Page 8 of Somewhere Between Falling

Tobias looked up once he found what he was looking for and said, “Shall we be—” He stopped mid-sentence, and right at that moment I wished more than anything I had the ability to melt into my chair. Our eyes locked. His cheeks pinkened, and I thought I might seriously just die.

Bookstore Boy was my TA.

So much for never seeing each other again.

He recovered quickly and began his lecture as if nothing out of the ordinary had just passed, but I was too stunned to register the words coming out of his mouth. All I could think about was the fact that things would have been better had we just shared that one perfect day. Sure, a part of me had longed for something more. In the last few weeks, I had wondered numerous times, Even if I hadn’t lost his number, would I have been brave enough to call? Could I have given in to the possibilities of what if despite my reluctance and tendency to avoid putting myself into any position where I don’t know exactly what is going to happen? If I was completely honest with myself, there was something about him that made me want to … Well, I don’t know exactly what, but something about him made me want to do something … not necessarily risky, but definitely out of my comfort zone. After all, there was something about him that made me spend an entire day with a total stranger. I hadn’t ever felt like that or done anything like that before, but it didn’t matter now because all of that was all out the window. There was no way I could allow anything more to happen between us knowing who he was now.

As if my dad having an affair with a student wasn’t enough of an embarrassment, I didn’t want to even think about the unwanted attention being involved with my TA would bring me.

Of course, I knew I was being silly. We had one day together. That hardly counted as dating. More importantly, there was a very good chance that Tobias wasn’t nearly as affected by me as I obviously was by him. Maybe to him, it was just a day spent with a stranger whose company he enjoyed for the moment and nothing more. In fact, it was awfully arrogant of me to think that there was anything truly between us.

It was the longest hour of my life. When there was a minute left, I hurriedly gathered my belongings, intending to make a beeline for the door and run immediately to my advisor to change my schedule. Again.

“Um, is there a Tamsin Seger in here?” Tobias asked, looking around like he didn’t know exactly who I was and effectively causing me to freeze in place.

I slowly raised my hand, knowing that my classmates would undoubtedly recognize my name and remember the scandal associated with the last name Seger. Reluctantly, I said, “That would be me.”

A tiny girl with short, shiny black hair turned around in her seat to gape at me. She pushed her glasses up onto her nose and didn’t even look embarrassed when I stared back at her. Nosy much?

“Dr. Kiuchi has left a note regarding your late enrollment. Do you have time to stay after class?” he asked pointedly. “It shouldn’t take long.”

My next class wasn’t until this afternoon. I swallowed the newly formed lump in my throat and said, “Um, yeah, I have a few minutes.”

“Great, everyone else, you may go. Don’t forget to read through chapter four before Tuesday.”

The class emptied quickly, leaving Tobias and me alone in awkward silence.

“So, this was unexpected,” he said, gesturing between us.

“And the understatement of the year goes to…” I mumbled.

“You didn’t call,” he said, and I didn’t want to tell him the embarrassing story of how I lost his phone number, so I ignored the statement altogether.

“You didn’t tell me you went to Parkhurst,” I countered.

“You didn’t exactly disclose the information either,” he pointed out.

“This is weird.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” He took a step closer to me, but I backed up automatically to put distance between us. I glanced around to see if anyone was watching us, but of course no one was. It was just the two of us in this suddenly very small classroom.

“I don’t want anyone to know that we know each other, you know, outside of these walls. I know that might be stupid. It’s just…well…it’s a long story,” I said, hoping that would suffice and he wouldn’t ask me to elaborate.

“Tamsin, we don’t really know each other outside of these walls,” he said quietly. Even though I knew it was ridiculous to be hurt by his statement, I think we already established I wasn’t exactly being rational today. He wasn’t completely wrong—we didn’t even exchange last names—but at the same time, he probably knew more about me than even Alex did.

“You’re my teacher.”

“Not really. Besides, until I finish my doctoral degree, I’m technically just a student.” He winked. I shook my head in a vain attempt to clear my head from the fuzziness beginning to invade my thoughts.

“Until Dr. Kiuchi returns, though, you basically are. I just don’t want any rumors to start, you know?” I had enough of those already. I didn’t need to add fuel to the fire.

He studied my face for a moment before he said, “So, complete strangers?”

I gulped. “Yes.” My head was still fuzzy, and it was getting hard to think straight.

“Simply a student and her teacher …” he continued.

“Exactly,” I agreed. Until I could change my schedule anyway. My advisor was going to think I was crazy for dropping a class I just added.

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