Chapter Text
I exhale a deep breath as I walk through the door of the lecture hall. First class of spring semester - yippee.
Winter break couldn’t have lasted long enough. It felt like I had just gotten the chance to settle into my new, much more enjoyable sleep schedule when it was time to move back to campus already.
Glancing across the rows of seats, I see that most of them are still empty, even given the fact that COVID guidelines limited class sizes and force students to sit a few chairs apart from each other. And of course the masks, which conveniently cover the lower half of my face.
I spot an open chair in the middle of the room, marked as a designated spot with a small green sticker a few feet away from the next marked chair. I sit and put my bag down, pulling out a new notebook. Fishing around in my bag for a moment I try to find a pencil to write the date on the first page, but after a few seconds of searching I realize it’s pointless. I definitely forgot to grab a pencil.
I glance around the room, unsure. Our professor had just walked in and was setting up her materials. It’s only the first day of class, how badly could I really need a pencil? We’ll probably just be going through the syllabus anyway.
The woman at the front of the room uncaps a dry erase marker and begins writing on the board, spelling out “Chapter 1 - Reviewing Linear Motion”. I guess we’re jumping right in. I’ll need a pencil or pen from somewhere.
I look to my left for the first time since sitting down and see the student next to me copying down the chapter title into his notebook. He had one pencil, odds are he’ll have another.
“Excuse me?” I say as quiet as possible in the nearly silent lecture hall. The sound of my voice grabs his attention and he pauses writing to look over to me, eyes widening ever so slightly as his gaze meets mine. “Do you have an extra pencil I could borrow?” I ask while trying to figure out what he looks like under his face mask. It’s always so hard to tell.
“Yeah,” he responds before digging through his own bag like I had done earlier. Unlike myself though, he is successful in finding a pencil. “Here,” he says as he slides the pencil across the table to me.
“Thank you,” I say with a smile which I hope reaches my eyes enough to be visible around my mask. I begin copying what our professor wrote on the board, assuming my interaction with him is over.
“Forgot a pencil on the first day of class?” He says just above a whisper. I look back up at him again, and the creases next to his eyes tell me he’s teasing me.
“Look, it’s been a long winter break,” I say sarcastically, joking back to him. He chuckles softly, glancing back towards the board and again I assume we’re done speaking.
“Clay,” he grabs my attention again by speaking.
“Huh?” I don’t have any clay… why does he need clay for a lecture?
“I’m Clay,” he says and it registers that that’s his name, but he confuses me again for a moment as he sticks his elbow out towards me. The rusty gears turn in my head for a few seconds before I realize he’s offering the COVID-friendly version of a handshake.
“Jane,” I respond, bumping my elbow to his. His eyes crinkle again and I assume he’s smiling at me, before our professor finally begins speaking.
An hour and twenty minutes later my professor finishes the final example problem. Given all the notes I took, I’m very thankful for Clay’s pencil. Looking at him now, I see that he’s in his own little world packing up his things. I slide the pencil across the table just as he had earlier, and it lands next to his notebook.
“Thanks, again,” I tell him as he picks up the pencil and looks at me.
“‘Course,” he says and I wish we didn’t have to wear masks so I could really see his face. From what I can tell, he seems handsome. He has dirty blond hair that isn’t cut too short, with eyes that look like they might be blue or green, and freckles scattered beneath them. I force myself to focus on packing up my own things before I look at him for too long.
It’s when he stands up from his seat that I do a double take.
This man is tall.
Now, I myself am 5’7”. That’s a little taller than average for a girl, and I know that. As I stand up from my own chair to get a more accurate perspective, I realize he must be well over six feet tall.
I don’t realize I’m staring up at him - mask covering my dropped jaw - until he arches an eyebrow at me.
“Sorry for staring,” I admit, “you’re just like, really tall,” I say laughing at myself. He rolls his eyes, but they still crinkle at the sides.
“Yeah, I’ve gotten that before,” he says sarcastically and with a slight laugh, so I know he’s not actually annoyed. Though people must comment on his height all the time, he’s huge!
I stop myself from standing and staring and turn to walk down the row of chairs and towards the door, secretly hoping he follows me and walks with me outside. Clay seems pretty cool.
I smile behind my mask as my wish comes true. Seems like Clay thinks I’m pretty cool too.
“What year are you?” I ask him as we begin to walk out of the building. Part of me wonders if he could be a graduate student, considering how tall and matured he looks, but I don’t see why a graduate student would be taking Physics II.
“I’m a junior.” I nodd in understanding. “You?”
“Sophomore,” I say, proud to be a sophomore in a junior level physics lecture. He nods his head back, not seeming very surprised. We continue chatting, asking the basic questions like our majors and where we’re from, until we part ways to go to separate classes.
Meeting new people normally isn’t my favorite thing in the world. But something about Clay’s easy going temperament and eye-crinkling smile makes me not so unexcited to be back on campus anymore.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The first half of the semester flew by. And I mean flew by. It feels like I just blinked my eyes, and suddenly it’s midterm season already.
Midterm season.
“For this class we’ll be doing a project-based midterm, as opposed to an exam,” my physics professor begins, and I get excited. Anything beats adding studying for another exam to my schedule. “You may work individually or with a partner,” she adds after briefly explaining the project.
A quick side-eye to my left meets me to Clay’s own side-eye, and I know he’s thinking exactly what I’m thinking. We’ll work together.
Over the past few weeks, I’m happy to announce that I have become friends with Clay. We sit in the same seats next to each other each lecture, and after class spend a few minutes talking while we travel towards our next classes. Though, we’ve never actually gotten together outside of class.
I think Clay is great. He’s very easy to talk to, and his laugh is absolutely infectious. It’s weird thinking about how I’ve never actually seen his entire face because of our masks, but even still I have to admit that he’s really cute.
Am I perfectly happy just being friends with him? Yes.
Would I drop everything if he asked me out? Duh.
“Work together?” I ask once our professor finishes for the day.
“Yes ma’am.”
“Sick,” I respond, glad to get to split the work between the two of us. And - as a side benefit - to spend more time with Clay.
We begin walking out of the lecture hall.
“We should probably exchange numbers,” I suggest, knowing we’ll need to contact each other.
“You know, I’m surprised we didn’t do this sooner,” Clay replies and takes out his phone. I laugh, then agree. “When do you want to meet to get started?” He asks once we each have each other’s phone numbers.
“I’m free each night after dinner,” I answer, knowing it would probably be too difficult trying to work around our different schedules to find time during the day.
“Alright. Do you want to get dinner tonight, and then start working on it?”
I’m quick to smile. “Sure,” I respond, hopefully not too eagerly.
“It’s a date. I’ll text you, Jane,” he says with smiling eyes before he turns to walk in a different direction, across campus to another class.
Sounds like I have a dinner date with Clay. Totally not freaking out right now, at all.