The cold morning air hit her harshly in the face. The biting wind chapped her lips and turned her cheeks pink. Her nose turned red and started to run. She wasn't even sick.
"Thank God I only have a few more months of this," she thought as she reached into her pocket for a tissue. Damn. Her pocket was empty. She looked around, trying to find someone to help her out.
Up ahead, she saw a figure with long blond hair wearing a purple peacoat and matching hat.
"Excuse me!" she yelled to the figure. "'Scuse me!"
The figure turned and she was happy to see that she recognized the figure's face.
"Annie!" she called out.
"Kate, hey!" Annie called back as she started to jog toward her friend.
"Do you happen to have a tissue?" Kate asked.
"Oh, yeah, here you go!" Annie pulled a tissue with a faux-lipstick mark on it and passed it to Kate. "Can you believe this weather?"
"I know! Its days like this that make me wonder why I left California in the first place."
"Oh, honey, I have wondered that since the day I met you!"
Kate laughed. She had had this conversation multiple times, and she always pretended to make fun of herself, but she knew exactly why she had chosen a college in Missouri. John.
John was her high school sweetheart, the love of her life. She followed him to school, certain they would be together forever. But last year he had studied abroad, and when he came back he had told her it was over, that he had met someone else. Kate had struggled to move on, but she hadn't so much as thought about another man since their break-up. She had briefly considered transferring, but she only had a semester left to go now, so it really was pointless.
"Where are you headed?" Annie asked.
"Uhm...Taylor Hall. Early 20th Century History."
"Cool, I'm on my way there too; Native American History. We can walk together."
Kate and Annie made their way through the student commons and up the hill to Taylor Hall. Kate spent most of the time in quiet reflection, which was no problem for the talkative and outgoing Annie.
When they reached the building, the women parted ways, Annie heading upstairs and Kate walking down toward the basement. Increasing enrollment had forced the school to renovate the basements for use as classrooms, but they still felt like basements to Kate, just with a few extra chairs and a whiteboard. It was too cold in the room to take off her coat, so Kate merely removed her right glove so she could take notes, pulled out a pen and notebook, and waited for her professor.
The man who walked through the door was young for a professor, probably in his mid-20s, and had short brown hair. Kate wouldn't have even thought he was the teacher were it not for the attendance book in his hand. He had a slight build, not skinny but still lean, and he was of average height. He wore glasses with black rectangular frames and a pair of dark jeans with a button-down dress shirt. Kate swallowed hard. He was exactly her type, and she just prayed he would be boring or mean so she wouldn't have to deal with having a crush on her teacher.
"Hey guys," the professor said. "I'm Professor Ben Moore, but you can just call me Ben. I still feel like I'm a little too young to be called 'professor.'"
Well, Kate thought, he seemed nice, but it was possible that he could still turn out to be rude or harsh.
"For today we're just going to go over the syllabus, and I'll answer any questions you might have, then on Thursday we're just going to jump right in!"
As Ben went over the course outline, explaining that they would be focusing on both world wars, the Depression, and the women's and civil right's movements, Kate felt herself go red in the face. She felt drawn to him. She had never been more attracted to anyone in her life, including John. Not that Ben could ever replace him in her life...but it was comforting for her to know that she could at least picture herself with someone else, finally.
When class was dismissed, Kate thought about coming up with some excuse to stay after and talk with him, but she quickly learned that she was not the only one who seemed to find Ben irresistible. Two other girls were giggling together, then went up and began asking him questions about the layout of the term paper. Kate snorted to herself; the paper wasn't due for two and a half months, but she was inwardly jealous that they had made it to him first.
She left the classroom determined to get over this. After all, he was her professor, and though he was kind he was also professional, and seemed to give off an aura of knowing she was attracted to him but not willing to do anything about it.
As weeks went by, Kate found herself falling for him more and more. He would do little adorable things that she found charming, like coming into class after a particularly lovely weekend and asking whether everyone had had fun making him jealous while he graded papers and watched students throw Frisbees on the lawn outside his office window.
He frequently made jokes in class, and Kate knew she was laughing louder than the other students, but she couldn't help it; he was just too cute. She completed all of the reading assignments on time, something she hadn't done since her freshman year, and participated in class as much as she could. She didn't presume that anything would happen with him, but she still wanted him to know that she was smart, and that she was interested in the course.
In the middle of the semester, Ben handed back their midterm tests, and Kate's heart leapt with joy when she saw what he had written on the exam. "Congrats, this is the best test in the class, by far!!!" She was ecstatic. She knew she had impressed him, and that was all she had wanted to do.
At the end of class, Ben approached her.
"Kate, I just wanted to tell you again how impressed I am with your work. It has been a long time since I had a student who was so dedicated to the course, let alone a second semester senior."
"Thanks!" Kate said. Her voice sounded so high pitched, it squeaked like an eleven-year-old boy going through puberty. She felt her face turn bright red. "Well...see you next Tuesday!" She turned and began to walk out of the room.
"Kate, wait," Ben called after her. Kate felt her heart skip a beat, two beats, three beats. Her pulse quickened and her hands grew sweaty. Then she pulled herself together. Come on, she thought to herself, this is ridiculous. He isn't interested in you, he just thinks you're a good student.
Kate took a deep breath and turned around. He had moved closer to her now, practically right on top of her.
"I, uh, just wanted to stress to you how much I appreciate all of your work this semester," he said. "You just don't understand how refreshing it is to have a student who is so...passionate about the course."
She longed to tell him the truth, to whisper in his ear that it wasn't the course she was passionate about, but him, to kiss him deeply and hold him forever.
"Well, I am just, in love...with the topic, I mean," she stammered.
"Good. That's really important to me. I just want to make sure that my students really get the most out of my classes. I want to let you know that I am here to help you, in any way I can."
