiled at me. I knew Professor Fawkes was very fond of me. He always picked on me whenever nobody else could answer and was satisfied with my take on things every time. 'This is a little extra early however.'

'Sorry, Professor,' I chuckled.

'Getting away from something at home?' he asked, taking me by surprise a little. He smiled when he noticed my stunned expression. 'That's usually the reason students are so early for the first class of the day.'

'Yeah, something like that,' I sighed.

He gave me a sympathetic smile and didn't ask, returning to his breakfast and I plugged in my earphones and laid my head on the desk for the next half hour until the other students began to file in. I kept my head on my arms, peeking over them at the door to keep an eye for Brodie and eventually he strolled in amongst the others. My heart jumped a little and I kept my head tucked into my arm as not to make eye contact with him. I could see that he glanced my way as he moved past and I closed my eyes until he walked by before pulling out my earphones and getting my notebook out for the lesson.

'Okay, everybody!' Professor Fawkes called as he stood to his feet. 'So, lets begin! If I were to say to you that today we're going to talk about the Father of English Literature, who would I be referring to?'

The class was silent with a few mumbles and I frowned as I glanced around for someone to throw an answer, thrilled that we were finally studying a favourite of mine.

'Really?' Professor Fawkes said. 'Nobody?'

I was surprised myself; it was quite shocking that a class of English students didn't know who he meant, even though I knew 90% of them probably did but didn't care to answer and even though I knew too, I didn't want any attention drawn to me, I just wanted to get through class and get out.