Liam wasn't a stalker. It wasn't like he crouched behind bushes and followed people with binoculars. He didn't dig through garbage cans, or creep up on people without their knowledge. He was an observer. He watched. He was aware. And most of all he was aware of Madeline.
For example, he was aware that Madeline was also majoring in economics even though they had never had a class together. The same way that he knew that she was Professor Myer's teacher assistant and that she shared a small office next to the lecture hall where he had Macro-economics. She often finished around the time that his class got out and always headed straight to the small coffee stand on the other end of the quad. She didn't buy a coffee though, at least not usually. She got a bagel with cream cheese. Every day it was the same. That was possibly the reason why that coffee stand had also become part of his early afternoon routine too. He was working his way up to asking her out.
He knew other things about Madeline too. He knew that she was staying in K dorm . That she didn't have a car and that she was from Oregon. He had picked up all this information innocently enough. It wasn't like he was waiting for her to leave her office and trailing her to her dorm room. But this was a relatively small campus and he just naturally noticed a beautiful woman.
She was really pretty, certainly the prettiest girl in the econ department. But that wasn't hard, there weren't too many girls studying the dismal science. But Madeline was the kind of girl who you could easily imagine being a model, fine features, smooth skin, a slightly dark complexion hinting at southern European or Latin American ancestry. She was always modestly dressed though, not like some of the other girls on campus whose short skirts and low cut blouses left little to the imagination. Still it was clear that she had a great body. She looked great in a pair of jeans and more than once he had admired the way her tight ass was framed by her jeans as she waited in line to get her bagel and cream cheese.
It wasn't that he just watched from a distance. He had spoken to her too. Twice. The first time she had dropped some papers and he had picked them up calling after her. They were exams from one of the other classes. It had been lucky for her that he had found them. Otherwise, she would have probably been in a lot of trouble when she realized that they were missing. He had called out to her and given them back to her. She was really thankful and flustered when she realized what had almost happened. As he handed the papers to her their hands briefly touched. He had thought that there had been a momentarily connection there. Maybe it would have turned into something but he couldn't think of anything clever to say and one of her friends had called to her at just that moment. That brief interaction though had him the courage to talk to her a couple days later when he saw her at the coffee stand.
"So you're in Econ too." He commented. Motioning to her books. "Maybe I could help you study sometime." He offered.
"I don't think so," she replied coolly. "I'm in the year ahead of you."
"Great. Then you could help me." He parried trying to save the invite.
"Sorry. I don't do tutoring," she answered And then she walked off even though she usually sat at one of the round tables by the stand to eat her snack.
After that Liam had given up hope of having any kind of a relationship with Madeline. They greeted sometimes with a small smile the way that you might greet someone who rides the same bus as you each morning but with whom you have nothing in common, but they didn't speak. She was the same as all the other girls. He had thought that maybe she would be different since she was also smart and interested in economics and politics, but it seemed that she only had time for the cool kids.
For some reason girls had never been interested in him. It wasn't that he was bad looking. He was kind of cute. In fact several times girls had said that he had really nice eyes. They were a dark blue that you rarely saw. But it seemed that he just wasn't the kind of guy that girls wanted to date. Too quiet, too serious. He had hoped that this would change in college but it didn't seem to.
Liam had found out that Madeline lived in K dorm because Jake his best friend lived there too. K was Co-Ed. The even floors were guys' floors and the odd floors were girl floors. By chance he had been waiting at the elevator one day when she had come home. He watched as she hit the number 5 in the elevator, one floor above Jake's. Later he had seen on their bulletin board that she was in room 512. Now maybe he had started visiting Jake more often once he knew that she was living in the same dorm, but that didn't make him a stalker, and he was going to need that information tonight. Today had been the midterm for all of Professor Myer's classes. Liam had felt that he had done really well until after the exam.
When he started talking to some of his classmates though, he realized that he had forgotten the last question, which had been written on the board. They were supposed to write the answer on the back of the exam. It had surprised him a little that he wasn't the last person to turn the test in as was usual for him but he hadn't been the first either. He had been happy and confident when he turned it in. But now he knew why he was done earlier than the others; he hadn't even started on the essay question.
That one question was worth 25% of the exam and the exam was 50% of their final grade. If he got a zero on that question, even if he got everything else right the rest of the term, it would be impossible for him to get an A in the class. And thinking reasonably it wasn't likely that he would get everything else right. This mistake might push him down to a C or lower. He was here on an economics scholarship and he needed to keep his grades up. He had to have at least a B average to keep the scholarship. One C wasn't going to ruin his GPA but school was the one thing he had going for him. If he wasn't even the guy who got straight A's who was he?
He had thought about going to Prof. Myers and explaining what happened, but everyone knew she was incredibly strict about rules. There was no way that she would give him a chance to answer the question. Just his asking for an exception would probably lower her respect for him. She always said in her classes, "Clear predictable regulation is what makes an economy flourish."