Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 59489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
That was not me.
I was driven and strongly work-focused, but somehow that ambition didn't send the memo to the parts of my brain that would make several alarms and a highly structured morning routine necessary to get me going each day. To keep myself organized and make sure I actually managed to make it to class on time with something to teach, I had to stay on track. Which meant getting up with way more than enough time to get ready, going over my class plans for the day, then sitting with coffee and two eggs over easy on toast while I read through my emails and sifted through news.
My egg yolks were perfectly runny, and the funny article I'd just read about people trying to hack their lives and failing miserably had put me in good spirits the next morning when a new email popped up in my work inbox. I went to it and saw the subject line indicated a student had dropped my class.
That wasn't totally unexpected. The early parts of the semester usually had a lot of shifting around happening on class rosters.
I didn't take it personally. Not usually, anyway. Not until that morning.
Camden had dropped my class.
I read through the email a couple of times as if I hadn't gotten those messages before and might not know what it said. There was no explanation. There never was. It was just a statement that he'd dropped the class and I now had an open spot in my roster.
Good, I told myself. It was a good thing he'd dropped the class. That was the right thing to do. After our conversation the day before, he'd thought about the situation and made the decision that was most appropriate for both of us.
That was what I kept telling myself as I finished up breakfast and drank another cup of coffee for good measure. However, for some reason, I couldn’t let it go and snooped around trying to find out if anyone had any insight.
It took most of the morning, but eventually I find out that Camden hadn't suddenly decided that going back to school wasn't what he really wanted and just dropped all of his classes. He'd only dropped my class, and he replaced it with the same course, taught by a different professor.
"What did you do to him?" Greg asked with a laugh when he told me Camden was now registered in his course.
"Nothing," I said far too quickly and with more defensiveness than was strictly necessary in the situation. The startled expression on his face made me rebound. "He was late to the first day of class."
Greg nodded, understanding the frustration that comes when students disrupt classes by coming in late. I didn't think I had a particular reputation for how I reacted to these situations, but the way he reacted told me I might.
"Well, I'll see if he manages to be prompt for today's class and I'll let you know," he said with a laugh. He lifted his coffee cup toward me in a toast. "See you later."
I forced a smile and waved, then headed for my office. This shouldn't be bothering me. I shouldn't have a problem with him switching to another professor. As a matter of fact, I was fairly certain I'd told him to do that. Or at least strongly insinuated it would be a better idea if he wasn't in my class.
I didn't want to admit that it bothered me, or how much it bothered me that it bothered me. I shouldn't be so concerned about a man I barely even knew. Someone I met in a bar and then ran into a few times on campus before he happened to end up in my class. It wasn't exactly a close friendship we had going. It was even a bit of a leap to say we’d met at the bar. I kissed him. We exchanged a few words. He helped me pry my drunk-ass friend off a stage. That was it.
The entirety of our interactions with each other was a few exchanges, a tenuous plan to meet at the bar, and a showdown where I may or may not have accused him of stalking me. That wasn't the kind of thing I needed to cling to. And yet, I couldn't shake the unpleasant feeling him leaving my class gave me.
For the rest of the day, I stewed on it. But that was all I was going to allow myself. I needed to stay focused on my classes, my volunteering, and everything else going on in my life. I couldn't let this trip me up. Over the next couple of days, I found myself glancing around when I walked around campus, seeing if I might catch a glimpse of him somewhere. When I didn't, I pushed him into the back of my mind and kept going.