Three hours until study hall. Twenty-nine until our appointment.
Two hours until study hall. Twenty-eight until our appointment.
An hour and thirty-two minutes until study hall. Twenty-seven hours and thirty-two minutes until our appointment.
And hour and fourteen minutes until study hall. Twenty-seven hours and fourteen minutes until our appointment.
And on and on it continues, the closer I get to study hall, the more frequently I’m checking my watch and doing the math, obsessing, compulsively counting down, and I pray it won’t be like this every day from now until the end of the schoolyear, because I can barely concentrate in class when all I hear and see inside my mine is a clock ticking down the minutes.
Finally, the bell rings, and I jump up from my desk so quickly I almost knock the chair over. Books in bag, pencil behind ear, chair pushed in. I take off out of the classroom and down the hall to the library, arriving just in time for the door to burst open as the previous study hour class floods out. I can’t get through them, feeling like I’m swimming upriver, so I stand back against the wall until they’re all through, and then I shove through the door, my eyes immediately seeking her out.
There she is, inside the circular circulation desk, and I don’t know if it always looked this way, if it’s the lighting, or if I just see her a little differently, clearly now, but she looks like a fucking angel.
Evie’s in her standard uniform of a primly button-up white blouse and slacks, but for the first time ever, her hair is pulled up out of her beautiful face in a curly bun on top of her head. She’s wearing her glasses again for the first time since Friday at school, but the fact that her hair is up tells me she did it just for me, after I told her I loved it that way.
I don’t know how long I stand there just staring at her, but soon the door opens up behind me, and Trevor playfully shoves my back, so I take a step forward and out of the way. “You coming, creeper?” he asks when he gets a few steps in front of me, and I roll my eyes at him, following him over to our table. I set out my notebook, two pencils, and slide the third pencil from behind my ear, aligning it with the others, and then hang my backpack on my chair.
Before I slide out my chair and take a seat, I clear my throat. “Gonna go fuck with the nerd,” I tell him like I always do, and he waves me off, paying me no mind. I stroll up to the desk without making a sound, so when she turns around, I’m standing so close to her, only the three feet of wood between us, that she genuinely startles and takes a step back, her hand going to her chest. The book in her other hand drops to the floor, and she looks down at it, her glasses slipping down her nose a little. I smirk when she looks back up at me with a little frown on her perfect lips, and I lean down on the desk when she bends to pick it up.
“Nice hair, Ms. Richards,” I say, not bothering to keep my voice low, since I’d said the same thing to Trevor this morning, and she jerks her head up from her squatted position, her hand feeling around blindly for the book.
“Th-Thank you, Mr. Black.” She swallows. “Nathaniel,” she corrects, and my smirk grows into a wide smile, because it dawns on me she’s always done that—and now I know it was always her submissive showing through.
“A little to the right,” I tell her, and at her confused look, I point downward twice. “Your book.”
“Huh? Oh.” She finally looks back down and snatches up the book before standing abruptly. “Will you be needing help with anything, Nathaniel?” she asks quietly, pushing her glasses back up and looking around with just her eyes as if trying to see if we’re being watched.
“I’ll let you know… Ms. Richards.” I grin, winking at her, and I see her relax oh-so-subtly before she nods and gets back to what she was doing.
I go back to my table, pull my chair out, and relax into my seat, feeling a peace come over me now that I’m in her presence. All the anxiousness I’ve felt all day counting down the hours then minutes until I got to see her again dissipates, and so I flip open my notebook and finish the work I wasn’t able to concentrate on in my last two classes.
Halfway through the study hour, I look up to see Evie isn’t behind the circulation desk, and I glance around to see where she’s gone. Trevor is distracted, working on something with one of our classmates, and no one else is paying me any attention, so I stand and go in search of my little library mouse. I walk down the center aisle between bookcases, not seeing her anywhere on the first floor, so I take the wooden staircase to the second, measuring my steps so it looks like I’m just perusing the shelves. It’s not out of character for me, seeing how I love to read, so if anyone were to look up through the balcony, they wouldn’t think twice about it.
And then I spot her, at the very back of one of the rows, putting away a stack of books in her arms. I wait until she’s done so I don’t risk making her drop one, which would be loud and call attention to us, and then I start toward her. She looks up when I’m halfway down, and she stops in her tracks. I’m
