Through His Eyes

Through His Eyes [26]

"Did you have a question, Ms. Myers?" he asked, daring her to say something.

"No, sir," she mumbled, averting her gaze from the middle aged man's.

The assignment was one of the first things Mr. Martin had discussed in class and now that Rhea thought about it, it was also written on top of the class syllabus with bold letters. However, anything related to Chemistry was too closely linked to Caleb in her mind, so she'd chosen to block it altogether. Big mistake. Apparently Caleb wasn't paying any more attention in class than she did, because when she turned to face him, deliberately making eye contact with him for the first time in a long time, she saw that he looked just as panicked as she felt. It was the ultimate assignment that everyone was supposed to complete with their lab partners and to complete it by Wednesday, they'd have to put in hours and hours of work.

She'd have to pull the brakes on the cold shoulder for a couple of hours and the notion of having to be near him with her defenses down made her apprehensive.

When the bell rang and the class let out, she schooled her features into the expressionless stone-face she used on him these days whenever they had to interact and turned to Caleb.

"I'm guessing you forgot about the assignment too?"

"Yeah." He rubbed the back of his neck, looking guilty.

Having expected his answer, she let out a sigh. "So, what do we do?"

"We could do our parts separately and put it together afterwards if you want..." She could tell he was saying that for her benefit.

"No, that would take ages. Our best bet is if we do it together."

"I just thought—"

"Yeah, you thought right, I'd rather not be around you but I have no choice and it's partly my fault so I'll suck it up for a couple hours."

"Alright, fine. Where should we do it?"

She thought about his question for a little while. "Do you still look after Caroline after school?"

"Yeah, but that's fine. We'll get a sitter for a couple hours, I mean I don't remember when the last time we did that was but this is sort of an emergency and—"

"Or we could just do the assignment at your house," she said, cutting him off midsentence. She wasn't sure if this was her brightest idea but despite being upset with him, she told herself it was the right thing to do.

"You don't mind?" he asked, caution clear in his voice.

She shrugged, doubting the truth in her statement as she said, "It doesn't really make a difference to me."

"Okay. When?"

"Is it okay if I come over around four? I need to go home to get my laptop and stuff."

"Yeah, that's okay," he answered. The atmosphere was still tense between them and she couldn't begin to imagine how she'd survive hours with him at his house of all places.

"Good. I'll see you then." With that, she left without waiting for a response.

Back in Willa's car, she spent the entirety of the ride home complaining to Willa about how she really didn't want to spend time with Caleb and her friend appeased her even though they both knew the truth. The truth was, a treacherous part of her was going crazy with excitement over this excuse to be around Caleb after a long time.

When she made her way inside the house the first thing she did was to go looking for her parents. She found her mom sitting on the living room couch with a cup of tea in her hands, going through what she assumed to be work related papers.