The College Professor

Chapter 08

They hadn't calmed down, no, my emotions were still going wild and I wanted to see him.

This isn't a good idea, I told myself as I walked to the shops to pick up two fancy bottles of wine. It was just after four o'clock and that - in my eyes - made it okay to start drinking soon. After paying I stepped outside. Cold, it had gotten so cold I noticed as I lit up the first cigarette I had had in a while - or rather what felt like forever.

Turning a few corner, a couple of streets down and I stood in front of the brick building that Sebastian Hardy lived in. Ringing the door bell I hoped he would and wouldn't answer.

"Who's there?"

"Peyton" I replied and bit my lip, hoping to be let in. Was it stupid? Objectively yes, subjectively no. I tried rectifying what I was about to do but there was no excuse that was good enough. All those thoughts buzzing through my head that I almost didn't hear the door unlocking.

It took a moment for the elevator to reach the floor I was on, it took another moment until I saw him standing in his door way. His hair was touseled, his t-shirt looked old, his pyjama pants too and the woolen socks he wore seemed like something grandma's would give as a present.

"I brought a peace offering" I said and prayed this would do the trick.

"You changed your mind?" he asked.

"No necessarily. I'm just willing to negotiate" I admitted and smiled apologetically.

"Good enough" he replied, turned around and left me there. He didn't close the door though which I took as an invitation to walk inside.

His place was clean and very tidy. After dropping my shoes at the front door I tiptoed into the kitchen, ready to hug and kiss him. The look he was giving me as I stood next to him made me reconsider though. With two glasses he sat at the table and took the bottles off of me, pouring a generous amount in each glass.

"Negoiate?" he asked as he slipped into the sweater that had been thrown over the backrest of his chair. "Negoiate what?"

"Something like terms and conditions maybe" I replied as I slid onto the chair opposite him. "I don't know if you understand how hard this is for me. You may understand my reasoning but the emotional dimension of this, well, it has litterally been a roller coaster ride. And at the moment I feel like I'm losing all of my control."

"But you aren't, you have all the control you want to have" he argued and tasted the wine.

Nodding I took a sip as well. "No, I don't."

"Why not?"

"You may not have realised but it is you."

"I'm not taking any control from you. At most, you are giving it away. And that Sunday afternoon you showed that you have control."

"I know, I know." Another sip. "I'm not saying you are taking anything from me. I just feel like I'm losing it. I have no control over what you are going to do, about the future and what is going to happen next. This is all uncertain, you said it before. But what you do not take into consideration that it was so much easier last summer. I was in a steady relationship, my semester was planned out and the internship opened doors for me. Now I'm losing my focus. I'm losing control. And it all started when I talked to you in that bar, that opportunity I had deemed promising."

And again Sebastian didn't say anything. He just looked at me behind that expressionless mask. "Rephrasing what you just said, I assume I understand: You are scared of the future and I am just making it worse."