Broken, Flawed & Living (Discontinued)

Chapter Three

She paced herself around the bottom floor of the small lecture room. She clicked her device and displayed the last screen of her presentation. "Why are emotions controlling the way we make judgement on not only the world, but ourselves?" she asked in general. It wasn't a question we had to answer but to just think about.

Ms. Fieldsman taught Cognitive Psychology; the cognitive process that formed the foundation of human behaviour. We were to learn of topics such as thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, language, judgement, attention, memory and information processing and many more. My God.

She then dismissed us with her voice, letting her question sink in, and we filed out. Some stayed behind for their questions to be answered. Tori stood outside for me, for she had texted five minutes prior that she'd be by my class. She'd wanted, because of our two hour break, to dine at Astor Jack's.

Back on Ms. Fieldsman's question, I didn't know why we let our emotions cloud our judgement. It was something I wanted an answer to but would've thought how hard I'd have to fight for it. I knew my emotions clouded judgement on others and myself, but why? Questions unanswered raised the stakes for more questions of the ones unanswered still.

Psychology, so far, complicated my thought process and I hadn't planned on where it'd take me through the course of my semester. How'd I even plan on passing something based around rhetorical questions, theoretical hypothesis and complex mind games?

I shook my head and sighed, keeping my focus on Tori's little strut out the front side of the building.

"We're eating alone today. Chris and Levy took Chance out for a bro time lunch date. Leo's still in class, though," she said.

I let the fresh air whisk by, embracing the environment more as we crossed the intersection on convergence to our residence's parking lot and got in my car. I revved the engine and we buckled our seatbelts. I took a glance her way and saw the curious attention she gave me.

"By the way, how'd it go with Chance this morning?"

Well... "Good, actually." I reversed and got on the main road, following her directions straight down. The roads glistened a rough, matte kind of look and the streets were crowded with all sorts of life. A few trees here and there sprouted between buildings and overall I loved the looks of it compared to Georgia. I thought that yesterday, but to actually drive through parts I haven't seen just made it more... refreshing. "We made conversation."

At the second intersection I took a right and neared another and took a left. Right up on the curb to our right came Astor Jack's and I took a right into their parking lot. I continued again, saying, "He has a really nice build... like Arthur. When did he start working out?"

Once I parked, I turned my gaze towards her as she flicked those narrowed eyes on me. The smirk she presented left me with slight worry. "Are you crushing on my brother and my father?"

I cast my hands in the air so fast and felt shock fill my face. I mean... they did have nice, sculpted bodies, I won't lie. I admired beauty in determination among other things, nothing wrong with that, right? I just couldn't tell her how beautiful of man he turned out to be so far or else she'd suspect that I was crushing him.

I hoped not.

"No! He was skinny before! I like to admire good-looking bodies... and no, Arthur's like my dad, that's be weird," I said. It was all the truth, believe me. "Bentley, he had a whole lot of thoughts of him, however."

When her lips opened wide, her laughter rang loud in my ears. "He sure did. It freaked me out. But, no, seriously, do you like Chance?"

I rested my hands on the door and sighed. "I find him attractive," oh, yes, I did, "but that doesn't mean I want to jump his bones. Even if I did... he's not into men. Come on, now." With that reassuring little fact, there'd be a chance I wouldn't fall for him. A high chance.