Lightening In a Bottle

They had their first class of the day together in a building that was only five minutes away, and they sat in the hallway outside of the class room for a good twenty minutes before the teacher decided to let them in. He walked up, shoulders hunched, and hair completely wind-swept clutching a coffee in his hands, and angrily punched the key into the door. The class filed in, and chose desks at random, looking around to see if they recognized anyone.

“Man, this is not at all how I pictured college classes.” Shosh leaned forward from the desk she had taken behind Taylor, and placed her chin on her shoulder. The red head shrugged her off, and agreed.

“Right? I was imagining like, a lot of people. Not thirty.” She scanned around the room, and scoped out the cute guys. “I’m not complaining though. I feel like it’ll be a lot more personal this way.” Shosh made a non-committal noise, then inhaled deeply.

“Dude. Scale. Scale!” She jetted her arm out next to Taylor’s face, and wiggled her finger at a boy that was one desk in front of her to the right.

“Hey, dude. Be quiet! And don’t point!” Taylor slapped her hand down, but followed where her finger had been point toward the supposed attractive guy. His back was to her, but she could tell that he was very attractive. He had very dark brown hair that swooped around his head, seemed pretty tall, and he sat with a certain amount of sass. “He kind of reminds me of Phil.” She whispered over her shoulder.

“Right? I can see it. I wonder who he is. He seems pret-“ All the murmuring stopped as the teacher finally stood up from behind his desk where he had been squinting at the screen for the past five minutes, and clapped his hands.

“Alright, class. Sorry about being late. There was awful traffic, and parking was the worst. Not like you guys are really complaining, right?” He swept black hair out of his face with a pale hand, and smiled crookedly at everyone. Small trickles of laughter spread across the room as he scanned the class with his yellow- green eyes, seemingly trying to make eye contact with every student. “I’m Professor Way, but yeah. Don’t call me that. Mr. Way is fine. If you want to call me Dr. Way, that’s fine as well, but it’s incorrect.” His eyes finally landed on Taylor’s, and they stayed there for two seconds as he paused in what he was saying to blindly grab a piece of chalk.

Taylor took in his features- his high cheek bones, pale skin, thin lips that were in dire need of some chapstick- and came to the conclusion that she was going to thoroughly enjoy the amount of time she was going to be spending with this professor over the course of the semester. Maybe she’ll even need to need after school tutoring. She laughed a little too herself, and she felt her cheeks growing a little hot with how ridiculous she felt, so she just gave a small smile at her professor, and turned away, bending over to rifle through her backpack for a spiral and pen.

She looked back up from her backpack to find that his back was now turned, and he was writing something on the board in slightly messy handwriting. The chalk probably didn’t help.
He turned around, and smiled, exposing his tiny, white teeth before fixing his tie, and spreading his hands wide. Extending his arms out to the side, Mr. Way looked expectantly at the class before saying one word, “Imagine.” It was scrawled messily on the board behind him in blue chalk, and he just couldn’t stop smiling. Taylor wrote on the header line of her page ‘IMAGINE’ before going over it with her pen about one hundred and fifty time, “Before I do attendance, I want you guys to take out a piece of paper, and write one sentence.” He gestured toward the board with the remaining three fingers that weren’t holding chalk, “What does it mean to you guys?”

The sound of kids riffling through their backpacks for spirals filled the air, and Taylor stared down at her blank paper. She was awful at this, and all she wanted to do was crawl back into her warm bed, and sleep forever, but she knew she had to write one sentence. Her first college assignment was to write one god damned sentence, and she couldn’t even do that.

Too early in the morning, that’s for sure.

The red-head scribbled quickly, ‘Imagining is the only thing that gets me through the day’, and reclined in her chair, figuring that he was just using this as a class discussion type thing. She picked her pen back up, and began to doodle Mr. Way, quickly sketching out a rough body and head. Making his hair extra wind- blown, she leaned back forward, hunching over her paper, making sure to get his nose perfect. She left a blank space where his mouth would be, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to do any justice to his smile, and moved on to his tie and black vest.

“Rip them out, and send them up here.” Mr. Way’s voice rang around the quiet room, and her head shot up, looking at the smiling man at the front of the room, then back at her paper. Ugh, it was only the first day of class, and she was already going to look like the freak that draws her teacher in her downtime. Shoshanna tapped her shoulder with the three papers she had collected, and leaned forward.

“Already being a creep, I see.”

“Oh, shut up.” Taylor hissed, begrudgingly tearing the paper out of her spiral, and adding it to the stack before passing it to the kid in front of her. At least it wasn’t an awful, exaggerated drawling or anything.Mr. Way walked around, and collected the papers, riffling through them all to make sure it looked like everyone had done one.

“Okay, so I’m going to call attendance so that I can get your faces down, but I’m also usually going to make you guys do an attendance sentence like this. So, without further distractions,” he glanced down at the list, and began to call out names. There were two students before he called Taylor’s name.

“Uh, here.” She raised her hand a little, and waved it slightly. He raised his eye brows, and smiled.

“And Taylor Cormack, what is your major and minor?” He full fledge grinned at her, and looked expectant.

“Uhm. I.” She cleared her throat, and fidgeted, “I’m a biology major, and a photography minor.” Mr. Way’s face lit up, and his grin spread even more.

“And art minor! My first art student this year!” He clapped his hands one more time, then looked back down at the paper, muttering quietly, “And photography. That’s awesome.” A sense of pride welled up in her chest even though she knew that he probably said that about everyone, and that there were a million photography students in the upper states alone, but she smiled sheepishly to herself, and waited for everyone to get called.

“Dan Howell.” The brown haired kid that Shoshanna and Taylor had been gawking at earlier raised his hand, and declared that he was there, an accent rolling off of the word. “Oh, awesome. Where are you from?”

“Berkshire. I’m a law major, and I’m here with my, uh. My best friend as exchange students for the year.” Taylor shot around in her chair, and stared at Shoshanna.

“Oh, my god. That’s Phil’s boyfriend, isn’t it?” Shoshanna grabbed Taylor’s hands, and looked giddy.

“I think so, I think so!” Taylor replied in a hushed voice, glancing back at the back of the boy’s head.

“Hey, are you here with Phil Lester?” Shoshanna piped up, and Taylor turned back correctly in her seat, eyes on the boy in question. Dan turned around, and looked at them, a small smile on his face, but a confused look in his eyes.

“I- Yeah. I am. Do you know him?” He cocked his head a little, and eyed them both.

“Yeah, man! I’m the one whose place he’s always at!” Dan’s face lit up, and he grinned at both of them.

“You’re Taylor and Shoshanna?” The girls nodded, and he laughed, “Well-“

“Uhm.” Mr. Way cleared his throat, and smiled in a very teacher like fashion down at the three teenagers, “I hate to interrupt anything, but I have to finish this so that I can let you guys out early.” The three apologized, and settled back into their seats to finish roll.
~
Once class was dismissed, and Taylor was packing up her stuff, Dan walked over to them, and extended his hand. “Just so that I can formally meet you guys, I’m Dan.” Taylor took his hand, and smiled up at him.

“Taylor. Nice to finally meet you.” She shoved her spiral into her backpack as Shoshanna introduced herself, and stood, taking in Dan’s full height. He was tall, like Phil, but had sharper features, and more of a little boy face. His brown eyes shown as he told Shoshanna something about Phil, and Taylor couldn’t help but smile.

They walked out of the class room, saying good bye to Mr. Way, who was riffling through the attendance papers they handed in, and he glanced up at the three of them. “Actually, Taylor. Could you hold on for two seconds?” They all stopped, and Shoshanna looked at her, corking an eye brow. Taylor shrugged, and told them to give her two seconds, and that she’d meet them outside. She walked over to his desk, and smiled.

“Yes, sir?” He handed back her paper, which had been folded in half to hide whatever was on the inside, and he smiled.

“I want to see a mouth next time, okay?” He winked, and stood, fixing his tie, and shoving an envelope full of the papers they had turned in into a black briefcase. Taylor stared blankly at him, her mouth going dry from shear embarrassment. “And I like your shirt. Good taste.”

“Oh! Thank you!” Taylor said, snapping out of the shock that Mr. Way just handed her back her paper, and brought up the little doodle. “Morrissey speaks to me.” She said, stroking his face on her shirt in a joking way. “He might as well write a biography on my life.” They both laughed, and Mr. Way shook his head.

“I remember listening to them when I was your age.” He laughed again, and ran his hands through his hair, heading toward the door to his classroom. Taylor trailed after him, listening to him talk. “But really, I would like to see a mouth next time. Everything was great. Do you draw on a regular basis?” They stopped outside of the classroom so that Mr. Way could lock the door, and she shrugged.

“Uhm, I just doodle. Nothing too special, or anything.” He turned around, and looked her straight in the eye.

“Every little piece of art is special, Taylor Cormack.” He held eye contact for a second longer, then grinned. “Have a nice day, dear.” He turned on his heal, and walked to the other end of the hallway, turning the corner, and disappearing for Taylor’s view.

She shook her head, and turned around, walking straight out of the door, and up to Shoshanna and Dan, who were still chatting away.

“Well, I’ll talk to you two later! I have to go make sure a certain someone is awake, and getting ready for class.” Dan winked, then waved, and walked away toward the other side of campus. The girls watched him for a few seconds before Shoshanna turned to her shorter friend, and hit her arm.

“So?” Taylor grimaced, and rubber her arm gingerly, glaring at her best friend.

“So what?” Shoshanna threw her arms up in the air, looking exasperated.

“What did he want? To ask you on a sexy date?”

“Oh, shut up.” Taylor began to walk away toward their dorm, ignoring the question

“What?” Shoshanna caught up, and bumped shoulders. “I felt the burning chemistry between you two. It was undeniable!” Taylor rolled her eyes, and crossed her arms, restraining from reaching out, and smacking the shit out of Shoshanna.

“No, there was no chemistry, you deluded, sex- crazed mother fucker. And he was critiquing my doodle. Of him. The doodle of him that I fucking turned in. Ugh.” She turned a little red thinking back on the situation, but shrugged.

“Well, you are correct about me being sex- crazed, but I’m not deluded. Swearzies!” Taylor just shook her head, and fell quiet, not really wanting to talk about how much of a creep she was for drawing her teacher on the first day of school. “Oh, and Frankie texted me. He wanted us to come out to a show that him and his band are playing at a local bar tonight, and I told him that we would both be there already, so. We’re going out tonight.”

“Wait, but. What? What if my other professor gives me homework? I really don’t- Shosh, it’s the first day of school.”

“Okay, and?” She flapped her hand at the shorter girl, and bopped her nose. “We’re going out, and that’s final. What other classes do you have today, anyway?”

“Let’s see,” Taylor looked up at the trees that surrounded their campus, and thought for a second, “Art history, and college mathematics. So a lot of potential homework!” Taylor sulked, and trudged on toward their dorm. They were almost back, and she could practically hear her bed calling her to come lay back down. Shoshanna slid her card through the key-card reader, and unlocked the doors to their dorm, allowing them inside. Only three flights of stairs, and she could be in that sweet, sweet bed of hers, forgetting about drawing her teacher, and fantasizing about going out that night.

Once they were actually back in their room, Shosh went straight to her closet to change out of her clothes, and into pajamas- claiming that it was a waste of the day if she didn’t spend most of it in her pj’s- and Taylor sat on her bed, fishing the folded piece of paper Mr. Way had handed her out of her back pack. She unfolded it gingerly, and looked down at the page, a grin breaking across her face.

Mr. Way had circled what she had written, and scribbled “You and me both.” next to it, then, down by her sketch of him, in red pen, he had made a small, undetailed sketch of her. He had sketched her sitting cross legged with a spiral in her lap, looking up at someone or something. He had added details like her The Smiths shirt, and the layers in her hair, but he had left out her mouth, just like she had. She smiled sheepishly, and folded it back up, reaching over to put it on top of her desk.

“What’d he write on the paper?” Shosh asked, her head poking out with her closet.

“Nothing. Just critiquing my art.” Taylor replied, using the same excuse as earlier. She knew that Shosh wouldn’t buy it, though, but she hoped that she would just drop it.

“Oh, yeah? What’d he say?”

The younger girl shrugged, and licked her lips, “Every little piece of art is special, Taylor Cormack.”

Notes

I AM SO FREAKING SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. Ran into finals, and such. You know, college. >_> Anyway, com/crit would be super awesome!
Love you guys!