Page 106 of Love, Academically
If she was a phoenix, Lila would have blazed and died right there and then. Sincewhenhad she ever letanythingaffect her work? Going above and beyond was in her DNA.
“No, it won’t,” she said, the back of her throat burning to keep tears from filling her eyes.
“Okay then.”
Lila knew a dismissal when she heard it and if she stood there any longer, she’d turn into a statue that Sue would move around her office like the Corporate Art.
“Okay,” she whispered, swallowing down her emotion.
As soon as she closed Sue’s office door (Sue had an open-door policy, but without the ‘open door’ aspect), everything she had worked so hard to keep down in the last three minutes flooded out of her. It was a good job Sue called Lila to her office every forty-five minutes to ‘convert this to that PDF thingy’ or ‘where did I save this?’ or ‘how can we stop the starlings nesting outside my window?’, because Lila’s mind had absolutely zero spatial awareness as she barrelled down the corridor, face wet and vision blurred with tears.
“Uh, Miss Cartwright. Are you okay?”
Students waiting outside of her door were usually a welcome sight, but now? Not so much.
“Oh, hi Kerry.” She hiccuped. “I’m okay. I’m sorry. What can I help with?”
Lila rolled her lips together, but nothing she did could stop the tears running over her cheeks.
“Oh uh, nothing,” Kerry said. “I’ll come back.”
Usually, Lila would make a fuss and insist she come and sit on her sofa, pressing a hot cup of sugary tea into her hands and have her spill all her worries into the cookie tin. But not today.
“Okay,” she whispered with a small, defeated smile. She ran.
Lila carefully closed the door to her office and took herself over to her sofa, shoving a cookie from the tin on the coffee table into her mouth. How could Sue do this to her?
Five minutes. That’s all she’d allow herself and then she’d power through the rest of the day and collapse into a messy heap when she got home. It felt more like eight minutes when she was interrupted.
“Lila?”
Wiping her cheeks, she found a smile hidden deep and looked up at Rhys. He was dishevelled in the best way, probably from having power-walked his tight little conker butt to her office. One look at Rhys and her precarious smile fell into a grimace and the tears started again. She buried her face in her hands. Christ, she was pathetic.
Three long strides and he was sat beside her, pulling her into his chest and smoothing her hair away from her face, letting her tears drench his shirt. When her sobs subsided, she sat back and offered him a little smile.
“Sorry, I’ve got your shirt all wet,” she said, dabbing at his chest with a tissue from the coffee table.
“Lila, what’s happened?” he asked, stopping her hands with his.
Trying to postpone the inevitable, or distract him so he wouldn’t make her tell him, she asked, “How did you know I was upset?”
“Kerry came to tell me.”
Wow, Kerry had built up enough courage to go and see Rhys to say Lila needed him. And Rhys had remembered her name.
“Oh,” Lila whispered.
“Do you want to tell me?” Rhys asked softly.
“It’s not that important.” She shook her head and sat up straighter.
“Right.” Well, that was a disbelieving look if ever she saw one. “I would like it if you told me”
That’s all it took. Lila opened her mouth and it poured out.
“Sue ‘forgot’ to send in my application. I had to push for her to sign it and I told her a million times that it had to be in yesterday by five o’clock, that was the deadline and she ‘forgot’.” Yes, air quotes.
“You don’t think she forgot?” Rhys narrowed his eyes.
