Chapter Text
You try not to make it obvious that you notice him, following behind the girl infront of you to an empty seat, farther away from everyone. After you settle, you hang your backpack straps on the back of your seat.
Pulling out a pencil, notebook, and your laptop, you set it on your desk. By now, you were drained. You had to wake up really early to drive an hour out from your house to here, and all the nervous adrenaline that you've felt since arrival has worn you out.
No one rushes to take a seat near you, but it wasn't like you were expecting anyone to. Whispers scattered all around you from various groups of girls in the room. Most exchanging glances between each other before taking a gander at the professor up front.
The starting bell rings, and everyone goes to their chosen seats. Some girls are still whispering and staring, others pretending like they weren't just gossiping about him.
He then closes the book he was reading, not harshly. However, the sound is still loud enough to travel across the room, catching everyone's attention.
The girl's comments trails out into silence and everyone looks up at him. Even you give a glance up at him, pulling your eyes away from inspecting the hangnails and dead skin on your nail bed area.
For a moment, your eyes meet since he was already looking your way. Being caught off guard, your eyes dart to the book he set in his desk. You think about how you might've looked.
Your face felt weird, you were too hyper focused on everything. When you looked at him, did you look crosseyed? Was your mouth agape? Did he think you looked bad? Maybe you should've taken more time fixing your appearance this morning before classes...
"Good morning, class." He speaks, taking in everyone, although his eyes linger on your familiar figure the most.
"I've heard lots of chatter regarding me as your new professor. Rumors, even." Girls glance at each other, giving knowing smirks. You just glance up at the chalkboard, reading his name he wrote down a trillion times over.
"Some true, the majority not." He starts writing on the board again and you wince a bit at the jumps of screeches from the scrapes against the surface.
"I've taught at universities, students older than you. Despite the differences, you students have one this in common." He sets the chalk down, rubbing his finger tips together to wipe off the chalk dust.
"No one likes introductions." Hums travel around the room with agreeing nods from all your classmates, but you keep your head down. Your face was already burning up, preparing for the embarrassment.
"On the contrary, I still have to know the students I'll be teaching for the rest of this year. So we'll keep it simple." He walks away from the board and under his name in smaller letters he wrote:
"Name,"
"Last name,"
"And one thing you did over the summer."
Groans of annoyance scatter across the rooms and girls whisper, your face buried in your hands. You sat near the back so you assumed no one noticed you panic related to speaking up infront of the entire class.
"Yes, I am quite familiar with the dreadful feeling of public speaking, but the majority if you are sixteen and, quite frankly, need to suck it up. I've been in similar situations when I was in school."
"Yeah like a hundred years ago." One of the more fearless girls say, she's the popular with a huge friend group. They probably egged her on to say something clever to stand out. However, things like high reputations didn’t appeal to Mr. Mikkelsen.
"Why don't you go next, Miss...?"
"Gretchen. Fiona Gretchen." She boasts like it's some title of elegance.
"And over the summer, I went to Spain, theme parks, hung out with friends, a bunch of cool shit." Her friends laugh and giggle, giving her the exact attention and approval she was looking for.
"I'm guessing your parents never let you be comfortable with not constantly being in the spotlight, hm?" He says.
Fiona's grin drops, slumping in her chair. Some friends comforting her, other girls in class that despise her laughing.
"Let's move in, shall we? Someone with less... ego." He looks around, and you keep your head down, trying to hide behind your hair. You look away from him, acting like you're busy doing something else.
He hums, looking around the room and the longer he takes to choose, the more you think he'll choose you. Then, your stomach drops.
"Room four-twenty." He says deliberately and slowly.
You look up, looking up from out of your hair. Just to make sure, you look around the room to see if he was referring to anyone else, even though you new exactly he was speaking to.
All the girls looked confused until they tracked his gaze towards you. You look up at him, but when your eyes meet, you look at something less intimate like his shoulder.
"Anyone else in here that has the dorm number 420? I don't think so..." He gives a light smirk.
Your stomach drops. He was talking to YOU. You clear your throat and feel your head tightening as the girls giggle and whisper about your room number.
Although it wasn't directly his fault, you still felt a tinge of hate towards Mr. Mikkelsen. He embarrassed you. He called you that weird name in front if the class, and everyone is laughing at you and will probably make fun of you for it for the rest of the year.
Maybe if you had spoken up a couple hours ago, when he was helping, giving a hand. Again, that thought. If you had the confidence and courage to introduce yourself, maybe you wouldn't be burning up in embarrassment right now.
"You seem startled. Just state your name, please. " He observes.
You try to sit up straight to look presentable, but glancing around the room makes you sulk your shoulders. So many eyes, too many people.
You look down and murmur. "Uhmm..." You quietly whisper out your name.
"Sorry, I don't think anyone quite caught that. Louder?" He asks.
You repeat it back to him, voice still soft but more clear.
"Better." He says, barely a praise, but you still feel a tiny bit less embarrassed after.
For the rest of the class, Fiona and her friends sitting near her kept whispering and giggling. You didn't even look, but you knew they were talking about you. Your heart jumping everytime you hear a whisper of your name trailing from their lips.
The dismissal bell rings, signaling the end of class. Everyone is packing up, and most people have left already. Some staying behind, waiting for their friends to finish packing while they talk.
Through your hair, you see Fiona approaching. You pretend not to see her, standing up and packing your stuff into your bag. You don't want to try to embarrass yourself by saying hi when she wasn't even trying to approach you.
However, she IS approaching you. Some of her friends waiting at the doorway, snickering. Her bestfriend stays, following closely behind her.
You managed to mind your business for about 10 seconds until a small push to your shoulder makes you look up. Startled, you let out a small hum.
"Hm?"
"You know him or something?" Fiona says with a scowl. You try to block out all her friends' grins, they know she's gonna try to humiliate you.
"Uhm... who?" You glance to the side.
"The professor, duh." She scoffs like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Who else?"
"Uhm... No. I don't...know him..." You say, a bit breathless. You were getting more nervous by the second.
"Mhm. Could've fooled me." She laughs, looking over her shoulder to her friend. You frown a bit at her sarcasm, it's like she's accusing you.
"You know, he seemed awfully interested in calling on you. Tch, what a teacher's pet." She crosses her arms, continuing to scoff to her self.
"I'm not a teacher's pet—" you start, until her friend interrupts.
"Four-twenty. Your room number I'm guessing? How would he know that?" Blair matches Fiona's body language, crossing her arms too.
"Earlier—" you try to explain.
"Girl, hush." Fiona says and Blair snorts.
"You know he was making fun of you, right?" Blair continues off of Fiona.
"What?"
"Oh, c'mon." Blair says, "So dense for a girl thats supposed to be so smart."
"You seriously didn't realize?" Blair speaks in a condescending voice.
Fiona slaps the pencil case out of your two hands, "Don't embarrass me like that again!.." She thinks if what to call you next, thinking
"Hmmm..." Blair snaps her finger, "Hermit!"
"Yeah... Hermit." Fiona smirks
devilishly, "Hermit the Freak!" They smile before quickly running off with the other girls in the doorway with giggles. Although the nickname was quite lame, it still was an insult and that bothered you more than you'd like to admit.
You stand there stunned and when your process everything, you feel ashamed. You crab your pencil case, crouching down to pick up all your pens and pencils in the floor.
Mr. Mikkelsen saw all if this, of course. He let it play out, though. Watching you pathetically taking the insults. He watches as the last of the girls rush out into the hallways before they receive a scolding, then trailing his gaze back to you.
Kneeling on the floor, shoulders hunched, hair in your face. You were scrambling to get the last of your pencils before passing period ended.
For a moment, he watched.
Not entirely because he enjoyed it, but just so he can figure you out.
You didn't argue back.
You didn't defend yourself.
You just... tried to stay invisible, and that piqued his curiosity.
One pen slipped from your hand, rolling on the ground. You reach for it, but a matured hand picks it up before you. You look up and see Mr. Mikkelsen inspecting the pen before locking eyes with you and holding it out to you.
You mouth a, "Thank you," too off guard to say it audibly so you just hope he can read lips or at least catch your appreciative nod.
You guys finally pick up the last of the pencils, and you zip up the case and put it in your bag.
"Thank you." You say more audibly this time.
"No problem." He murmurs back, matching the volume of your voice, his tone a bit more raspy with the deepness of his voice.
"I'll write you a pass, I'm guessing you're quite late to your next class, hm?" He hums and you nod in response.
You linger near his desk as he pulls out a sticky note and write a late pass with his signature. He's just about to hand it to you, but not before he questions you.
"Were those girls bothering you?" He asks.
Duh, you think to yourself.
"Uhm... yeah, but it's nothing to worry about." You shrug.
"Do you wanna write a report to the counselor? Get you guys separated?" He continues.
"No, really, it's fine. They didn't mean it." You give him a reassuring smile when he stares too long, but it was more of a awkward grin.
"Okay..." he leaves it there, not pushing any harder and handing you the pass, leaving you to say your goodbyes as he goes to teach his next class.
You walk in the halls, hands becoming warm and sweaty as you fist the pass in your hand. You felt a bit embarrassed, getting teased like that by the girls and your teacher of all people helping.
Your face became warm, you kept thinking of all the different outcomes. Maybe if you spoke up, told him not to help that time at the staircase. He wouldn't have called on you, or called you 420.
Then, Fiona and whoever else wouldn't have made fun of you and embarrassed you. You kept thinking, all the way up until you make it to the doorstep of your next class, all the chattering from inside signaling that class had already started.
You couldn't change anything.
And like always, you just had to shut up, and deal with it.
────୨ৎ────
Over the next week, you struggled to make friends. Everyone that talked to you, pretending to be nice, didn't actually wanna be your friends. They felt bad, probably.
Seeing you alone and quiet, girls had the urge to go over and talk to you. "Befriending" you, knowing good and well that they had no interest in you or your interests.
They wanted that feeling of moral superiority over their friends. Performative, patronizing, perfunctory kindness.
Or that's what you assumed.
So everyday, at the same time, during lunch, you would walk into the crowded cafeteria. Whispers, yells, shouts, talking, chewing, all sorts of sounds from all sorts of girls. All sorts of friend groups.
However, you weren't there to chat it up or anything. Your grabbed some random slop from the lunch ladies before quickly walking out with your head down to eat outside.
Under a towering Sycamore tree on campus was a wooden picnic table you would sit at everyday for lunch. Alone, of course. Surprisingly, not many girls ate outside as you thought.
Sometimes if it wasn't windy, you'd pull out a textbook from certain classes you were "falling behind" in. In reality, your grades in that class had maybe dropped to an A- or even a B.
Anyways, this particular day it wasnt too hot or humid. You'd expect so, it was mid-fall anyways. There was a light breeze, sun shining down and hitting you but nit in an irritable way. You opened your textbook, skimming over the boring explanations.
You were pretty zoned out until a shadow stretches out across the table and onto your book. At first, you assumed it was a cloud above, but your better judgment forces you to look up.
Mr. Mikkelsen.
He stood at the edge of the picnic table and gives you a small smirk when you notice him.
"May I take this seat?" He asks politely, gesturing to the other end of the picnic table.
You quickly sit up straight, gathering your things closer to you even if they weren't taking up the other half of the area.
"Uhm, Yeah." You whisper quietly, nodding incase he didn’t hear.
He sits across from you at the table
"Are you studying?" He gestures to your open book and you fiddle with the pages
"Oh, uhm, yeah." You reply softly.
Nodding in approval, he follows up, "What are you studying?"
"Uhm..." You kept saying 'uhm' as a filler word and you were realizing that he probably was staring to realize it, too. Bookmarking the page with a leaf, you turn to the cover of the book.
You knew you were studying English, but you wanted to double check and show him proof.
"Just some, uh, English," English was the subject he taught, "but I really should be working on my math."
"And why is that?"
"It's just... it was one of the subjects I was struggling with most last year. Same for this year, too. I've had the lowest it math last year and now this." You murmur, blurting it out with one gasp of breath.
"Hm. Really? What were your grades? The school year did just start, so I wouldn't be worrying your pretty— your head off on a lower grade. You have plenty of time to fix it." Mr. Mikkelsen says reassuringly.
You hesitate, your grades weren't horrible. They just didn’t quite meet your expectations, or more so your parents'.
"Last year, I had uh..." your voice drops to an even quieter tone, "a B- at the end of the year and right now... I'm getting kind of déjà vu because I currently have an A-..."
He lets out a low chuckle like you're joking but when he sees the confused expression on your face, he calms down.
"An A- isn't bad, sweetheart. It's only the start of the semester, too. You'll probably get it up."
And he was right. You always got your grades up, you always forced yourself to. You didn't want to disappoint anyone, did you?