Teach Her | Cillian Murphy x Reader

4. Pity

September 8

3:38 PM

- A week later.

So far I've been in Mr. Murphy's class for a total of eight days. Eight excruciating, long painful days. In these eight days I've grown slightly close to him. By that I mean we exchange glances to each other in class which always ends up with him giving me a warm smile in return, or he'll give me a gentle pat on the back with a nod of assurance as he hovers over me while he reads my work during class. I never notice him doing these things to other students, which I do find odd but I always just brush it off; he is not that type of person, that's way too unprofessional for him.

I sat in the library which was in the main building, typing away on my computer as I worked on an essay for his class. It was assigned to us four days ago, but I only started working on it now due to the workload I had received in my other classes; it was becoming overwhelming and I had started to fall behind immensely, which is why I was going to talk to Mr. Murphy later today in his office - his suggestion, not mine. I had talked to him about it earlier in class today and he told me that I should meet him there at 4:00 PM, the time he got off work which I agreed to.

Oftentimes I would glance out of the large window that sat in the library; gazing at the trees that had just begun to change to deep, dark shades of reds and oranges, the wet pavement from the constant rain, and the dark skies as I noticed it started to get dark much earlier than it did in the summer. Though this time when I glanced out of the window, I noticed something different and it was Mr. Murphy walking by on the sidewalk. He held a cigarette to his mouth, drawing it in and releasing the smoke only seconds later. He wore dark dress pants as he always did, black dress shoes, and some suit combination; usually black and white. Over top of his work attire he work a long black jacket to shield himself from the rain, but left his head untouched, which now makes sense as he's been showing up to class with damp hair.

Before I knew it, it was 4:50 PM so I began packing up my stuff and shoving it into my backpack. I threw on my light jacket and left the library, making my way to the third floor of the building where Mr. Murphy described his room to be. As I walked down the long hallways I could feel my heart rate picking up - I was indescribably nervous for some odd reason. What if he yells at me? What if he kicks me out of the course? What if gets mad? There were so many what ifs I couldn't even keep track of the ones that circled around my head.

Eventually, there I was, standing outside of his office. The door was shut and the curtains that hung against the small windows on the outside were drawn shut. I placed two gentle taps on the door and stood back, waiting impatiently for an answer. The door slowly opened up and I was met with Mr. Murphy. He was wearing the same thing he wore to class earlier that day; black dress pants, a black suit with a white undershirt and usually, his glasses, but they weren't on. They were sitting on his desk, along with his suit jacket hung over the chair leaving him in just his dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to his forearm. He looked down at me before hesitantly opening the door further, suggesting that I were to come in. He held the door open for me as I walked in and took a seat in front of his desk, dropping my backpack on the floor beside me, while he followed behind me but took a seat at his own desk with a sigh.

"So," he said, leaning back in his chair and resting his arms behind his head, "What did you need to talk about?" he asked, looking at me. I felt it again, the twist in my stomach. Every single time he looked at me I got immediately nervous, I haven't seemed to get used to it yet.