As the Seasons Grey

California Dreamin'

Christine walked out of the classroom with a warm feeling embedded in her face and a good feeling in her chest. It would be some time before she could find a moment to herself there in her round of study hall in the front part of the library with the notes that she had to take and catch up on, especially when the thought of getting together with him for some lunch seemed like such a decadent dream to her. Her heart fluttered a bit when she strode up to the double front doors of the study hall itself and she expected to see him there. His voice was so warm and round, and it stayed with her even well after the fact.

It seemed a bit strange that he would ask her to lunch, of all the students in that classroom, and especially since he was the substitute teacher as well. But nevertheless, she knew that she had a little date with the sub, and yet, there was simply no way that she could pay any attention to her studies in the meantime.

She merely wished it could be one o'clock at that point, and she was eager to have all that she had to do there over the course of that hour completed at the snap of her fingers.

She glanced up at the ceiling overhead: it was a rather large, spacious room with a series of arch-shaped alcoves from the doorway back towards the bay window on the other side. She imagined herself and Alex nestled up together over there with a pair of books to read and a pile of mischief at the helm. It was all fantasy at that very moment, but she had hope that there was something behind it. That fantasy came to her for a reason, and such that she thought about writing it down in the back of her journal: too many times she would envision something happening and then when she returned to it to address it, it had escaped her mind.

She sauntered her way past the rows of bookshelves on the left side of the room, all the way towards the bay window and the last table at the very end. She passed Eric there at the card catalogue right next to the second table up from her: it was right then she took a glimpse over her shoulder at him and the long smooth inky black hair down to the middle of his back. He turned his attention towards her as she walked by him: a fleeting glimpse, but she was able to make out the shape of his nose as well as the softness of his features.

"Hey, Mr. Crow—" she overheard him say in a hushed voice, even though there weren't a lot of people in there with them.

Christine continued to the table, and she rested her bag down on the surface before her. Her heart fluttered once again as he burst into her mind yet again. She gazed up at the clock on the wall over the doorway: ten o'clock in the morning. But then again, there was all the time she could ever find for herself for the time being. Not to waste any moment whatsoever, she took her binder out of hiding and opened the loose-leaf pages to the one spot with her Cornell notes for history.

Her teacher Mr. Crow happened to stand right there before her in conversation with Eric about something, and she knew that she would have to hand in those notes for the few points of extra credit that she could vouch for during the one class that she struggled with. He was a tall wiry man with a sensible haircut and little half-moon glasses, and yet, he lacked the looseness that Alex had. He was the kind of man who would surprise everyone with mentions of older music, and to the point that Christine wondered if he did in fact have his fingers in the world of music like Alex.

She held her pencil in hand and scanned the page before her for anything to tip off her train of thought from the last class period.

It was much like all those days back in high school where she took those exact notes for her old history class, and she often wrote in a keyword at the last bullet point before the class period was finished so she could remember where she had left off when she picked them up again to study for the next session, but this time around, she gazed at the word there at the bottom of the page, and she wished that she had had a little more time during that last period. Nothing more than a scribble there on the smooth blue line at the base of the paper.